⏱ Time: One extra plant at each meal
🎯 Best for: Gut health • Digestion • Immune health
📚 Evidence: Strong

Why It Works

Your gut is home to trillions of microbes that help digest food, support your immune system and produce compounds linked to overall health. Research suggests that a greater variety of plant foods helps support a more diverse gut microbiome.

Different plants provide different types of fibre and natural compounds that nourish different beneficial bacteria. The more variety you eat over the course of a week, the more diverse your gut microbiome becomes.

Try It This Week

✓ Count the different plants you eat this week.

✓ Fruit, beans, lentils, whole grains, herbs, spices, nuts and seeds all count.

✓ Try adding one new plant to each meal.

✓ Coffee, tea and cocoa also count because they come from plants.

✓ Small changes repeated every week can make a big difference to your gut health. 💜

What the Evidence Says

One of the largest microbiome studies found that people who ate 30 or more different plant foods each week had a more diverse gut microbiome than those eating fewer than 10. A healthier gut microbiome has been linked to a better immune function, metabolic health and digestive wellbeing.

References:

• American Gut: An Open Platform for Citizen Science Microbiome Research
• High-Diversity Plant-Based Diet and Gut Microbiome

🌿 Plant Count Challenge

How many can you eat this week?

☐ Vegetables

☐ Fruit

☐ Beans

☐ Lentils

☐ Nuts

☐ Seeds

☐ Whole grains

☐ Herbs

☐ Spices

☐ Coffee

☐ Tea

☐ Dark chocolate

Consistency beats perfection. If you’re at 12 plants this week and 16 next week, you’re already moving in the right direction.