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Add more greens and grains to your diet in 2020
Are you dieting and detoxing this month to compensate for that festive blowout? After gut-rending quantities of booze, mince pies and Quality Street, it’s easy to be lured into rapid weight-loss plans and juice cleanses that promise to “flush out toxins” and “reset your health”. But experts are urging us to rethink this annual drive to diet.
The new year can be a very good time to make positive changes to your approach to food, of course. “But it’s also a time when ‘Big Wellness’ tries to cash in on our insecurities with weightloss plans and detox regimens promoting the idea that being thinner is achievable in the long term with a little effort and the right ‘program,’ ” says registered dietitian Rosie Saunt, co-author of myth-busting nutrition book Is Butter a Carb? (Piatkus, £14.99).
The unfortunate truth is that diets don’t work long-term. For a range of complex reasons, 80 to 95 per cent of people regain most of their weight within five years, Saunt says, and many end up heavier than they were before. For lots of us, new-year diets are particularly hard to stick to because our natural impulse is to eat more, not less, on long dark winter days. And after the diet’s finished – or when we decide to give up – we tend to binge, resulting in a yo-yo dieting cycle that can impair our relationship with food and even trigger eating disorders.
So-called detox regimes – juicing, herbal teas, pricey supplements and the like that promise nutrition and weight-loss miracles – are a waste of time and money, says Dr Laura Wyness, a registered nutritionist. “There’s no need to do a detox diet, as your body has an inbuilt detoxification system that works every day, 24/7,” she says. “The best way to support your liver and kidneys, which do most of the detoxing, is to eat a healthy and balanced diet. Doing a juice cleanse or drinking a ‘detox’ drink is unlikely to benefit.”
It’s much more effective, she says, to make small changes to your approach to food and cooking, which will make you feel better, more energised and happier about yourself well into 2020 and beyond.
GO BIG ON GREENS
It’s no quick fix, but one of the most effective resolutions is to eat more fruit and vegetables: numerous studies show a link between increased intake, reduced risk of disease and better health. Five portions a day is recommended and 10 is ideal, but don’t fixate on numbers. “Just think more is better,” Saunt says.
Not so simple to fit in all that veg, you say? In their book, Saunt and co-author Helen West offer tips on how to make it easier to consume more of the good stuff. For example, if sitting down to a bowl of greens doesn’t fill you with joy, finely shred and fold them into stew, pasta, grains, risotto – or whatever’s in your cooking pot. Another idea is to swap half the meat in a dish with beans or legumes – they count towards your five-a-day and are also an excellent source of fibre.
Convenience is key to eating more fruit and veg, so rediscover your supermarket freezer aisle and stock up on frozen produce. Generally, it’s at least
as nutritious as fresh, sometimes more so, and there’s a wide range available these days beyond frozen peas and carrots. Stock up on diced sweet potatoes, celeriac, chestnuts and wild mushrooms to add to risotto, gratins and stews. Or try some oven-ready mixed Asian and Mediterranean veg as a simple side to fish. Batch-cooking fruit, vegetables and pulses also makes it easy to up your intake, as you can easily incorporate them into lots of different meals throughout the week – such as the recipes shared here.
“Having some pre-chopped vegetables in the fridge, or other healthy snacks to reach for when you’re feeling hungry can also help,” Dr Wyness says. She advises leaving the edible skin on fruit and veg after washing. “When you peel apples or potatoes, you can lose around half of the fibre, as well as many of the beneficial antioxidants that are often found just underneath the skin.”
BOOST YOUR BAKING
As a nation, we need to reduce our intake of added or “free” sugar, including so-called unrefined and natural options like honey and syrups (which are just as unhealthy as the white stuff). But you can have your cake and eat it too – just tweak your recipes.
Reducing the sugar in a cake recipe by one quarter to one third has virtually no effect on the overall result. If you want to, you can compensate by adding naturally sweet spices such as cinnamon and mixed spice, or vanilla – one or two teaspoons should do it. Or, add 100g or so of grated parsnips, courgettes, beetroot or sweet potato to the batter. This yields a deliciously moist cake crumb that’s gently sweet and doesn’t taste overtly of veg.
