How to eat in 2024: 7 essential strategies

27:09You can do that with a healthy meal, even only just having occasional meat. Because there are so many plants and legumes and related products like mushrooms that are going to give you protein. And so people just forget that this is very much a constituent of plants. And that's really why I want to just remind people that if they have a diversity of plants, they're going to be getting sufficient protein. Maybe just actually just to help us understand what a plant is. Because again, I think back to when I first heard that, it's like a plant is something I put in the garden. A plant is not something that I eat.

27:48So a plant is obviously your fruits and your vegetables, but it's also a nut. It's also a seed. it can be a herb it can be a spice it can be actually dark chocolate because actually that's derived from a fermented plant it can be I love the dark chocolate might be a plant I'm smirking here in the corner coffee is a plant coffee is a plant and so I think it's really sorry I'm going on a plant-based diet for 2024 called the chocolate diet well and you know by that nature yes wine and cider are also plant-based food wine and chocolate so most of the foods we eat are plant-based i think that's what we seem to forget in this world where we get things out of packets and uh uh it's composite so when we're saying to we want to eat people to eat more plants we mean the whole plant rather than just a small extract of it so it's the difference between having a corn on the cob or having corn flakes the corn on the cob you can see you can see exactly what it is that's in its purest form you boil it you see it there might be an intermediate one where you might have had it cooked and put in a in a can and then you've got the ultra processed version of which doesn't resemble the original one at all.

29:18There's none of the outer coating, none of the goodness, none of the fiber, none of the nutrients. See, it's still recognizable as the plant. I think that's the key. There is one actual exception here. Mushrooms are not plants, and they're not meat. They're another kingdom. But mushrooms I would definitely include in this group, so I don't want them to feel, if there are any mushroom lovers who are feeling upset. They're allowed to as well. Yeah, they're in my group. And I think our studies so far have shown that around 30 different types of plant a week is your optimum for gut health. I think we're going to be revising that number soon, but it's a reasonable, something to bear in mind as a target.

29:59And I think a lot of people who've listened to me before on this and Zoe have found that a useful target to get to, to try and not only eat more fiber and protein, but also get all the other polyphenols in these plants. Because the more different ones, the different colors, the different flavors, the different levels of bitterness, you're getting more of these chemicals. There are 50 ,000 chemicals in plants. And you want a diversity of chemicals in order to help your body, both directly and indirectly, via feeding your gut microbes. And the better the menu you're giving them, the happier they are and the more chemicals they respond with.

30:42And this is why you want something that's not massively processed, so it's just down to something very simple like a white rice or a white flour. It's because you've lost so many of these chemicals that were in the original plant. So I would think about the healthiness of a plant using three key tips. One is, does it reasonably resemble the original plant? are we having enough diversity so like tim said are we getting a diversity of maybe 30 different plants and what about the quality of that plant as well because if it is heavily processed has loads of added chemicals doesn't resemble the original plant it doesn't mean it's healthy for us don't forget that frozen and canned vegetables are fantastic generally in terms of nutrients so It's not like it has to be the super expensive high end of plants.

31:32Many of them you can just get from the cheap freezer. We did a whole podcast on this about sort of being able to eat more cheaply. And interestingly, again, one of the things I've really shifted actually just in the last 18 months since that is the amount of stuff that I'm eating from tins, particularly things like beans, and also the amount of stuff that's now in the freezer, which means that suddenly you can cook with a bunch of things really fast which I'd never thought about so I've definitely found those two tips great and completely the opposite of what I thought which is how fruit frozen and canned food is bad and I think you guys have generally convinced me often it's got the best in terms of the things I've got yeah often it actually is more nutritious if it's frozen because it retains some of the vitamins that might be degraded from either air or light like vitamin C.

32:20So often it can actually be better for you. Let's move to strategy number four, reduce ultra processed foods. So can we just start with what is an ultra processed food and why is it bad for us? There's no uniform definition of an ultra processed food. The simplest one is that it comes in a package and the back of the label includes ingredients you wouldn't find in your kitchen and don't resemble anything that you would cook with. So this means that it contains bits of foods that have been extracted from real food and then combined together with glues and gums and colorants and flavorings and lots of fat and sugar to stick it together.

33:10it's then pressurized, baked, and comes out in some form that looks like food-like. So I call edible food-like substances. And I think that summarizes it pretty well. There are some grading systems which are complicated to go into, but I think the take-home message, it's in a packet. It's probably got all these health halo labels on it that we're saying it's low in fat or low in calories or it's got extra vitamins, all these nonsense claims. And why are they not, Tim? Lots of people are saying, oh, that's great. It's great. It says like high in vitamin C or high in fiber. Why would that be nonsense claims?

