10 a day?!
I was reading Sarah Wilson’s Simplicious over the weekend and she talks about how pork is a food that is common to the longest-living/healthiest populations in the world. About 6 minutes later, I read an article by a doctor who said no-one should ever, ever eat pork these days because of how pigs are reared and the toxins they are exposed to. I mean seriously… in the space of 10 minutes I had been given two entirely contradictory pieces of information from two well-researched sources.
Yesterday we were told that a study led by Imperial College London found, contrary to current advice, we aren’t eating enough fruit and veg every day and we should be eating 800g daily (or in simpler terms 10-a-day rather than the famous 5) in order to minimise our risk for cancer, heart disease, and premature death.
Is this just more contradictory advice?
What we eat and whether it can affect our risk for disease or help us heal is a pretty controversial area and one I have been tracking for years now.
My mother has had Multiple Sclerosis since she was 18 years old, and her mother suffered with Rheumatoid Arthritis from the age of 35 (and ultimately died at 62 from breast cancer that had metastasised to her bones), so I always keep a very close eye out for information on autoimmune disease and the latest treatments.
I myself suffer from health anxiety. I am a hypochondriac; possibly as a result of my genetic and real-life exposure to these autoimmune conditions. Anyone familiar with health anxiety knows ‘keeping an eye out’ actually means ‘obsessively acquiring an encyclopaedic knowledge of’!
In my ‘studies’ (for want of a better word) I have read about almost miraculous recoveries of people like Dr Terry Wahls who was wheelchair-bound within 8 years of being diagnosed with MS but is now completely symptom-free, and cycling for miles each day as a result of following a strict paleo diet. However, Dr Michael Greger (author of ‘How Not To Die’), comes up with an equally convincing argument as to why veganism is the only safe (and most effective!) way to treat Multiple Sclerosis.
People with health anxiety are always seeking to control their environment to prevent anything terrible from happening, so this conflicting advice about what to eat or not eat can be particularly troublesome information for us to deal with.
So which route have I chosen to follow?
Veganuary and Vitamin B12
I took part in Veganuary this year- where participants eat a vegan diet for the month of January. During that month I was also entirely gluten free AND I was on Dry January. I wanted give my body a break from the excesses of December and start the year feeling virtuous and ‘clean’, and I also wanted to see if it would deal with my health anxiety, which had been a bit worse than usual as winter progressed. Did it work? Far, far from it.
Maybe it was January blues, maybe it was a coincidence, maybe my anxiety had already taken root, but it was the second time I had embarked on a ‘cleansing’ regime like this and both times were troublesome as far as my health was concerned. Last year when I did an elimination diet for three weeks, that also happened to be mostly vegan, despite *feeling* good, I ended up covered in eczema (I usually only have a patch on my shins). This January I did not feel good at all: my health anxiety spiked to an extent I have never experienced before and I had some troubling physical symptoms.
If you have never suffered with anxiety, suddenly suffering from it — and badly — is truly eye-opening: it brings a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘don’t judge people; you never know what battle they are fighting’.
But were my symptoms caused by a vitamin B12 deficiency??
“All disease begins in the gut.” — Hippocrates
‘The Diet Myth’ by Tim Spector is an eminently sensible, and very reassuring book on the whole, that aims to de-bunk a lot of the myths out there about various diets, and reveal more about the mysteries of how our gut bactiera might affect our health/weight etc.
Tim was vegan for a year after reading ‘The China Study’ and being completely convinced by the science, before realising his vitamin B12 levels were through the floor. He started taking a high dosage oral supplement and it made no difference to his B12 levels whatsoever (pretty shocking information to me as I assumed my high dosage supplement would be sufficient!), he then started having vitamin B12 injections in his bum (which worked!) before he thought it might just be easier to eat some lamb or have a steak once a month. That did the trick.
Vitamin B12 is absolutely vital for brain and nerve health, and can only be obtained naturally through animal products. I was taking a very high dose vegan B12 supplement during Veganuary, but it wasn’t until I reintroduced eggs to my diet in February that I started to feel better. I ate some lamb to boost my vitamin B12 levels and the tingling in my feet left me almost overnight.
The conclusion Tim reaches by the end of the book is that eating the most varied diet possible ie not cutting out major food groups and trying to eat as wide a variety of foods possible including lots of plants, is probably the best thing we can do to create the most diverse population of bacteria in our gut. Why would we want that? Because studies are starting to show gastrointestinal health to be at the root of many health issues today — including brain and mental health.
Eating 10-a-day
Eating 10-a-day is therefore something I can definitely get on board with. Squeezing as much veg into our lives as possible is probably more likely to have a positive impact on our health than almost anything else, so I find news reports about studies like this latest one very encouraging.
A portion is also not as big as you might think. 80g (one portion) is the equivalent of a small banana, a pear, or three heaped tablespoons of peas or spinach.
Eating ‘more’ vegetables is not going to leave you deficient in anything, it is only going to support your diet — whether you are vegan, pescatarian, gluten-free, dairy-free or omnivore.
What about my health anxiety?
I definitely feel a lot better since re-introducing animal products and I’ve made a concentrated effort to eat plenty of fat (something I probably wasn’t getting enough of in January), but my scare in January was enough to convince me to seek professional help so I would know what to do in case it should ever happen again. I am now having Cognitive Behavioural Therapy weekly and I meditate daily.
I also discovered a lovely cookbook by Rachel Kelly called ‘The Happy Kitchen’.
Rachel describes herself as ‘a worrier’, and on occasion her anxiety has tipped her into depression. On a routine visit to her GP to check how she was dealing with her anxiety, she was told about some compelling evidence about the links between mood and food — oily fish, green leafy vegetables and dark chocolate being some of the foods that might keep her calm.
Rachel hired a nutritionist to help her navigate the path of eating for happiness — like me, she sometimes wished she was a rabbit as lettuce felt like the only thing that was safe to eat!
The book is the result of her work with her nutritionist and is divided by symptom: depression, anxiety, sleep, mental clarity, hormonal peace etc. There is also a brilliant section at the beginning with some ‘golden rules’ for eating which, as you might expect by now, includes the advice to eat mostly plants, to include sufficient fats and protein in your diet and to eat for your gut.
For me, avoiding too much caffeine has also been a major breakthrough, and trying to keep my blood sugar levels as stable as possible. I have finally had to accept that it is not normal to just ‘drink through’ the coffee jitters!
So that’s it… the new 10-a-day study? It’s a simple message overall: eat more veg, and while you are at it, eat the rainbow! 🌈
