Food knowhow
rethinking how you eat
Rethinking eating opens up a world of opportunity to explore fresh, vibrant fruits and vegetables in season. More than the sum of their sugar, salt, and fat...ultra-processed foods cause weight gain. Scientists want to understand why? Those who cook at home 4-5 days weekly, generally have healthier diets and relying on whole food ingredients tends to keep people leaner. Get rid of notions that healthy means "meager" or "lean" or "no-go zones." Healthy can mean exciting, adventurous, sensuous. As E. M. Forster said, “The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death.”
Why not celebrate cooking at home and its simple pleasures?
The recipes here are designed to invite eaters to venture beyond their usual boundaries. Diet as a whole should be about what is creatively possible and not feel restrictive. I’ve shared strategies to curb the amount of sodium and sugar your palate craves and to promote more fiber, more fruits and vegetables, and more whole grains in the meals you cook. Through recipes that will inspire beautiful plates, you’ll find lots of ideas to incorporate fish. As you’ll learn about in these pages, enriching each of these — identified as deficiencies in modern diets—has the potential to boost the likelihood of a long, healthy life by 2% for each goal. Here you can learn to use global spices and how modest amounts of meat, poultry, and dairy can lend richness to vegetable dishes to make satisfying plates. So, plan your shopping list and get cooking!
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Commit to Cooking at Home and Divide the Labor
Step 1: Learn to Recognize Fiber and Double Your Intake
Step 2: Forget Restrictions You Know You Can’t Keep; You Need These Two Strategies
Step 3: Take Advantage of Antioxidants in Food
Did You Know? How Wine Gets Its Groove
Step 4: Instead of "Cut This or That Out," Take A Positive Approach; Focus on Adding Good Foods
Step 5: Take Your Palate for Salt and Sugar Back to School
Step 6: Why You Should Eat Two Servings of Fish Weekly
Step 7: Nourish Your Gut Bacteria
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A Marinara for Sensitive Stomachs; Rapid Family Dinners
Why Are These Foods Off-Limits During Pregnancy? Why Mothers of Kids under 5 and Older Folks Should Take Note; Getting Smoky Flavor without Processed Meats
Commit to cooking at home and Divide the labor
Traditional gendered roles have a strong hold despite egalitarian strides in who does the work at home. Women still assume most mealtime duties. Though among the nations, Canada, France, the US, and Scandinavia, where men take on the highest shares of household work, the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in 2021 women spent nearly twice as much time as men in food preparation and cleanup. These gaps persisted whether or not both female and male spouses work full time or were raising children in the household.
In 2023, a Pew Survey demonstrated that though men participated more to get dinner made during the pandemic, the trend has drifted back toward women taking on the post-workday "second shift." They're back to planning, shopping, and cooking most meals. In fact, across the world, women prep, cook, and clean up twice as many meals as men, about nine meals a week to men’s four---- except in Italy…where there is no gender gap in the kitchen and men step up to the plate.
With the changing tenor of what it means to nourish through food- less added sugar, less salt, less meat…’mothering’ once synonymous with “made from scratch” means taking charge of nutritiously sound meals that promote wellbeing and instill positive lifelong eating habits.
Cook at home at least 5 days/week enlisting everyone’s help in meal prep. Don't do it alone just because "it's easier that way." Plan meals in advance and divide and conquer the shopping, prepping, and cleaning.
Serve one, and only one, family meal nightly. Don’t cater to restricted palates instead offering a variety of foods eaters can choose to build their meal. Stock backup nutrition-dense foods in your fridge and pantry for pickier eaters.
While tonight’s dinner is in the oven, prep each night ahead. Chop vegetables and fruit, prepare time-saving spice blends and sauces, and simmer beans and grains to refrigerate. Batch cook and freeze. Delegate, delegate, delegate to involve partners, older kids, and teens, child caretakers, too. You and the adults in the house will role model teamwork and make meal prep enjoyable.
