Research-based Healthy Gut and Plant Forward Diets with Tim Spector [Ep. 969]

This Week’s Episode:

In this episode, Kimberly interviews Dr. Tim Spector, a professor of epidemiology, about the importance of gut health and diet. They discuss the significance of a diverse diet rich in plants, the impact of nutrition on mental health, and practical tips for incorporating more variety into meals. Dr. Spector emphasizes that dietary changes can lead to significant improvements in gut health and overall well-being, and he advocates for the inclusion of fermented foods in daily diets. In this conversation, Kimberly Snyder and Dr. Tim Spector explore the importance of gut health, the role of fermented foods, and the misconceptions surrounding protein intake. They discuss the benefits of a plant-based diet, the myths about soy and anti-nutrients, and the need for diversity in our diets. Dr. Spector emphasizes the significance of quality over quantity in nutrition and the importance of understanding our individual dietary needs.

About Tim Spector

Tim Spector, MD, is Professor of Epidemiology at King’s College London and co-founder of ZOE, the science and nutrition company. He is the bestselling author of The Diet Myth, Spoon-Fed and Food for Life. With a focus on cutting-edge science, and honoured with an OBE for his impactful work in fighting Covid-19, Tim stands at the forefront of his field. The original pioneer of microbiome research, he is among the top 100 most-cited scientists in the world.

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Guest Resources

Book:The Diet Myth, Spoon-Fed and Food for Life.

Episode Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Gut Health and Diet
05:02 The Importance of Diversity in Diet
09:55 Practical Tips for Incorporating Plants
15:06 The Impact of Diet on Mental Health
20:01 The Role of Probiotics and Fermented Foods
24:21 The Power of Fermented Foods
26:15 Rethinking Protein: A Plant-Centric Approach
30:44 Creative Cooking with Beans
32:44 The Soy Debate: Myths and Realities
35:15 Debunking Anti-Nutrient Fears
37:54 Balancing Protein and Plant Diversity
41:10 The Complexity of Nutrition
45:57 Embracing Diversity in Diets

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Transcript:

Kimberly Snyder (00:00.706)
Hi everyone, and welcome back to our Monday interview show. I am so excited for our amazing guest here with us today, Dr. Tim Spector, who is professor of epidemiology at King’s College in London. And he is a bestselling author of several books, including The Diet Meth, Spoonfed, and his latest book, which is absolutely wonderful. I have been going through it myself, The Food for Life Cookbook.

100 plus recipes created with Zoe, which is a science and nutrition company. And we are so excited to speak to you today, Dr. Spector. I appreciate your approach, which is accessible, delicious. The pictures in your book are beautiful, but also based in real science and based on how we can take care of our gut health. So thank you so much and congratulations on your book.

Tim (00:54.403)
Thank you. It’s great to be great to be chatting and yeah, welcome back to your home after your.

Kimberly Snyder (01:00.91)
yes. This is our my first show. Whenever you guys hear this, when we air this show that I’m actually so grateful to be back in our podcast studio. I’m speaking to Tim here looking out over the mountains, which are strong and they rebuild. But there’s been quite a lot that’s happened for us Angelenos in the last few years. Doctor, and you can speak to the collective stress and trauma and how this type of stress affects

our gut health when we’re in fight or flight for so many weeks. These types of experiences is a time to especially take care of our diet and our gut health.

Tim (01:41.079)
Absolutely. Yes. No. Well, it doesn’t seem to be much in the world that isn’t happening, you know, to somebody isn’t there. And, yeah, that we did. And you get to hear about everything as well now, whereas in the past, it was all hidden. So, yeah, there’s a lot of communal stress out there. So, but that’s why it’s important to do the things that you can control and focus on those, not the things that you really can’t control.

Kimberly Snyder (02:04.929)
Yes.

Tim (02:11.905)
like wildfires and plagues and pestilence etc that we’ve been through the last few years.

Kimberly Snyder (02:19.66)
Well, so tell us how you arrived at this name food for life, right? The life we think of vitality, I think about the life that’s teaming in a healthy microbiome. What was your inspiration?

Tim (02:31.599)
Well, it was trying to get a more holistic view. A lot of books about food are focusing on just one concept. You know, they’re going for just sugars are evil or fats are evil or gluten freeze the only way or, know, seed oils are deadly or, you know, lectins are the worst thing you can do or pesticides are killing the planet. And so, you know,

Kimberly Snyder (02:46.188)
Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (02:51.822)
That’s true.

