ZOE, nutrition and a new year…

[axel_knutt]

Following the advice re number of different plants is nigh on impossible when supermarkets don't sell them in the quantities you need.

I think plants is easier than you think. As an example, I had over 20 just today...

Breakfast - weatabix, sprinkled with a mixture of 4 different seeds (flax,chia, sunflowe,pumpkin) and some mixed nuts (Brazil, almond, hazelnut)
Lunch - humous (chickpea) and coleslaw (red&white onion, cabbage) on toast.
Dinner - monkfish with caponate (toms, aubergine, celery, red onion, olive, capers), steamed broccoli, warmed mixed bean salad in vinaigrette (4 different beans).
Everything available in my nearest emporium...

There are 36 different fruit & veg in my diet, or 60 if you're allowed to include dried herbs and spices, but it's not possible to include them all every week, and the quantities are also distributed very unevenly:

.

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This email I sent to Tesco a couple of years ago explains the problem:

I am writing in relation to Tesco’s policy of pre-packing fresh fruit and veg, and the difficulty in buying suitable quantities that this creates for those of us who live alone. The matter has been getting noticeably worse recently, so I have just checked my local branch (Braintree Market Place), and found that over 86% of the shelf space at the fruit & veg counter is pre-packed produce, and only 14% sold loose (241 crate spaces to 39).

I appreciate that this may be a policy prompted by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s campaign to reduce the waste arising from customers rejecting ‘ugly veg’, but you are forcing customers to buy food in quantities that they can’t necessarily eat before it goes off. Since WRAP calculate that 70% of food waste already occurs in the home, compared with 2% in the supermarkets, in seeking to alleviate a minor problem, I think you’re exacerbating the biggest one.

In addition to the waste aspect, Professor Tim Spector has recently been espousing the health benefit of consuming 30 varieties of fruit and veg each week. Assuming the recommended five 80g portions a day, eating 30 varieties each week would entail buying just 93g of each. This would be quite a tall order even with loose produce, and is totally out of the question with the majority of produce pre-packed.

Regards,

I get an average of 650g a day of F&V, and today it'll be getting on for 1kg because I'm having roast veg for dinner, but it won't be as varied as I and Tim Spector would like, because you can't buy it in practical quantities. (Unless you're feeding a family of four, perhaps.)

[Pendodave]

Good effort Mr. Nutt!
I'm also impressed that you took Mr Tesco to task. While I have some sympathy with your dilemma, you surely have the opportunity to either freeze the raw ingredients into suitable portions or batch cook (and then freeze) recipes which use the over generous quantities?

[axel_knutt]

I already do batch cook & freeze, but there's a lot of stuff that won't freeze well. I wouldn't be eating roast veg again tonight only 5 days after the last time, but I need to use up the remaining aubergine and courgette that can't be bought in smaller quantities. I tried freezing aubergine once, and the result was almost liquid by the time it was thawed out again. I invented fried onion and courgette sandwiches (very nice with a sprinkle of harissa) to use up leftover courgettes, because they're never the size you need when you need them.

I think that when 86% of the produce on sale is in quantities that exacerbate waste, there's something wrong. Unless waste is good for business, of course.

[atoz]

I don't do Zoe but since a recent HBa1c test showed blood sugar 1 point above normal range I've cut a lot of sugar and refined/processed carbs from my diet (no marmalade/white bread/puddings/cake/biscuits/fruit yogurts any more). It remains to be seen if my test result improves but my weight is down nearly a stone from about a year ago.

In the previous 2 years I had picked up 2 mild COVID infections. I learnt from a Pubmed search that sometimes a previous COVID infection can raise blood sugar levels but I'm not a medical person so am not qualified to judge. My BMI is in the optimal range, and blood pressure also.