33:53Because any small addition that they've made to it by reformulating it doesn't hide the fact that the underlying food is likely to be harmful for you long term. And so these, we call them health halos because it's a bit like painting a turd. You don't actually, it's still a turd. And you wouldn't eat it, even if it's got a nice color on it. So this is essentially what the manufacturers are doing. That's a poop for anybody who doesn't know what Tim is referring to. So the reason that these are bad for us is because they tend to be higher in unhealthy nutrients. They tend to be higher in salt, higher in sugar, higher in unhealthy saturated fats.

34:34They tend to be lower in healthy nutrients, so lower in fiber, good quality fats, good quality proteins. They tend to be low in a lot of the really healthy chemicals that come from natural plants, so these polyphenols. They also tend to have lots of added ingredients like emulsifiers and additives that we don't fully know how they impact our body. And then importantly, they also have a food structure that has been destroyed. and by destroying the original food structure it changes how fast we eat the food so we know that we can eat our ultra processed food for example 50 % more quickly than an unprocessed 50 % more quickly and this can go on to make us eat up to 500 calories more over a day which is huge so it means we're overeating the foods as well it also changes where our body digests the food so what happens is it's digested earlier up in our gastrointestinal tract where we have less of these receptors telling us we're full.

35:34So we tend to not feel as full as quickly, again encouraging us to overeat these foods. Yeah, so it's the biggest disaster really in Western countries is the rise of ultra-processed food that's taken over since the 1970s from whole real foods. And And as we've focused on just trying to reformulate them to reduce the total amounts of fat or dial down the amount of salt or sugar, we've ignored all the other facts that Sarah's been talking about, the structure, the way that these foods are designed to make us overeat them. and if we keep eating them regularly, that just means we will overeat more of them and they're low fiber, so we're in a state of fiber deprivation continuously, but we want to eat more and more of these products.

36:28And we're now at a state where nearly 60 % on average across the U.S. and the U.K. of our meals are ultra-processed. 60 % of the food we're eating in the U.S. and the U.K. is ultra-processed. Yeah, it's huge. And it's worse in deprived areas. So that's the average. So you think what it's like for poorer families. And that explains why their life expectancy is 10 years less. There's a clear correlation between ultra processed food and longevity and all these multiple disease problems we're having. And there doesn't seem to be any discussion about ultra processed food within the food guidelines, be that in the States or really across anywhere in Western Europe?

37:15I think some countries have introduced these. These are countries that don't have the same political pressures on them to do nothing. And the US and the UK are heavily lobbied by these massive food companies that have$100 billion budgets they can spend on lobbying and making sure that the industry comes first, the idea that there's a manufacturing base that is important for each country. So they stop this happening, effectively like the cigarette companies did in delaying any legislation against them. The food companies are finding it incredibly profitable because they have long shelf lives. They can package them.

38:00It can last for two years. And each year, they're finding more innovative ways to automate the process, make it cheaper, doesn't require manual labor at all. And they are really brilliant scientists behind making these novel products, which are these edible food-like substances, whilst real food is getting more expensive. So the differential is clearer. And as many people are struggling with cost of living, they're buying more of these products, not less. And the profit margins are huge on them. So on cereals, for example, profit margins are around 30%. So they can afford to do huge advertising to children.

38:45And it's so easy to produce these products, unlike poor old farmers making pears or apples or whatever. they're not given the same sort of help that automation and industry and robotics and things can do for the food industry. So that's why we're in this mess. And it costs individual taxpayers thousands of pounds or dollars a year that we're paying for all the health costs of this junk food given to our populations. And so it does affect everybody, whether you eat it or not, you're actually paying for it. I think that's the point. I think, Jonathan, though, we can add a positive note here that, yes, we're eating far too much of these unhealthy, heavily processed foods, but actually even a small reduction can have a big impact on your health.

39:36And that's really important to remember because it's all very well us saying all of these reasons why they're so unhealthy for us, but the current food landscape is what the current food landscape is. And you go into a supermarket, and like I said, it's very difficult to actually avoid these ultra-processed foods. So what I would say to people, you don't need to totally eliminate them. You could every month try and reduce by like 10%, try and swap out a few products that are heavily processed with unprocessed foods. That's still going to have a big impact. Okay, don't go cold turkey. We don't want to ever set anyone up at Zoe to fail.

