Experts say we need to eat 30 plants a week. This is how I fared

A 2018 study found people who ate a variety of plant foods, like fruits, vegetables and whole grains, had better gut health – so I gave it a go

That we’re supposed to be eating our vegetables is a piece of health wisdom so universally acknowledged that most of the time, we barely think about it. Since 1991, the dominant US public health message on the subject has been to “eat your five a day”, which means eat either five fruits and vegetables, or five servings of fruits and vegetables – start asking the people around you, and I think you’ll find nobody really knows.

The call for “five a day” (that’s cup-size servings, by the way) hasn’t quite panned out; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that only one in 10 American adults are fulfilling their quota. Perhaps a new, more elaborate measure will help? In 2018, the British and American Gut Project, run by the University of California San Diego in the US, and Dr Tim Spector of King’s College London in the UK, offered a new message: instead of “eat five a day”, they started saying “eat 30 plants a week.”

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