[MelW]

This Zoe diet is pretty much a nutrient deficient vegetarian diet principally starch, carbs and sugar of veg, grains and fruits plus all the phytates and omega-6 contained in nuts and seeds which causes a lot inflammation. Eating a plant heavy diet caused inflammation and oxalate dumping which manifests itself as nasty skin rashes. Whilst we never followed this Zoe diet we were still sucked into the veggie propaganda eat plants and veggies avoid eating meat. It's been 4-5 years since we gave that way of eating up for a Ketogenic meat based diet and the last 18 months 2 years we have eaten a full on Carnivore diet. All inflammation and joint issues have gone. Excellent skin now. So smooth and supple. We have never felt healthier or stronger than we do now. We are in our mid 60s, but both feel like we are are back in our twenties. Lean and strong with lots and lots of energy and crystal clear thinking. We can cycle further and for longer as our basic fitness is so much better now. Reversed pre-diabetes although we didn't consider ourselves over weight it must have been all the starch in plants and sugar in fruit that we were eating that caused us to become insulin resistant. This was reversed quite quickly on Keto with intermittent fasting and eating OMAD. We still eat OMAD on the carnivore diet but don't fast so often now but we don't get hungry as meat beef lamb and eggs and sardines are so satiating unlike plants, grains, starch, carbs and sugar you just want to eat more and more of them to try to feel full, but you never can.
Our blood results are all well within range and because we eat a carnivore diet we don't get blood sugar and indeed insulin spikes. Our blood sugar is pretty constant. All our vitamins levels most importantly the B vitamins B12 from meat are all excellent unlike before eating a plant heavy low meat diet. Life is good.

[pjclinch]

It's good that you're happy and healthy, but the idea that a veg diet is inherently problematic doesn't really add up, with millions of healthy vegetarians as examples.

"Does/doesn't work for me" for a diet isn't proof that it does/doesn't work for anyone. You'll find folks that your diet doesn't work for if you look, just as you'll find healthy, active vegetarians if you look.

Pete.

[MelW]

It's good that you're happy and healthy, but the idea that a veg diet is inherently problematic doesn't really add up, with millions of healthy vegetarians as examples.

"Does/doesn't work for me" for a diet isn't proof that it does/doesn't work for anyone. You'll find folks that your diet doesn't work for if you look, just as you'll find healthy, active vegetarians if you look.

Pete.

LoL. We used to be like you. Getting sicker and sicker eating vegetables and plants. We were just in denial thinking we were being righteous, swallowing all the propaganda that we shouldn't eat animals. The reality was that it was ruining our health. You cannot get away from the fact that we evolved to eat meat, that meat is nutrient dense and that to deprive yourself of it just to appease a cult that has very little scientific basis is bonkers. A high carb starch and sugar diet is bad for you. Quite why so many cyclists seem to have been sucked into this is beyond us. I just wish we had not been as well and realised it earlier. But as we say all good now. You continue to eat what you are eating and we shall continue to eat what we do and feel good. It's called freedom of choice. Our aches and pains are gone. Neither of us are on medication any longer. We haven't needed to see our doctors in several years. They only prescribe pills anyway.

[pjclinch]

LoL. We used to be like you. Getting sicker and sicker
eating vegetables and plants.

But I'm not getting "sicker and sicker", so that doesn't really work.

You cannot get away from the fact that we evolved to eat meat, that meat is nutrient dense and that to deprive yourself of it just to appease a cult that has very little scientific basis is bonkers.

We evolved to eat all sorts of things, we're omnivores.

The stuff about bonkers cults sounds... well, a bit bonkers and cultish TBH. Millions of vegetarians, quite possibly up to billions, are largely vegetarian because they don't have much meat available, but many manage to be healthy in any case.

A high carb starch and sugar diet is bad for you.

There is nothing about a plant based diet that requires unhealthy quantities of either sugar or starch, but we have evolved as omnivores to take on starchy food and (unrefined) sugary foods as part of our diet where it is available.

Our aches and pains are gone. Neither of us are on medication any longer. We haven't needed to see our doctors in several years. They only prescribe pills anyway.

