The Golden Rule of Eating

In the book, Fiber Fueled, the author, Dr. Will Bulsiewicz, asserts that plant-diversity should be The Golden Rule of eating.

He spends 200 pages laying out the science behind this, and if you don’t want to take my word for it, I highly recommend reading his book. 

But if you want to take my word for it and fast forward to the part where you change your life, I’m going to summarize it here in a very simplistic way.

Dr. B says, “Did you know that 97 percent of us consume an excess of protein, yet we will constantly ask, ‘Where am I going to get my protein from?’ We live in a country with a pathologic protein obsession. Meanwhile, we are figuratively and literally starving for fiber.”

Why does fiber matter? The conversation around fiber has been limited to grandparents or folks in hospitals and the solution seems to be a powder that is mixed in water. Isn’t that all there is to know?

No.

• The helpful bacteria in our gut unleash the nutrients in our food.

• This includes the unleashing of short-chain fatty acids. These create an environment that stops inflammatory bacteria from growing and “directly suppresses dangerous strains like E. coli and Salmonella”. This activity is at the root of preventing dysbiosis, which is an imbalance in your gut that is at the root of all disease.

• What does the helpful bacteria in our gut eat? FIBER.

• Where does fiber come from? PLANTS - did you know that animal flesh (meat) and fluids (like milk) contain no fiber at all?

Unlike the powdered drinks sold in pharmacies, there are actually “innumerable amounts of fiber in nature, and every plant provides a distinct mix that requires a unique blend of microbes to process it.”

Therefore, the greater the diversity of plants in our diet, the greater the diversity of fiber we’re providing to our helpful gut bacteria.

The bottom line: studies have shown that we should be eating at least 30 different plants per week, but upwards of 50 different plants per week would be ideal.

This includes: vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, legumes, whole grains, herbs & spices, seaweed, fermented foods.

Think of your average stir fry, curry, or salad. You could have up to 12 different plants in one meal, so it’s not as hard as you think!

I’ll let Dr. Bulsiewicz take the last word:

We’ve made health too complicated with our extensive lists of foods to avoid, complex percentages of fats-to-protein-to-carb ratios, elimination diets, calorie counting, even weighing our food -- and despite all these rules, we’re not getting any better. It just doesn’t need to be this complicated. Diversity of plants. That’s it. That’s all you have to remember. Done.