Eating for Health

There is increasing evidence of the benefit of a healthy diet in helping people feel well with long term conditions such as pain.

Gut bacteria/organisms are central to health, extracting the nutrients from our food, and can lead to health or illness.  A large variety of good bacteria is associated with health and wellbeing.

Choosing a good diet can help how you feel by:         

• Reducing inflammation in the body

• Improving the number of ‘good’ bacteria in the gut

 

This can reduce many of the problems that patients who have pain struggle with:

 

• Tiredness & Fatigue

• Disturbed sleep

 

• Weight gain

• Gut problems

• Headaches                 

• Pain

• Mood difficulties

 

 

There is a tendency for people to reach for ‘comfort’ or convenience foods – usually high fat, high sugar, processed foods. These

• Increase inflammation and

• Damage the gut bacteria balance (dysbiosis)

 

The key aims are to

1. Improve the number and variety of good bacteria (variety of plants, fasting and fermented foods)

2. Increase antioxidants (found in highly coloured plant foods)

3. Increase fibre content (found in whole plant foods)

 

WHEN to eat

          Fasting (such as time restricted feeding) reduces inflammation, insulin levels and allows the cells of the body time to clean up. Improves blood pressure, blood sugar, energy levels, brain fog. Longer fasts can help with weight loss.

It can take a bit of time for the weight to start reducing, but keep with it.  Once your body alters its metabolism it gets much easier.

Time Restricted Feeding

Eat all your food in a 6 -10 hour ‘eating window’

The rest of the time is the ‘fasting window’

During the fast drink lots of water and only black/ green tea or coffee (no sugar or milk)

Use an app such as Zero to track fasting times.

 

WHAT to eat

• Predominantly plant derived foods

• A lot of plant variety – aim for

  • 30 different plants a week

  • & EAT THE RAINBOW daily!! – a variety of highly coloured plants = high antioxidants

• Whole foods

• Low in processed foods and sugar/artificial sweeteners

• High in good fats – nuts and seeds (also high in fibre and antioxidants)

• Fermented foods

 

Brightly coloured veg (particularly in the skin so don’t peel)

 

• Spinach, kale, watercress, fennel,

• Broccoli, red cabbage, brussels, cauliflower

• Celery

• Red onions, shallots, leek, garlic

• Carrots, parsnips, sweet potatoes, beetroot

• Squash, courgettes

• Olives

• Legumes: lentils, chickpeas, beans, peas

• Wholegrains – eg brown rice, pasta, bread

• Grains such as buckwheat, wild rice, quinoa,

• Oats

• Berries

• Whole fruit

• Nuts (&nut butters/cheese): walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, brazils

• Seeds: chia, flax, pumpkin, sunflower

• Olive oil, coconut oil

• Dark chocolate and coffee/tea

• Herbs eg rosemary, thyme, peppermint, parsley

• Spices esp Turmeric (with pepper

 

 

Fermented foods such as live sauerkraut, live plain yoghurt (fruit yoghurt will have sugar), kefir, miso, kombucha. These improve the balance of bacteria in the gut

 

Introduce new foods slowly – need to grow the bacteria to process them.

 

Supplements –

• if you don’t eat any animal products you will need Vit B12

• Vit D supplement important in the UK

 

Take home message

Choosing a healthy diet can really help how you are feeling.  Make positive steps to:

 

          Increase vegetables and beans/lentils

          Increase good fats – nuts, seeds,

Increase wholegrains        

          Reduce ‘junk food’ – ready meals, crisps, cakes, biscuits.

          Reduce sugar and sweeteners

          Reduce meat, fish, dairy, eggs

 

 

 

Podcasts/YouTube videos:

 

Dr Rupy Aujla: The Doctor’s Kitchen: Covers the ways in which diet and lifestyle can help you achieve your healthiest life. See book above

 

Dr Rangan Chatterjee: Feel Better, Live More (for example Episode 87 is an interview with patient with fibromyalgia)   Interview with Tim Spector is podcast 131

 

Zoe Science and nutrition podcasts/youtube videos – Episodes:Your gut is full of bugs – why this is good news. Inflammation Ageing and disease.

 

Dr John Cryan. Eg ‘Feed Your Microbes’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKxomLM7SVc

 

Jason Fung on intermittent Fasting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIhhrYjVhOk

Lucy Ward Eating for Health https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwj95RtLngM

Books:

 

Painfree Mindset by Dr Deepak Ravindran – specific to pain and more than just nutrition

 

Spoon Fed: why almost everything we’ve been told about food is wrong Tim Spector

 

The 4 Pillar Plan; The Stress solution; Feel better in 5, all by Dr Rangan Chatterjee.

 

The Doctor’s Kitchen: Dr Rupy Aujla – why food is medicinal and the science behind it as well as easy recipies

 

Drop Acid: David Perlmutter

The Diabetes Code: prevent and reverse type 2 diabetes naturally. Dr Jason Fung

Websites

Plant based health online – lots of helpful resources - https://plantbasedhealthonline.com/resources#articles

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine https://www.pcrm.org/health-topics

Other authors: Dean Ornish (heart disease specialist), David Perlmutter (neurologist), Felice Jacka (mental health)

Recipes and cooking ideas

Made in Hackney - community cookery school including International Cuisine. Online recipes

The Happy Pear – online whole food plant based recipe ideas and courses

Bosh  - plant based recipes https://www.bosh.tv/

Healthy cooking on a limited budget https://cookingonabootstrap.com/

 

Top tips:

Batch cook and freeze portions so you have your own ready meals (ask family/friends to help)

EG:    soup with multiple different vegetables beans and lentils, herbs and spices eg turmeric, 

veg stews/chilli/curries (use beans or finely chopped mushrooms instead of meat)

Use pre-prepared frozen fruit and vegetables (eg chopped onions/mediterranean vegetables), or tinned veg.

 

Raspberry chia jam:

          1 bag frozen raspberries – defrost (can speed up by heating on the hob)

          add 3-4 tablespoons of Chia seeds and stir.

After some time it will take on a jam-like consistency and can be eaten with a spoon like pudding (delicious with some squares of dark chocolate!) or spread on bread/toast in place of jam (tasty with nut butter.)

 

Roast Vegetables:

Root veg – eg carrots, sweet potatoes, beetroot, parsnip, swede. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper, spices and roast at 180 deg – time depends on the size of the pieces

Cauliflower and broccoli also work well in this way but take less time to cook.

Tomatoes, courgette, aubergine, onion pieces.

 

Salad dressing or drizzle for roast vegetables:

          Juice of a lemon or lime, equal volume of extra virgin olive oil, half a teaspoon of miso, salt and pepper, possibly some walnuts. Blend together - a food processor/stick blender/smoothie maker will make a smooth thick almost mayonnaise-like sauce especially with the nuts.

You could add garlic, mustard, herbs, turmeric to increase the number of plants!

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