And that's great, yet I have spent a lifetime (58 years so far) only seeing the doctor every few years and generally having the sort of health that you appear to think is impossible. I've never been on long term medication, aches and pains have been musculoskeletal issues resolved by physiotherapists (do this exercise, it'll go away... I did, it did).

I was a veggie for about 15 years, it didn't have any obvious impact on my health. These days probably a majority of my meals are veggie or vegan, I eat lots of bread and lots of fruit, not because of a cult or propaganda but because I really like bread and fruit.

Clearly your diet works for you, but it's clearly possible to eat other diets and not only not fall to bits but to thrive.

Pete.

[simonineaston]

At first I had terrible trouble reaching the 30 per week, now I've reached around 40. It's taken me a couple of years to get to that number. Unfortunately I was very poor with vegetables, still are to a certain extent. However things like nuts, seeds, beans, pulses and fruit I'm perfectly fine with. Bell peppers helped me somewhat, the different colours count as 4. Spinach , which I would never eat, now gets 'hidden' in a curry. I'm positively addicted to my snack of 5 different nuts, high cocoa chocolate followed by coffee, what a combination!
It can all be had from virtually any supermarket. Just try to stay away from processed foods with the additives and read the labels carefully. I'm not entirely free from them but I must have reduced my consumption of them by 95%.

Interesting. I've been keeping a food diary some years and at first was shocked by the difference between what I thought I was eating and reality. I agree with how useful nuts - and dried fruits - are for snacking.
Latterly I've begun to work at two very different food specialists, one concerned with growing veg., the other redistributing donated food. I'm seeing things from an entirely different perspective now...

[MelW]

LoL. We used to be like you. Getting sicker and sicker
eating vegetables and plants.

But I'm not getting "sicker and sicker", so that doesn't really work.

You cannot get away from the fact that we evolved to eat meat, that meat is nutrient dense and that to deprive yourself of it just to appease a cult that has very little scientific basis is bonkers.

We evolved to eat all sorts of things, we're omnivores.

The stuff about bonkers cults sounds... well, a bit bonkers and cultish TBH. Millions of vegetarians, quite possibly up to billions, are largely vegetarian because they don't have much meat available, but many manage to be healthy in any case.

A high carb starch and sugar diet is bad for you.

There is nothing about a plant based diet that requires unhealthy quantities of either sugar or starch, but we have evolved as omnivores to take on starchy food and (unrefined) sugary foods as part of our diet where it is available.

Our aches and pains are gone. Neither of us are on medication any longer. We haven't needed to see our doctors in several years. They only prescribe pills anyway.

And that's great, yet I have spent a lifetime (58 years so far) only seeing the doctor every few years and generally having the sort of health that you appear to think is impossible. I've never been on long term medication, aches and pains have been musculoskeletal issues resolved by physiotherapists (do this exercise, it'll go away... I did, it did).

I was a veggie for about 15 years, it didn't have any obvious impact on my health. These days probably a majority of my meals are veggie or vegan, I eat lots of bread and lots of fruit, not because of a cult or propaganda but because I really like bread and fruit.

Clearly your diet works for you, but it's clearly possible to eat other diets and not only not fall to bits but to thrive.

Pete.

You contradict yourself so much. So many generalisations on health whether about yourself or the claims you make about the wider world population which are so subjective. What do you think plants and veg and fruit are composed of? I'll help you. Starch, sugar and fibre. What happens to starch and carbs when it is metabolised? It's broken down to sugar which causes what to happen? What is bread and fruit? You say you eat a lot of these. Starch and sugar. Lots of sugar, more sugar. More than you should ever eat. Sugar is toxic. So what happens to your blood and hormones when you eat a lot of starch and sugar? More importantly what happens to your blood vessels when you eat a diet high in starch and sugar? I think you really need to properly understand what you are eating and the affect it is having on your body. Do you eat any fat or protein? How do you combat sarcopenia? How can you maintain muscle mass eating a diet of starch carbs and sugar? You must be pre-diabetic.