Step 1: Learn to Recognize Fiber and Double Your Intake
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Set a daily fiber target of 20-30 grams. More likely than not you’ll need to double the amount of vegetables, whole grains, whole fruits, nuts, beans, and seeds that you usually eat to meet the recommended goal. Diets that tend to incorporate high fiber foods regularly are associated with longevity, lower cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk, and better cognitive health. As Westerners eat far less than the recommended daily fiber recommendations, focusing on adding fiber like grains, beans and lentils to meals even 3 or 4 times a week can significantly boost total fiber intake.
When carbohydrates are degraded in the gut with the help of gut bacteria and consumed together with fiber-rich foods, glucose absorption is reduced stabilizing the glycemic response. This is one reason sugars consumed in whole fruit like apples and pears is preferred and why eaters are guided to reduce added sugars. The landmark Nurse’s Health Study reported that 12-14 gm higher daily dietary fiber intake compared to fiber-poor diets was associated with significantly lower rates of cardiovascular disease and markers of inflammation. Dietary intake of fiber also seems to modulate gut flora enriching the health and diversity of bacterial species found in the gastrintestinal tract.
Compared to the GI tracts of indigenous people living in Malawi who subsist on diets rich in tuberous vegetables and other plant-rich foods, the gut bacteria of those eating a Western diet full of grocery aisle convenience foods and lacking fruit and vegetable fiber has been shown to be severely restricted. Breadth and diversity of bacterial species promotes health. When our guts are sick, we're more prone to inflammatory diseases and our immune systems are disadvantaged. Further, eating a typical Western diet promotes overexpression of gut enzymes used in pathways processing the simple sugars found in highly processed foods. The Malawi people’s guts are enriched with enzymes specialized in breaking down the starches, pectin, and vegetable fiber characteristic of their very high plant carbohydrate diet. That means our guts have become specialized to process industrialized foods while the Malawi are adept at processing their fiber-rich diets.
Diet is one way to reeducate our guts. Emerging evidence shows how highly responsive gut flora and health is to diet. Links between the gut and immunity, brain health, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, menopausal symptoms, cancer risk, and depression are becoming critical to understanding disease prevention. Most eaters get about 15 gm of fiber daily, half the recommended 25 gm for women and 38 gm for men.
To boost your intake, here are some strategies:
Plan meals around two seasonal vegetables and a whole grain first, the protein second. Rather than “We’ll have steak and potatoes, think “With sautéd red cabbage and farro, I can serve salmon.”
Get a head start on your fiber goals by “front-loading” the day at breakfast. 3/4 cup of berries, 1/2 cup steel cut oats, 1/2 avocado, 1 slice of whole rye pumpernickel, a handful of nuts, or a whole apple or orange each offer 3-4 gm toward your 25 gm goal.
Beans and lentils are an ideal pantry staple due to their long storage life, They also can be cooked and frozen for instant stews, soups, and salads on weeknights. Serve 1/2 cup black beans or lentils or whole grains like brown rice, bulgur, kasha, or barley in place of white rice.
Make a point to serve a broad array of colorful vegetables. Be sure to include dark leafy greens like Swiss chard, kale, arugula, broccoli rabe; Red, blue and purple fruits like berries, grapes, tomatoes, red cabbage, and radicchio; Yellow/orange garnet yams, clementines, and bell peppers.
Snack on pickled carrots, popcorn, or a handful of walnuts or sunflower seeds. Finish meals with a bowl of raspberries and strawberries or whole, unpeeled fruit. These will go far toward your fiber goals.
step 2: Forget Restrictions You Know You Can’t Keep; You Need These Two Strategies
Friends often tell me about their “healthy” diets. They’ll wax on how they’ve given up cheese or bread, they’ve become gluten-free, or how they avoid all sugar. The truth is that even within these seemingly noble attempts to reform their eating, they’ve simply vilified food and risk substituting others which may be highly processed.
