A third of the way to thirty

Rice gets cooked A LOT in my household, whether it’s in the form of kitchari (basmati rice), jollof (long grain), ‘party rice’ or just plain. We all like it, and it’s a great crowd-pleaser (even the baby likes it blended). My only difficulty is the differing levels of spice we all like, but I’m sure that’ll even out once the children get older.

We’ve all heard that we should eat 5 fruit and/or vegetables a day to stay healthy, but more recently, this advice has changed somewhat. It ignores the fact that we have around 40 trillion microbes in our gut, all of which require different plant foods to flourish and therefore keep us healthy and well. Different strains of bacteria need different plant foods in order to carry out their different jobs. Therefore, diversity in the plant foods we consume is key. That’s why it’s more common now to hear doctors, dieticians, nutritionists and indeed Ayurveda practitioners talking about eating at least 30 different types of plant food every week.

The vegetables and fruit we consume, as well as legumes (all of the different bean varieties, chickpeas etc), nuts and seeds (pumpkin, chia, sunflower, walnuts, hemp, flax etc), wholegrains (oats, quinoa, wholegrain bread, barley etc) and herbs and spices all count towards our thirty a week.

So, rather than eating thirty apples in a week, it’s best to have one, and then think about the 29 things you’re going to eat next! That task could be quite daunting, especially when so many of us buy the same fruit and veggies every week, make the same 5 or 6 meals on rotation, and have very regular habits in terms of breakfast foods, lunches and snacks during a normal working week. It’s been argued that online grocery shopping has further narrowed many of our choices, offering to fill our virtual baskets with our ‘favourite’ items without us having to think about it too much.

One way to make sure you’re feeding your gut and all of its bacteria the varied diet it needs in order to thrive is by cooking a rice, quinoa or other grain dish once a week which contains at least ten different plant-based foods. It’s not as difficult as it seems, I promise!

For this rice dish, I blended onions, garlic, tomatoes, carrots and a little kale (that’s 5 vegetables already!). After sauteeing, I added turmeric, black pepper, paprika, thyme and a little parsley (that’s 5 herbs taking our total to 10 already!). Once I’d washed the rice and added it in, plus the sweetcorn (11), I poured in some coconut milk (12!), and a little water and left it to simmer. Using brown rice would take the total to thirteen, but in this case I didn’t (predominantly because it’s not a crowd-pleaser in my household at the moment, and also it can be quite difficult for some people to digest).

So, get a bit creative with your sauces, and you’ll manage the thirty in 3 meals! Now, I haven’t gone into food combining and other Ayurveda ‘rules’ here as for family cooking it can be difficult to cater for everyone. However, as long as the meal is made with love and the ingredients are cooked well (making them easy to digest), surpassing thirty is a fun little goal to have in mind, in my opinion!