I was a veggie for 14 years. It ruined my health and my husband's health suffered even more. Veganism is indeed a cult. If you really want to ruin your health, well being and life expectancy then eat a vegan diet.

[pjclinch]

You contradict yourself so much.

No, I simply report that my health is good and that my diet is quite unlike yours: both are true. That my good health confounds your expectations is not me contradicting myself.

So many generalisations on health whether about yourself or the claims you make about the wider world population which are so subjective.

Those are examples of real people that confound your expectations. All it takes to show that a veggie diet can be healthy is a decent sample of people eating veggie diets that are generally healthy.

What do you think plants and veg and fruit are composed of? I'll help you. Starch, sugar and fibre. What happens to starch and carbs when it is metabolised? It's broken down to sugar which causes what to happen? What is bread and fruit? You say you eat a lot of these. Starch and sugar. Lots of sugar, more sugar. More than you should ever eat. Sugar is toxic. So what happens to your blood and hormones when you eat a lot of starch and sugar? More importantly what happens to your blood vessels when you eat a diet high in starch and sugar? I think you really need to properly understand what you are eating and the affect it is having on your body. Do you eat any fat or protein? How do you combat sarcopenia? How can you maintain muscle mass eating a diet of starch carbs and sugar? You must be pre-diabetic.

Sorry, but this is daft and contains huge numbers of generalisations and unfounded suppositions about my health and diet and the biochemistry of plants.
Sugar is not toxic. Too much sugar, particularly refined sugar, is a bad idea but just as we've evolved to eat meat we evolved to eat fruit and starch and our digestive systems are well equipped to process it and take advantage of the sugar and starch in it.
What happens to my blood vessels? They seem to work very well, since I seem to have good circulation, do lots of aerobic exercise and donate blood regularly (on to plasma once a month now, nearly at my hundredth donation). How do I combat sarcopenia? a balanced, varied diet and strength exercise. How do I maintain muscle mass? Whatever it is it seems to work or I wouldn't be as fit and active as I demonstrably am.

I eat plenty of fat and protein. Protein is easy to come by from vegetables as long as you eat suitable combinations. You can't get all the amino acids your need to make proteins from any single vegetable but a balanced mix gives you plenty. I also eat lots of cheese and yoghurt. That I eat lots of bread and fruit doesn't mean I eat nothing but bread and fruit! As for "you must be pre-diabetic", that's one hell of a diagnosis to make from a couple of posts on an internet forum. It rather suggests that you have too much confidence in the knowledge you have.

I was a veggie for 14 years. It ruined my health and my husband's health suffered even more. Veganism is indeed a cult. If you really want to ruin your health, well being and life expectancy then eat a vegan diet.

While your understanding of your personal health in relation to your personal diet seems to be working well for you, you shouldn't conflate that with understanding mine based on very limited information.

A "vegetarian diet" tells you very little besides it doesn't contain meat or fish. Beyond that it's entirely possible to have a healthy vegatrian diet or a very unhealthy one. Whatever Meera Sodha eats is a veggie diet, nothing but coke and crisps is a veggie diet, they're not nutritionally equal.

Once again, it is entirely possible for a person to have a healthy vegetarian (including vegan) diet, even though not all vegetarian and vegan diets are healthy. That the one you partook of didn't work for you was a mismatch of the specifics of what you were eating with your particular body and what you were doing with it, and that's not the same as all vegetarian diets are unhealthy.

Veganism is indeed a cult. If you really want to ruin your health, well being and life expectancy then eat a vegan diet.

The current state of research doesn't seem to bear that out. Eat a poor vegan diet and that's bad for you, just like any other sort of poor diet. But "vegan" does not necessitate "bad".

Pete.

[atoz]

There is a lot of push towards "plant based" food. Some of it is of dubious validity, and some blatant product push. The current ads for Flora by Gordon Ramsay are a case in point. Obviously Unilever are concerned about their margarine not selling quite as well now butter doesn't have a bad reputation any more.