When gravitating to foods marketed as replacements, those on restricted diets may unwittingly end up with unhealthier diets. Foods promoted as gluten-free, dairy-free and plant-based meat and cheese substitutes can have highly extracted ingredients. As is the case with plant-based “milks,” replacements can lack the nutritional value of the foods they mimic. Some gluten substitutes like rice and cassava flours are more likely to promote rapid rise in blood glucose while other gluten-free products thoughtfully add back fiber to slow glucose absorption. Even within wholly plant-based diets, there are healthier and not so healthy patterns of eating dependent on consumer purchasing patterns.
Who wins in the end? Generally folks who cook at home from predominantly minimally processed fruits, vegetables, grains, beans with moderate amounts of poultry, fish and meat score well on healthy diet indices. Vegan and pro-plant diets and Mediterranean-style eating incorporating animal products in moderation are all patterns associate with reduced risk of lifetime chronic diseases provided they are reliant on whole foods. That’s not to say there won’t be any convenience foods in your grocery cart. But, it’s worth knowing that when folks reform their reliance on packaged and processed grocery store items, they generally lose 10-15% of their body weight eating foods unrestricted and without counting calories. They tend to feel more satisfied after meals. In crossover studies, when participants are allowed to consume ultra-processed foods, they eat about 500 calories per day more than when eating an unrestricted diet made up of mostly minimally processed foods.
What does minimally processed mean? In th European NOVA Classification, Category 1 comprises minimally processed or unprocessed foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, poultry, and eggs. Category 2 includes “processed culinary ingredients,” for example, seasonings like sugar or salt. Category 3 includes canned goods, cured deli meats, store-baked bread, and cheeses. Category 4 or ultra-processed foods include packaged snacks, ready-to-heat meals and frozen foods, protein bars, cereals, baked goods, etc. These foods tend to be high in sugars and salt to make them palatable. Further, manufacturing exposes these foods through processes that include extrusion, molding, and heat processing to more industrial chemicals like equipment sanitizers. Anti-static treatments on plastic and PFAS in disposable take-out containers can also leach into foods.
Emerging evidence suggests that ultra-processed foods such as ready-to-heat meals are associated with higher risk of colorectal cancer now remarkably rising in people under age 50. Diets high in ultra-processed foods have also been linked to higher risk of eventually developing Type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
So, instead of restrictions, focus on how you source food and embrace more home cooking. Consider carefully the gains when buying convenience foods. Avoid pre-cut and packaged produce to the extent you are able. Plan meals from an abundance of fresh produce, whole grains, quality meats, poultry, fish, nuts, seeds, beans and pulses like lentils. Think about what is creatively possible. So much to work with!
Plan to cook at home at least 4-5 nights weekly. Plan meals for the week and shop once! The investment is worth it!
Shop the periphery of your supermarket limiting your time to the produce aisle, dairy aisle, and the meat, poultry, and fish cases. Don’t wander among interior aisles where displays are set to trigger your impulse buying.
Better yet, shop online for click ’n pickup options which will sheild you from impulsive purchasing and save time. Your time is better spent planning meals from your screen with recipes accessible. The AI algorithms will learn your purchasing habits, allow you to load your frequent purchases, and prompt you with less processed choices when shopping.
step 3: take advantage of antioxidants in food
“He that takes medicine and neglects diet, wastes the skills of the physician.”
-Chinese Proverb
Antioxidants have become a buzz word on packaging from energy drinks to anti-aging face creams. But, what exactly are they and where can they be found?
Stressors in the environment are all around—-extreme temperature, air pollutants, ultraviolet radiation, pesticides, and pathogens. These along with the foods we eat as we digest them can create “free radicals,” reactive compounds that can damage DNA and disrupt the healthy functioning of proteins, enzymes, and fats in our bodies. Fortunately, we are wired with a biological defense system to minimize and even repair oxidative damage. But, when pressured, our natural defense system enters a state of oxidative stress which is linked to inflammation, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and accelerated aging.