Rethink the flour you use. White flour has little going for it in terms of nutrition or flavour, so swap it with wholegrain versions like spelt or rye, or more unusual kinds, like chickpea. If you’re worried about your bakes turning out too dense, go 50:50 white flour to wholegrain. You can also smuggle nuts and seeds, which we all need to eat more of, into your diet via baking. Sprinkle a handful (whole, chopped or blitzed until fine) into cake batter, cookie dough and pastry to add texture, flavour and nutrient-rich oils. (Be sure to include flax seeds in the mix, as they’re one of the richest plant sources of essential omega-3 fats.)
DON’T FORGET FIBRE
Striving to eat more fibre is another resolution worth making, as few of us consume the recommended 30g per day. A handful of nuts can contain around 3g of fibre; two slices of wholemeal toast and baked beans around 11.5g, while 75g of wholewheat spaghetti delivers around 8g. Wholegrains are a great source and research shows they can help you maintain a healthy body weight and reduce the risk of many common diseases.
Try switching to wholemeal bread and/or pasta at least some of the time and opt for fibre-rich snacks. “Homemade popcorn, oatcakes or roasted chickpeas are great ways to increase our intake of fibre, as well as unsalted nuts and seeds,” Wyness suggests. As with vegetables, keep a big batch of cooked wholegrains in a sealed container in the fridge – or keep ready-to-eat versions in pouches and tins in the store cupboard. Brown, red, black and wild rice, buckwheat, quinoa, maize, wheat, rye, buckwheat and “ancient” grains like kamut and freekeh are all tasty wholegrain options. Scatter these liberally in cold and warm salads, and add to soups and stews, frittatas, vegetable patties and pancake batter.
GOOD GUT HEALTH
Evidence continues to grow that having a wide range of gut bacteria is good for your mental and physical health.
So, as well as eating a fibre-rich diet, reach for fermented foods like kimchi, sauerkraut, miso, live natural yogurt (unflavoured) and kefir, as they’re packed with gut-healthy microorganisms. You could even make it a goal to learn how to make some of these products at home from scratch.
Prebiotics are foods that feed these good bacteria so they can multiply, so it makes sense to consume more of these, too. Nuts, seeds, dark chocolate, red wine, olive oil and vegetables like leeks, onions, garlic and artichokes contain chemicals that microbes love, according to genetic epidemiologist Prof Tim Spector in his book The Diet Myth (W&N, £8.99).
Essentially, eating as varied a diet as possible has enormous health benefits. “A good nutritional aim for 2020 would be to include at least 30 different plant foods in a week,” Wyness says. “These could include fruits, vegetables, grains, pulses, nuts, seeds and herbs.”
FOCUS ON FATS
Saturated fats aren’t the dietary devils they were once considered to be but replacing some of them with healthier polyunsaturated fats is a good way to give your diet a healthy boost. Saunt suggests swapping foods that contain lots of saturated fat like processed meats, pastries and fried things, for those rich in unsaturated fat including olive oil, avocados, nuts and oily fish. “Aim to eat a portion of omega-3-rich oily fish once per week, for example a fillet of salmon or tinned sardines,” she says. “If you don’t eat fish you can get omega-3 from plant sources such as nuts, seeds and green leafy vegetables.”
‘Aim to eat a portion of omega-3rich oily fish once per week, for example a fillet of salmon’
If you’re one of the many who can’t abide the taste of oily fish, smuggle it into meals alongside other ingredients you love. For example, add salmon to fish pie with white fish, combine with mashed potato to make fishcakes, and fold into pesto for pasta sauce. Or stir harissa paste into couscous and add flaked smoked mackerel or haddock, along with a handful of soft herbs and a squeeze of lemon juice.
Saunt says it’s important to remember there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to healthy eating. “Factors such as our genes, social background and environment play a major role in determining how healthy we are,” she says. Importantly, you should not think about your health purely in terms of how much you weigh. Perhaps saying no to extreme diets and detox regimes could be your best health resolution for 2020.