40:14And that's why it's really important to say, look, even a small reduction is going to have a big impact. we need to think about the fact of what is accessible to us. I love that message. Now, I think a lot of people will be listening to this and saying, but I don't eat any ultra-processed foods. Are they right or what might be the foods that are like hiding that they don't even realize are ultra-processed, Sarah? So there's lots of ultra-processed foods that we might not typically think are ultra-processed. So a lot of the kind of cereal bars that you get that, again, have these like health halos, say high fiber, full of oats, they're actually really heavily processed.

40:50They don't resemble anything like the original food they came from. Virtually all breakfast cereals, I'd say, wouldn't it? Yeah, and breakfast cereals. Also, many yogurts. So many of these fruit-flavored, sweetened, low-fat, low-sugar yogurts are actually also quite heavily processed. As well as most supermarket breads, biscuits, cakes, most ready meals. Again, this is one of those things that's been a relatively new discovery for me. going to like the grocery store and looking at all the yoga or the yogurt, depending on which country you're in, and realizing that basically almost every single one on something that might go on for the entire aisle is all ultra processed.

41:32And maybe you can find like one or two things that are not. It's a bit of an eye opener. So I find that this is one of those things where when you start to realize it, it really changes the way you think about the food that we're eating for ourselves, giving our children. Let's talk about strategy number five, reduce your blood sugar spikes. So Sarah, lots of people have heard this word blood sugar and blood sugar crashes, but what are they and why would you want to reduce repeated blood sugar spikes? Jonathan, when you eat carbohydrates, so this is a nutrient that's found in bread, in rice and pasta, in nearly all of the foods that we eat.

42:11You have a short-term increase in blood sugar, which we actually call blood glucose, and that reaches a peak around 15 to 30 minutes after you've eaten that food. What some people have, and we see this as anywhere between 25 to 50 % of people, also about two to four hours after they've had these carbohydrate-rich foods, have a dip in their blood sugar. So it spikes up, and then for some people it can also dip down. Yeah, I think of it a little bit like going on a roller coaster. Now, I'm scared of roller coasters, so it's not something I like. And what we know is if you have these peaks going up repeatedly, excessively, time after time throughout the day, that they can predispose us to certain chronic diseases, predispose us to type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, so heart disease, and also increase our risk of developing obesity as well.

43:02And this is because they impact the lining of our blood vessels. They impact inflammation in our body. What we also know, and we know this from our own research, and this is really interesting, that for those people that have a dip as well, so that's the dip in the roller coaster two to four hours after they've had this carbohydrate-rich meal, they actually feel a lot more hungry than those that don't have a dip. they go on to eat a lot more calories up to 300 more calories over a day than the people that don't have a dip they feel less alert and they also might feel what we you know that kind of feeling of being hangry because that you've got this low blood sugar and they might reach for that chocky bicky at 11 o 'clock and people might recognize that it's like feeling oh i've got a bit of a low here i need some sugar to get me going and i didn't ever link it to uh actually having a real blood sugar change until we yeah totally seen these results and these people who were blinded to their blood sugar we did this in the predict studies they didn't know what was going in their blood sugar and they were reporting they were feeling low energy um and hungry they were eating half an hour before the people that didn't have these dips as well as eating what they're eating sooner.

44:20And this is like this blood sugar shooting up, crashing down below and starting what was actually leading people to say like, I've just got to go and eat this. Yeah. And it's a consequence of what they ate before. So funnily enough, the first food they ate was sort of forcing them to eat the second food. It's commoner in women, interesting than men. And it obviously does depend on what they're, if they had a carby breakfast, you know, typical British breakfast of toast and marmalade or a muesli or some breakfast cereal, then get to work and then they'd have this dip. And I think many people listening will remember that and we think it's about one in three women are in that position.

44:58And the science is now telling us it's for real. It's not just a psychological thing. I'm a bit tired at work. I need to sit down and a bicky. This is physiological. and if you add up all those events over 10 or 20 years you can see why just because of this sugar dip actually you're going to be putting on a lot of weight you'll have more mood problems more energy problems etc so does this mean that people should just stop eating carbohydrates and just eat all the healthy fats you were telling us no absolutely not so what's really interesting is from our research, we also found that some people have a dip one day depending on their breakfast, but actually can change the type of breakfast they're having to not have a dip.

45:44So it doesn't mean that you're always going to have a dip after having your meal. It's about changing the type of carbohydrate that you have. So what you want to do again is focus on the quality of the carbohydrate. And what you want to do is slow down the rate at which your carbohydrate is entering your blood stream so that you don't get this sudden peak and then that sudden crash. And nature has a wonderful way of doing that by actually having fibre with most carbohydrates if you eat, yeah, unrefined carbohydrates. So you want to avoid what we call refined carbohydrates. And these are the kind of carbohydrate that you'll get from white bread, white rice, white pasta, for example.