Plant species, which must bear up under the stress of drought and heat, have evolved a wealth of phyto(plant)-nutrients which act as potent antioxidants. These “free radical” fighters, known as polyphenols, are abundant in produce, whole grains, nuts, and seeds. Most kindergarteners have learned to “eat a rainbow” because these compounds give fruits and vegetables their vibrant colors. Did you know they also determine the taste and aroma of foods? That fresh scent of just-mowed grass or sweet hay comes from coumarin, a flavonoid naturally occurring in cinnamon, lavender, and licorice. On our tongue, coumarin imparts food and wine with tobacco and vanilla notes. The distinct flavor of cinnamon comes from cinnamic acid, and the unique taste of maple syrup from the phenolic lactone, sotolon.
Fruits, vegetables, olives, whole grains, seeds, pulses, legumes, tea, coffee, olive oil and red wine—-staples of the Mediterranean diet—-are foods rich in polyphenols.
Flavonoid catechins found in green tea, EGCG and ECG, have been shown to protect against a host of conditions including glucose intolerance, hypertension, and obesity. The carotenoid pigments, lutein and zeaxanthin, essential for vision and brain health can be found in the dark greens of spinach and kale, the vivid greens of asparagus and parsley, and the pale greens of honeydew, and kiwi.
Ferulic acid, an efficient antioxidant, can be sourced in wheat, oat, rye, and brown rice. It can improve glucose metabolism by reducing blood glucose and modulating insulin secretion. Tannins which give fruit, nuts, teas, wine, and vegetables their brown/red hues and bitter taste have been shown to have ant-inflammatory, anti-cancer and cardio-and neuro- protective effects.
Eating plans like the Mediterranean Diet and DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) which are high in antioxidants are linked to reduced inflammation and cardiovascular disease prevention.
How much of disease prevention is related to genetic predisposition vs. dietary intake?
One study attempted to answer this question by looking at biochemical markers for pairs of twins eating a Mediterranean style or a traditional diet. Co-twins assigned to a traditional diet had evidence of higher oxidative stress in their blood compared to their siblings who ate a fruit and vegetables frequently.
I'm over fifty. Will changing my diet have impact?
In the InCHIANTI dietary trial conducted in Italy, researchers assessed blood levels of powerful antioxidants known as carotenoids in 642 aging adults over a twenty year period. They found that those older adults who shifted toward Mediterranean-style eating had a higher intake of these and reduced risk of premature death. So, even after age 65, shifting eating habits to more fruits and vegetables promoted longevity. That should be incentive for all that it's never too late to make a change.
Here are some strategies to boost your antioxidant intake:
Avoid the “superfood” mentality. Instead, keep your focus on eating a variety of plant rich foods including fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, nuts, and seeds. Different foods offer different antioxidant compounds, so it's important to eat a variety of produce, whole grains, nuts, and seeds .
Get in the habit of serving two vegetables at meals. Include at least one dark green vegetable, especially leafy greens.
Try to eat from each color group daily; blue/purple, yellow/red, dark green, and red. Anthocyanins give berries their red, blue, magenta, and purple hues; lutein and xanthins can be found in greens; carotenoids, including lycopene, give ripe fruit their red color (tomatoes, watermelon) and the yellow /orange in cantaloupe, peaches, corn, carrots, peppers, salmon and eggs.
Venture outside your comfort zone to explore vegetables you don’t typically purchase. Look for yu choi (chinese broccoli), Napa cabbages, bok choi, collard greens, red chard, red Russian kale, hakurei turnips, watercress, arugula, frisée, cilantro, daikon, sunchokes, winter squashes, bell peppers, sun sprouts, pea greens—-to keep interest high. Many grocery stores make these varieties available.
Spices offer another avenue for increasing dietary antioxidants. Stock your pantry and make blends you can have at the ready to use as rubs on fish and poultry and to add to vegetables, soups, and stews.
Don’t get stuck in a potato or rice rut with meals. Serve butternut or delicata squashes, mashed celeriac and parsnips, quinoa, and whole grains like buckwheat (kasha), farro, bulgur, freekeh, quinoa, and barley.
did you know?how wine gets
its groove
The polyphenols in wine determine its mouthfeel, color, astringency, bitterness, and complex notes.