Then there is the case of the Eatwell Guide and it's dependence on carbohydrates. It has been criticised for it's poor evidence base. The more carbs you eat, the more sugars you eat. Not good. Demonizing saturated fat won't do people any good if they need to cut their blood sugar levels and diabetes risk.

So much "nutrition" advice is in reality big companies pushing their high sugar products. And when you look at the research on red meat some of it doesn't stack up.

We've had all this "science" before eg with eggs. One thing we know is that animal proteins are easier for our bodies to absorb and use, which given our protein requirements increase with age, becomes more critical. And veggies need to supplement. Tim Spector admitted to supplementing himself on Zoe.

Fancy a nice juicy steak, anyone?
.

[pjclinch]

There is a lot of push towards "plant based" food. Some of it is of dubious validity, and some blatant product push. The current ads for Flora by Gordon Ramsay are a case in point. Obviously Unilever are concerned about their margarine not selling quite as well now butter doesn't have a bad reputation any more.

It's a current bandwagon to some degree and that is both driven by and followed by advertising and the media in general.
There are many reasons for it, including more tangible stuff than fashion like meat production is environmentally more problematic at scale, especially as the population increases.

Then there is the case of the Eatwell Guide and it's dependence on carbohydrates. It has been criticised for it's poor evidence base. The more carbs you eat, the more sugars you eat. Not good. Demonizing saturated fat won't do people any good if they need to cut their blood sugar levels and diabetes risk.

Sugars are carbs but the converse is not always the case, e.g. insoluble fibre is a complex carb, I don't think it adds much to your sugar load. Also "more sugar" is typically bad as we tend to eat to eat too much, but it's not a given. If an apple is good for you, so quite possibly is a bigger apple with more sugar. A good indication that sugar is, of itself, not a toxin is that the US Health Secretary has just said it is

So much "nutrition" advice is in reality big companies pushing their high sugar products. And when you look at the research on red meat some of it doesn't stack up.

That probably applies to breakfast cereals but I'm not too sure it's much else. Nutrition advice these days tends to come from a mix of the media and the government, and both are arguably not very good at reading the science or communicating exactly what it says, including caveats and limitations. Part of the problem may be arguably not very good press releases surrounding the science...
Not for nothing has Been Goldacre described nutritionism as "the b----s du jour".

We've had all this "science" before eg with eggs. One thing we know is that animal proteins are easier for our bodies to absorb and use, which given our protein requirements increase with age, becomes more critical. And veggies need to supplement. Tim Spector admitted to supplementing himself on Zoe.

Fancy a nice juicy steak, anyone?

I'm good with steak, but that veggies need to be more careful to get a mix of plant protein sources isn't the same as that's difficult or they need supplements.

Protein... Now there's a great source of ridiculous advertising nonsense with companies pushing stuff. Protein always has been important, but now you can buy exactly the same product you used to buy but with PROTEIN! emblazoned on the packaging. I saw one such PROTEIN! oat bar that if you read the packaging had slightly less of the stuff than the same company's standard oat bar...

That steak you mentioned is probably packaged as "Steak (important source of PROTEIN!)".

What advice can we trust? I think there's consensus that ultra processed stuff is bad (and that would include refined sugar) and a mix of fresh stuff is probably good. None of that is intrinsic or extrinsic to a plant based diet.

Pete.

[atoz]

As I buy my steak from the market it doesn't come with marketing ****. Same with fish, offal etc.

I mentioned eggs because we now know that what was claimed about them was bad science.

Zoe is clever marketing. And tonight on TV it emerged that their Gut Shot product developed in collaboration with M and S is produced in the same factory as Yeo Valley. According to the TV programme there was no real difference when tested for ingredients. I can only judge on the TV programme but, canned beans are sold in the same way.

[MelW]

Dr Anthony Chaffee MD, carnivore doctor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHZA0ZRyrqA