46:25The more fibre that is in the carbohydrates, so from whole grain varieties, that's going to slow down the rate at which your stomach empties and it's going to blunt that peak. Also adding other kinds of nutrients and foods to your meal will help. So if you add fat, if you add protein as well, that again slows down the rate at which your stomach empties. So what are the, because I think often people listen to this and like, oh, I better give up all carbs. That's terrible. Could you give some more examples of like, what are healthy carbs that are not going to cause these blood sugar of spikes and I guess is still supporting some of the things that you were just talking about before about making sure you're eating all these plants when plants are basically carbohydrates aren't they?

47:07Yeah I think also you can mix up your meals as well so it's not about take again it's not about taking away your carbohydrates so what you could do is if you like I don't know like you know a chicken curry for example you could have slightly less rice more of the chicken more of the healthy the oils and more of the vegetables in that meal. Vegetables, pulses have carbohydrates in, but because they have so much fiber in them as well, and for pulses, they also have the protein, you're slowing down. You're changing a fast carbohydrate to a slow carbohydrate. And that's what we want to do. Instead of the rice, you could have quinoa or you could have lentils, which are also carbohydrates but they have a very different profile more fibre, more protein rather than white rice so I think there's many swaps I mean I have great to do with the breads but if it's basically a rye bread I'm fine so I think everyone needs to find out what suits them and experiment more and just not accept that the staple is the one they should always go for so yeah, choosing different ones adding things to it you know i always add cheese to most of my stuff but it seems to do the trick as well because i love cheese but i'm not realized not everyone will do that and also eating foods in their original structure so if you take a whole apple or a whole orange versus apple juice or orange juice that has hugely different impact on your blood sugar level so help us understand because i think a lot of people you know if anyone listens is is as i remember they'll say when I go and look up the score for my apple, it's really good.

48:48It says I can eat it sort of every day for almost everybody, I think, listening. Whereas, you know, everybody looking on their apple juice has seen that score is really bad. So it's the same thing, right? It's the apples are smashed up and turned to apple juice. How can they not have the same advice for people to eat? So you've got two things happening. Firstly, you're changing what I would call a slow food. So a food that you can only eat at a certain pace into a fast food. And so if you were to have a whole apple versus a glass of apple juice, that glass of apple juice can be drunk in half a quarter of the time that you're going to eat that apple.

49:23So you've got this sudden flux of glucose coming into your bloodstream. Also, many of the juices that you buy don't have the fiber as well from the food. And so again, not having the fiber means that your stomach empties really quickly. So again, you have this really fast surge of glucose going into your bloodstream. So you're going super fast on that roller coaster. Yeah, there's virtually no fiber in most orange juice. There's more fiber in coffee than orange juice. So I think all the good stuff has been taken away in that transition and all the cells have been broken up, etc. So exactly the structure of the food is really important.

50:01That comes back to this sort of ultra processing of foods. The more it's ground up and crunched up, it's going to have a faster effect, bigger effect on your blood sugar. but you know everyone is different when i was doing the zoe test with my wife you know she could eat a croissant and have hardly any a little flicker and whereas mine was way over the top it was really annoying and so there will be people out there you know with their partners ending up with quite different uh blood sugar profiles um which you know if they have a glucose monitor is easy to spot if you don't have one it you know you have to sort of actually think about what how your body is responding and as Sarah was talking about these dips just think about what's happening two or three hours afterwards maybe keep a logbook these kind of things to see if you can guess what your body's doing and then swap things around see you know by changing your breakfast can you change that dip which suggests you are quite sugar responsive and I think we can listen to our body our bodies are such incredible machines and I know that Tim and I about a year ago did this experiment where I made Tim have a full sugar Coke and I had a full sugar Coke.

51:12I don't typically have fizzy drinks like that, although I do eat carbohydrates. About 30 minutes after having it, I actually felt sweaty and clammy and my heart was racing a little bit. And then I had that crash as well. Now, normally I'd be too busy rushing around with my day to notice it. But at that point of time, I was just texting Tim all my metrics of my heart rate changing. but actually you can feel as well what's going on and I think this is one of the amazing things isn't it when you you do something like zoe and during the testing part as you're getting the data that then delivers the program you start to get this insight right and I know I have very bad blood sugar control that's one things that really shocked me and so the first time that you do this and you say I've just eaten for example like you know the um the breakfast I'd been eating for a decade I thought was really healthy and you see your blood sugar go up through the roof and then come down, as you say, sometimes, you know, in my case, I was also dipping.