Grape variety, terroir, maceration with grape skin, seeds, and pulp, and barrel-aging all affect the antioxidant content of wine.
The polyphenol content of red wine can be up to !0X higher than white wine.
Anthocyanins give grapes their red color and concentrate in aged red wine. They are absent in white wine.
Like melanin protects the skin, anthocyanins in the skin, stem, seeds, and leaves protect the grapevine from sun exposure.
Resveratrol is a natural anti-fungal that grapes manufacture. Plants make flavonols, phenolic acids and stilbenes which give wine its astringency, yellow/ golden hues, and complex taste profile.
Grapes grown without pesticides Grapevines farmed using organic viticulture practices and the wine produced from organic farming tend to be higher in polyphenol content..
The toasty notes from barrel-aging come from leaching of the phenolic compound, vanillin, and tannins from barrel oak.
step 4: Instead of "Cut This or That Out," Take A Positive Approach; Focus on Adding Good Foods
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Unhealthy diets pose a greater risk to health than do unsafe sex, and alcohol, drug, and tobacco use combined. With nutrition knowledge, eating becomes intuitive making it easier to stick to good habits over the long term. Your goal should be to transition to healthier patterns of eating in a way that has staying power.
The challenge with popular diets is that they often rely on extremes.“Cut this out,” “avoid that,” and “load your plate with this superfood.” These restrictions are usually based on weak evidence skewing diets away from diversity and the full range of vitamins and micronutrients that are valuable. Trustworthy guidance for how to invest your eating choices can be found in credible, evidence-based science. A healthy diet should not be difficult to adhere to; it should invite diners to the table and compel them to explore and enjoy food.
Take a positive approach by focusing on adding more high-impact fresh produce, fish, beans, lentils, and whole grains to crowd out less healthy foods.
Those who shift to a plant-based (vegetarian or vegan) diet stand to benefit from a reduction in the chance of dying from cardiovascular disease on the order of a 24-29%. So, do non-vegetarians who introduce more plant-based foods into their diet while curbing their red meat intake stand to reap the same gains?
The answer is a resounding yes.
Though its health benefits are clear, a vegan diet, restrictive of all foods of animal origin (meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, and dairy) can be austere and difficult to sustain . A better-suited investment for many families with varied palates is to focus on adding good foods rather than on restrictions.
In a scoping review of over 20 years of collected data, a team from the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health confirmed that even slightly reducing servings of animal products lowered longterm cardiovascular risk. They analyzed the diets of 135,588 men and women from two landmark studies, the Nurse’s Health Study (NHS 1984-2012) and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (1986-2012). The results illustrate that a plant-rich diet with animal foods eaten in moderation (up to 3 servings daily of meat, eggs, and dairy) lowered risk compared to folks who typically ate only 2 servings more of animal foods each day (5-6 servings).
The study authors proposed that shifting meat-centric diets toward more fruits, grains, and vegetables improves diets holistically by adding high impact foods. Those eaters making the shift enriched their supply of micronutrients, antioxidants, good fats, and dietary fiber.
Similarly, in Spain's PREDIMED study, those who ate fruit (2-3 servings or > 210 g) and 21 gm of fiber daily had nearly a 40% lower chance of premature death. In the Nurse’s Health Study, when animal sources were limited to fish, eggs and dairy rather than meat, the risk of disease improved even further.
A word of caution, the researchers added. When choosing plant-based foods, starchy and refined grains like flour, sugary baked goods, and fries can have more negative impacts than animal products.
Based on these results, the Mediterranean Diet and DASH ( Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension), a similar eating plan, are the only diets backed by strong evidence from large databases following eaters over >20 years which support reduced lifetime risk of chronic diseases. So, focus on adding foods like whole fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans, and nuts to reap the greatest gains. These will keep you satisfied and crowd out the other stuff.
Step 5: take Your Palate for Salt and Sugar back to school
If you are used to dining out or bringing prepared foods home, it’s time to wake up your palate. Your taste buds are blunted to the true taste of food as excess salt and sugar in food can overpower its complex and layered notes.