52:04It's like, wow, I feel really bad an hour and a half later. I was just used to that. I thought that's just part of like Jonathan as a human being. I'm like, oh, that's actually really driven by what I eat. And I guess it ties back to what you said earlier, Sarah, about how by changing your, you know, someone listening to this, changing their diet could actually be feeling better in just a few months time. Yeah. And my top tip is don't try and do everything all at once, just like we said with the ultra processed food. You don't need to go cold turkey with this. if you can make one change, which is changing your breakfast or your snacks, which actually account for a huge proportion of our energy, and particularly your breakfast so that you don't set off on that roller coaster, is a really simple change that you can make by adding in fiber, by adding in protein, by adding in healthy fats.

52:50My one tip from this is I was drinking a lot of smoothies before this because I understood that that was really healthy, right? It's got all of these fruit and vegetables and plants that I was hearing you both talk about. And actually, it turned out that basically, I was just drinking a massive amount of sugar spiking my blood and not getting the same benefits because you sort of destroyed a lot of those fiber that you were talking about. So I think giving up the smoothings and just going to eating the underlying fruit, which still has just the same amount of sugar in it, completely changed what I saw happen to my blood sugar and has definitely changed the way that I feel.

53:29So I think that's quite an easy change because it's one of those many things that I think people are doing that they think is good for their health and turns out not to be, which I always find is the most frustrating way where you're like, I was doing that because I thought it was the right thing to do. Yeah. I mean, there are some smoothies that can still be healthy, but the ones that are mainly fruit-based, you'll get exactly as you described. But you can put nuts and seeds and more vegetables than sugary fruits and get some benefit. But I think it's just thinking about it in a different way.

54:02And I think that's what we're trying to get across here is a new way of thinking about food that isn't just about macronutrients and it isn't just about calories. It's what about the quality of food? What effect is that having on your body? And start people thinking about it. How is it affecting me? And yeah, either they get the new technology or have a notebook and start thinking about it. Brilliant. Strategy number six, nourish your gut microbiome with fermented foods. And this is definitely one for Tim, because we know you're really passionate about this. What are fermented foods? And why should anyone listening be eating any of them?

54:42Most people already eat lots of fermented foods. They just don't know they're called that. So these are foods that are essentially probiotic foods where they have live microbes in them, And those live microbes normally live in that food and convey a health benefit to us humans. And the one that most people know is, say, yogurt, because you mix cow's milk with three bacteria and you produce yogurt at a certain temperature. Because those bacteria multiply when that temperature drops from a high temperature down to the temperature which they love. and then it sets in the fridge and that's yogurt.

55:27In its simplest form, it only has two ingredients really, milk and microbes. And there are many others. So there's fermented milk, which goes like a super yogurt called kefir, which you have usually over a dozen microbes. And that process is drawn by kefir grains where you add to it rather than just three microbes. and that's more powerful. Then you've got things like fermented tea, kombucha, which is a colony of about 30 microbes that grows like a little blob. And this blob of community of microbes and yeast eats tea and sugar and converts it into a nice drink. Then you've got kimchi, which are basically sauerkraut cabbage, which is another one.

56:20But this is the Korean version where they add chilies and garlic and celery and various other spices. So the four Ks is the other way to remember this.

56:35Kefir, kombucha, kimchi, and kraut. And let's not forget cheese because I think everyone forgets that actually cheese is perhaps one of the original fermented foods. And they matter because multiple studies have shown that people who have regular fermented foods have less heart disease and less general other disease problems. And there's been some really detailed clinical trials now in humans showing that if you're having multiple portions of these a day, you can have a really big impact on your immune system. so what's what's going on just help us understand because you're talking about these fermented foods look you're giving your gut microbiome a great big party like tim had last night for new year's but without the hangover exactly so basically you're it's a party you're inviting real party people to come down and and add to the existing uh party that's beginning to sort of fade a bit down in your gut.

57:42Okay. So this is, you're busing in a whole load of new microbes to the party, and they're bringing champagne with them and new gifts. And this is invigorating your existing set of gut microbes. And they probably don't last there a long time. They don't stay there necessarily. They eventually pass through. But whilst they're there, they've livened that party up, and they've really stimulated the immune system. And that's what the biggest thing is, and dropped levels of inflammation. So demonstrably showing big changes in your blood tests. So this is back to this idea that the bacteria inside our gut are really important to our health, and this is a way to sort of improve what's going on with them?

58:24Yes. There's a belief that we sort of evolved the need to eat these extra microbes to enhance what was already inside our gut as a way of improving the whole health of our gut microbiome so that those microbes can really fine-tune our immune system and also help things like our mood to stop us getting depressed. And there's plenty of studies now showing that these probiotics can have an effect on our brains. And you just mentioned probiotics. So a lot of people listening will have heard of probiotics as a sort of like a pill that you could pop. Would they be better to take the probiotic instead of this fermented food?

59:06Fermented food is basically a probiotic set of microbes that live in your food rather than in a capsule in your chemist. And so they naturally live there. They can reproduce and that you know they're live because you can smell them. And they're in your cheese and your yogurt. And those ones are going to do good for you. They're the same species that people bottle up and sell to you in a more expensive way in your chemist shop. And they probably have similar effects on the body, except generally when you're having fermented foods, you're having many more of them. So you're getting, if you have a variety of them, you're probably getting over 30 or 40 different species of these microbes every day if you mix it up.

59:52And that's what the studies are showing is that you need to have these fermented foods little and often. So multiple different ones in a day. So I like to have yogurt. I like to have kefir. I like to have some kimchi. I like to have some kombucha. I think for many people listening, the fermented food feels quite alien. It's not food that they are used to growing up with. You've mentioned quite a lot of fermented foods that are like, you know, kimchi, like who's heard of this, if you weren't Korean. So it is a real shift, I think, for a lot of people. And I think what's interesting is, this is also something, Tim, that I've heard you be much more keen about now than you were five years ago.

1:00:35So it's clearly something I think that you're getting access to sort of this cutting edge of science in this conversation. I think as well, Tim, it would be nice to know some everyday products so that doesn't sound kind of uh unusual so what kind of cheeses could we have that we would consider more kind of everyday on the shelves in our fridge products well i think virtually all the cheeses that aren't ultra processed i they don't come out of a tube or they're not in a in a slice that lasts for for five years on the shelf uh not pizza cheeses but But all the other regular cheeses, normal standard cheddar, for example, you get from a supermarket, still is going to contain at least three good species of microbe.

1:01:24You're going to increase that as you get to more artisan cheeses. But even the basic cheese, the normal cream cheese you get from a supermarket, has microbes in it. That's why it goes moldy. If it never goes moldy, that's a sign that actually it never changes its flavor profile or its shape. So, you know, a cheddar, a soft French cheese, a supermarket brie, they're all good. You go up to another level if you pay a bit more and you get those artisan cheeses or you get one blue cheese because they've got extra bits of little fungi in there that increase the numbers of different microbes. And if you go to unpasteurized cheese, you get a few more.

1:02:10But I definitely don't want to give the idea you only have to eat unpasteurized raw milk cheeses, although I prefer them. Pasteurized cheese are still really a good source of these probiotics and a great source of fermented food. And we're definitely hitting time on this strategy. There is a whole podcast that we did with the father of modern fermentation. And it even inspired my wife and I to try this at home. It turns out fermenting your own like sauerkraut is incredibly easy and actually lots of fun. So I recommend checking that podcast out. We are now on the final strategy, number seven, stick to an eating window.

1:02:54So I have a window in my house. But what is an eating window? and do I have one of those? So when we talk about eating window, we talk about the period in time from when we have our first meal of the day to when we have our last meal of the day. And generally, I think we're actually having an eating window that's too long. So generally, I think lots of people are starting to eat very early in the morning. And more importantly, just keep snacking until quite late in the day. So this is like my breakfast at eight in the morning and I finish my last bit of chocolate and maybe a glass of wine at 10.

1:03:27So that's 14 hours that I've been eating. That's a 14 hour period. And what we now know is that if you can reduce your eating window, even if it's just by a little bit, that it can actually improve your health. It can improve your levels of cholesterol. It can improve your levels of blood sugar. It can improve your inflammation and it can also result in weight loss as well for some people. Now, there's lots of trials that have shown that having an eating window of, let's say, six hours has a really quite strong favorable health effects. But we now know from our own research where we did the Big If study, that actually even going down to just a 12 or a 10 hour eating window.

1:04:07So that means, for example, having your breakfast at 10 in the morning and finishing your last eating event. So your dinner or your last snack at eight in the evening, that can have significant impacts on how you feel, your mood, your energy, your hunger. It can also be associated with weight loss as well. and this is against the backdrop of not telling anyone how else to change their diet. So we know from clinical trials and our own work that if we say look just change when you have your first or your last meal of the day that unintentionally they reduce their energy intake from anywhere from two to three hundred calories and also in addition to that there's all of these other favourable health effects as well.