Over 2/3 of grocery bought foods contain added sugar in some form to make them palatable. Added sugars may be lurking unexpectedly in savory foods like pizza, tomato sauce, and salad dressing. Even “healthy” foods like flavored yogurts, energy drinks, and fiber bars will harbor unnecessary sugars to keep you coming back to buy more.
When you begin to drink unsweetened water, coffee, and tea, your palate will likely become more attuned to their inherent flavors. With less masking by sweeteners, the nuanced flavor profiles or what those aficionados have been calling “terroir,’ the way the land, will come forward. For example, you may begin to notice the natural sweetness and caramel notes of Colombian and Guatemalan coffees compared to the brighter, fruity and floral notes of Ethiopian and Kenyan varieties.
The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends adult women consume less than 25 grams of added sugars per day and, for men, less than 36 grams per day. Each 12 ounce can of cola ( 39 grams of sugar) packs a full days allotment. Artificial sweeteners are typically 30-20,000 fold sweeter than table sugar per weight. They are problematic as they drive the taste threshold and desire for sweetness higher.
But, palates are highly adaptable and can grow accustomed to lower thresholds for salt and sweetness satisfaction by reducing sugar and salt over time. It was demonstrated in the 1980’s, one can gradually shift one’s salt liking. After an acclimation period of 2-3 months on a lower sodium diet, which most will at first perceive as bland and uninspiring, food that was previously salt craveable will seem far too salty.
Here are some tips:
Reduce sodium by 15% every 3 weeks over 3 months. Your family is unlikely to detect a difference as their palates are adapting to a lower salt threshold of palatability.
Don’t rely on recipes for salt amounts. Salt preference is highly subjective and varies widely. Lightly salt fish, poultry, and meat just before cooking. The salt draws out moisture to help with crisping and caramelization for good flavor during cooking. Recipes here use low amounts of salt as a guide, but season to taste using only what you need.
Don’t reflexively add salt when cooking pasta, rice, grains and beans Marinara and richly flavored pasta sauces will likely contain salt and be satisfying.
Build a spice pantry. Adding bold flavors like cumin, Sichuan pepper, chili, coriander, garlic, and ginger will add depth of flavor to showcase food better than salt. Beware of commercial spice blends which often contain salt.
As for beverages, the best approach is to stick to water, coffee, and tea. That can include sparkling and flavored sparkling waters, unsweetened hot and iced coffee, and unsweetened hot and iced green, black, and herbal teas.
Moderate juices for children and adults. Orange juice has about one third of the amount of sugars in soda. Juice consumption has been associated with obesity and diabetes as it concentrates the natural sugars in fruits without the beneficial effects of the fiber found in whole fruit. Fiber acts to slow sugar absorption by the body.
step 6: why you should
eat two servings of
fish weekly
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Inuit and Japanese as well as other coastal peoples whose diet centers on fish enjoy remarkably low rates of cardiovascular disease. The lower rates of illness in these fish-eating cultures spurred researchers to ask whether high consumption of fatty fish containing omega-3 (n-3) oils, DHA and EPA, might be key to lowering heart disease risk. From clinical trials, the American Heart Association has concluded omega-3 fish oil is good for the heart and associated with fewer cardiac deaths and lower triglyceride levels.
DHA and EPA are also central to vision important to the makeup of the eye’s retina. Eating two servings of fish weekly reduces the risk of age-related macular degeneration, a late-life deterioration of vision that can lead to debilitating loss of sight. Fish also contributes to healthy brain cell function and development making it an important part of diet for pregnant women, children, and adults. In addition to offering a prime source of dietary EPA and DHA, fish provides lean protein, vitamin B12, vitamin D, iron, and micronutrients like selenium, zinc, and iron.
Why you should eat two servings of fish weekly
When serving fish twice a week, you’re likely to be replacing meat entrees with this nutrient-dense food. A serving is four ounces of salmon which provides 2-3 grams of EPA and DHA. For children, a serving is 1 ounce at age 2 and increases to 4 ounces for those age 11 or above.