1:04:47So what's going on because it sounds sort of crazy right most of us are thinking food is really fuel. That's where we started. So just saying to only eat for 12 hours and not eat for 12 hours sounds totally irrelevant. Well, I think the way to think of it is the same way as we get sleep. All humans need sleep. We have a circadian rhythm. We all know after hard partying over the season, we're not feeling up to it. And so it's the same for our gut microbes and our gut. If we don't give it time to rest, if we're eating late night snacks, then it's always working. It hasn't got time to repair itself, hasn't got time to get things back in order before the breakfast is coming down in the morning.

1:05:32Oh, we've got to deal with that again. Why doesn't Jonathan give us a break? I mean, he keeps putting stuff down here. We're trying to keep up. Why can't he be like Tim? I am a famous late night dark chocolate snacker. So yes. So I think we're working out that the whole body needs a circadian rhythm, needs regularity, needs an activity time, and needs a quiet repair time. And studies have shown that if you do rest the gut microbiome by not putting food down there for 12 to 14 hours or 16 hours, you're going to get a much healthier set of gut microbes. The immune system is going to be better. the gut barrier, which we rely on to keep the bad bugs out and also really important for our immune system is much stronger in those cases.

1:06:22So that's what's going on in the gut microbes. And they're producing then sort of healthier chemicals in response and they're not, there's got less inflammation. So I think the idea is rest your gut microbes just like you would. You need sleep. don't have those late night snacks don't keep throwing things down that that tube you want to give them the time to recuperate so they're really ready to go in the morning and they can really help you and this is the same for all of the cells in our body every cell in our body has its own clock and that clock isn't designed to cope with being fed 24 hours a day and i think more and more we're eating for longer periods of time and importantly eating quite late into the evening and we know that that's probably particularly bad for us that if you eat later in the evening you actually wake up more hungry the next day we also know from our own research if you eat late in the evening it's associated with lots of unfavorable effects in our bodies such as inflammation such as high blood cholesterol such as higher weight as well everyone's different i think that was the The other thing we did in this massive survey, I think we've got some notes on this we can look at, but the Big If study showed that a third of people did this really successfully.

1:07:45So over 100 ,000 people signed up, over 34 ,000 managed to do this really successfully. But there was a difference. About a third of those people found it more beneficial to finish eating earlier in the day, had an early breakfast. like you wake up hungry in the morning said i've got to get my breakfast i can't do this without and then ended up finishing eating at about six o 'clock and two-thirds of people uh went the other way and said i'd rather not eat anything before 11 o 'clock in the morning and go later so i think it's there isn't one size fits all it is about personalization and this is a great way people can experiment at home by themselves.

1:08:28It's really interesting. It's one of the places where I think I've seen massive personalization between people, where some people find this almost transformational, and often using it as part of trying to really improve their health, along with shifting food, going to quite a narrow eating window and finding that it's great and has a huge impact. I'm someone who finds it awful to have this really narrow eating window. But it has really changed my view because I think I was definitely brought up with this idea, you must have breakfast. And I see this even with our children and sometimes Justine and I are like, oh, well, you know, it's really terrible if they leave without breakfast.

1:09:02But actually, I'm now comes to people, if they're not hungry, actually, it's fine. And I am myself now more flexible. So we've also had some very interesting conversations about, you know, sometimes doing exercise, potentially fasted, as well as having eaten breakfast. That actually just like we were told a lot of things you just have to do. And it turns out that a lot of this was not based on a lot of science. No, all the rules are going out the window, really. I mean, I think this is the really thing we, you know, every time we do another podcast, we sort of throw a few other, those rules out the window that our parents had taught us.

1:09:35And yeah, it's a fascinating time for self-experimentation. And as Sarah was saying, really trying to listen to your body. And I think this is a perfect example of how everyone's different. There isn't one recommendation for everyone other than, you know, try it. Yeah, I think it just gives us another tool in our toolbox. That's how I like to think about it. It's not going to be for everyone. But I think to recognize you don't need to do extreme time-restricted eating. Just giving your body a 12-hour rest is good enough. And we know from our own research that most people will feel better doing that and it will improve your health as well.

1:10:12and I think it's really important that people listen to their bodies like Tim said and make it work for yourself I know that I do like my glass of wine my bit of chocolate late in the evening so I know that actually for me it's better to start or have my breakfast a bit later in the day what is important to say is for people whom it doesn't really matter when they start and stop is the evidence does show actually finishing your last meal before eight o 'clock in the evening is probably the best way to do it. But again, it will differ for everyone. And just listen to what works for you. What about no wine after nine?

1:10:46Sarah, are you going to do that? I don't know if I'm going to take you up on that challenge. And this is how you know that they're all telling you the truth. Because even on the podcast, Sarah wasn't committed to something that she wasn't sure she could follow through on. I'll try no wine after nine, three nights a week. How about that? There you go. Can't say fair enough. Tim and Sarah, thank you so much. I think that was a brilliant sort of whistle-stop tour of the latest science in 2024. And I think we talked about seven strategies. The first is that food is more than fuel. So don't count calories or macronutrients.

1:11:25It doesn't work. Food is so much more complicated than that. Don't choose restriction, choose abundance, choose what you can add into your meal. Secondly, fat is not your enemy. And we talked about how actually there's these amazing things like extra virgin olive oil and nuts and avocados that you can add into your diet. Thirdly, eat more plants. And plants are a lot more things than maybe we had imagined, but you should be looking for 30 plants a week. You should be eating the rainbow because there are 50 ,000 chemicals out there and you want to get as many of them as you can for your gut microbes.

1:11:58Number four was reduce ultra processed foods. This is something that many people will not even realize that they are eating. Look at the back of the pack. If this is something that doesn't exist in your kitchen, this is probably an ultra processed food. And even a small reduction, Sarah says, can really help to improve your health. Number five, reduce your blood sugar spikes. This can have a big impact in the long term, actually on leading to things like diabetes, but also have a big impact on how you're feeling. There's a big variation amongst people. And so you can't really understand this without doing some sort of personalized test like Zoe, but there is very clear advice you can do.

1:12:35So basically you're looking for whole grain foods rather than very refined, like white rice and bread. And you're also saying that an apple is much better than an apple juice. And these things will have a big impact. Number six, Nourish your gut microbiome with fermented foods. Tim is adding fermented food into his diet every single day. Some of them are like weird sounding things like kefir and kombucha, but actually, you know, cheese and yogurt are fermented foods that we've all been familiar with and probably been eating since childhood. And then number seven, last but not least, stick to an eating window.

1:13:12There's this fascinating new science that suggests that, you know, at least for 12 hours, you should be resting your gut and that can have a real impact on your health. And that actually, if you're one of the people who finds it easy to further restrict it, that can have even more beneficial impact on your health and also potentially in terms of being able to manage your weight better. Spot on. Wonderful. Well, we will explore more of those topics throughout the podcast this year and many new things that are happening in science. So I hope that you enjoyed this. I hope that you are now recovering from New Year's Eve and the festive season.

1:13:49And we hope that you will choose to join us on this podcast throughout the year. We will. Thank you. Hope you invite us back. Indeed. We hope to be invited back. You behaved yourself, Tim. You're allowed back. Happy New Year, everyone. Happy New Year. Happy 2024. Thank you for joining me on Zoe's Science and Nutrition Today. I hope that you'll try Sarah and Tim's strategies to eat a healthier diet in 2024 so you can improve your health this year. Now, if you want to go one step further and get personalized advice and support on how you can eat the best foods for you to help you feel better now and in the years to come, then you can learn more about Zoe and get 10 % off your membership.

1:14:32Simply go to zoe.com slash podcast. As always, I'm your host, Jonathan Wolfe. Zoe's Science in Nutrition is produced by Yellow Hewings Martin, Richard Willen, and Tilly Fulford. See you next time.

1:14:52As you can imagine, hosting this podcast, running Zoe, juggling family life, it all keeps me pretty busy. So I try as best I can to stay energized and show up well in all those parts of my life by fueling my body with the right food, by exercising, and by adding a scoop of Daily 30 to my meals every day. If you haven't heard of Daily 30 yet, it's the gut supplement designed by our gut health scientists here at Zoe. It's made of over 30 high quality hand-picked plants, including seaweed, fungi, and different types of fiber. Better yet, it contains ingredients that support gut health, digestion, and energy, which is ideal for packed calendars and busy lives.

1:15:35Simply add one scoop a day to any meal for an extra boost of fiber and plant diversity. And because it tastes delicious on just about anything and adds a satisfying crunch, it quite quickly slots into your life, becoming a daily healthy habit you'll always have time for. By the way, whenever we talk about Daily 30 as a good source of fiber, we're required to say that it contains four grams of total fat per serving. Obviously, that's all amazing healthy fats from plants. so order yours today at zoe.com daily 30 thanks for listening and see you next time