Limit fish to two servings weekly and choose low-mercury fish like salmon, cod, hake, halibut, flounder, arctic char, tilapia, sea bass, bluefish, anchovies, sardines, herring, flounder, Pacific oysters, shrimp and mussels. A safe buying guide is available on the Resources page.
When mother’s are pregnant and breastfeeding, fish is important for visual and brain development of the baby in utero, lower risk of preterm birth, and infant growth. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends new mothers consume 1-2 servings of low-mercury fish per week to support adequate DHA in breast milk. Many infant formulas are DHA-fortified. Avoid king mackerel, shark, swordfish, tilefish and other types of fish that are high in methyl mercury. Mothers, pregnant and lactating women, and young children should limit the amount of albacore tuna, including canned tuna, to less than 6 ounces a week.
Be sure to check advisories when eating fish caught by family and friends. According to the Environmental Working Group, "In general the benefits of eating fatty, low-mercury seafood from commercial fisheries outweigh the harms from persistent contaminants. However if you eat more than three meals per week, or get species harvested from highly polluted areas, the balance could shift.” The Environmental Defense Fund warns against consuming lake and freshwater caught fish in the US. Commercially purchased fish is safest and a “best choice” guide to fish is available at https://seafood.edf.org/
Try to purchase fish raised through regenerative aquaculture practices and fed plant-based feeds which have led to significant decline in fish contaminants.
step 7: nourish
your gut
bacteria
We coexist with trillions of bacteria in our guts which are highly modifiable by what we eat. Eating lots of fiber and complex carbohydrates and starches found in plant foods is an essential determinant of healthy gut flora. Not surprisingly, trials have shown closer adherence to Mediterranean-style diets, rich in high fiber whole grains, fruits, legumes, pulses, and vegetables leads to greater diversity in gut bacteria.
Prebiotic foods stimulate the growth of intestinal bacterial, and bacteria, in turn, aid in the digestion of plant starches. Carbo-hydrates, polyphenols, polyunsaturated fats, and minerals derived from plants act to nourish gut bacteria. Some foods like red grapes, berries, whole wheat, rye, lentils, chickpeas, beans, green and black tea, red wine, soybeans, and nuts exert their potent prebiotic activity through their polyphenol content.
Be kind to your gut flora. In return, healthy gut bacteria helps to synthesize essential vitamins like vitamin K, biotin, and folate. They guard the integrity of the human colonic lining, nurture the immune system, fight inflammation and weight gain, and promote brain health, immunity, and enzyme synthesis.
Here are some tips to help your gut flora thrive:
Shifting what you eat can impact the richness and the diversity of gut bacterial species within days. Eat plenty of high-fiber fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, pulses like lentils and peas, nuts, and seeds.
Certain classes of carbohydrates are resistant to digestion in the small intestine. Instead they are are metabolized by gut bacteria and fermented to self-nourishing short-chain fatty acids. Find these resistant starches in foods like lentils, white beans, oats, barley, red beans, dried peas, kidney beans, pole beans, snow peas, fava, chickpeas, edamame and soybeans. Roots and tubers (e.g. potatoes, cassava, and taro) provide resistant starch; however these should be limited due to their very high blood sugar effects.
Look for whole grain, rye, and sourdough varieties when purchasing bread. If possible, purchase from bakers using wild yeast as opposed to chemical starters. Fermentation can improve digestibility, including for some with gluten sensitivity, and increase mineral extraction from breads. The bacteria in sourdough starters do not survive the baking process; however, their effect when combined with dietary fiber on the gut microbiome is of great interest.
Foods that have been cooked then chilled have higher resistant starch content. Use cooked chilled rice and pasta with beans or chickpeas in cold salads. Choose corn over flour tortillas.
Avoid artificial sweeteners in beverages and foods which can work against healthy gut bacteria. Drink water or teas and coffee rich in gut-nourishing polyphenols. While evidence is evolving, some artificial sweeteners can impact susceptible groups of people and may affect metabolism through effects on the gut microbiome.