Tim (03:02.787)
whether you believe those or not, there isn’t one magic bullet that is there to sort our gut problems and our health problems out. It takes a view. And I think it’s trying to change people’s view of the whole of how you see food differently and that any change you make has got to be for life in order to really make a difference, not just

Kimberly Snyder (03:26.091)
Yes.

Tim (03:29.817)
for six weeks, not just a crash course, not just a fad that’s gonna go away as soon as you’ve got something else. So it’s about teaching people to think differently about food, to eat mindfully, to really look at it from a different perspective that’s not about calories, for example. And it’s more about the quality of food and moving away from macronutrients.

Kimberly Snyder (03:53.131)
Yes.

Tim (03:59.061)
into this much more complex world where we have to sort of realize that we’re not just feeding ourselves, but also feeding our inner selves, all these microbes that live inside us. So it’s trying to get this complexity across with the timeframe that, you know, small regular changes over a long period of time are much more important than making some dramatic

change to your diet, that might be cutting out one ingredient that may work for a few weeks, but long-term is going to cause you harm because you’re having some side effect on some other aspect of your body. So it’s more of a holistic journey, relearning about our bodies, relearning about food. I think that’s sort of where we are. And it also ends up being a bit of a play on words because

Eight years ago, I helped co-found this company Zoe and Zoe in Greek means life. So that was another little twist on that. You think, oh, how clever that was, you know, but it just so happened to be there as well. So that’s how we got into that.

Kimberly Snyder (05:02.35)
Kimberly Snyder (05:17.102)
Well, I’m so happy that you’re in the world, Dr. Speaking, as I would say a voice of reason, like you said, a much more holistic approach because unfortunately there is so much misinformation where very extreme people are following these really extreme diets, the carnivore diet, eating only meat, thinking kale is horrible. you just see people not really embracing a more…

nuanced, like you said, the complexities of food. So one of the things that I like in your book, which is, you can wrap your mind around diversity. You talk about 30 plants a week, just having variety. And even if people are like, whoa, that’s a big number, I’m not sure that I can reach that. Just having that idea that when we eat, a lot of you talk about the rainbow, which is also an RU-vated concept. A lot of your philosophy.

aligns with Ayurveda, which I personally align with quite strongly, which is not just this reductionist approach. Let me count my protein and get it no matter what. It’s all these processed protein bars and all the ways, but then you’re talking about

how each plant has this different constitution. So before we go down the protein rabbit hole, which I think is really important because you addressed that quite thoroughly and with all the evidence based and your scientific background in the book, let’s talk about the 30 for a moment. How did you arrive at this number and why is diversity so important when we’re constructing a long-term healthy diet for our microbiome?

Tim (06:48.623)
Yeah, the book intro has got these six basic principles. Some people call them rules, but I think that’s a bit too strict. know, think we need just general principles, you know, whether you obey them all the time is up to you. Then the first one, I think probably the most important is this concept of diversity of what we’re eating, which not only gives your taste buds, you know, more excitement, your brain makes it

gets excited by diversity. You dullness is really the ruts we all end up with. But your gut microbes depend on all these plants. And so we did some research quite a bit, nearly 10 years ago now, with the women combined a citizen science project in the UK called the British Gut Project with the American Gut Project, and looked at that and found that the sweet spot for gut health was people who were

eating around 30 different types of plant a week. And this was more important than just the total amount of fiber or the amount of sugars or whatever else. And it was also independent of whether they ate meat or fish. So you could still get an optimum gut score. And we’ve also shown this with our Zoe database now that, you know,

Kimberly Snyder (07:52.046)
Tim (08:12.495)
it’s the total amount of plants you’re eating, different plants you’re eating, is the best indicator that your diet is good and that your it’s helping your gut, your gut health is good. And therefore, I think this is going to be an increasingly important metric about good health. And it doesn’t matter if you have the occasional bit of meat or fish, as long as you’re leaving room on your plate every day for these plants, the rest really is up to you.

And so we did see in these studies and we’ve seen, we’ve just published a paper with our gut microbiota data on vegans and vegetarians and meat eaters. And in each of those three groups, although the vegans were slightly healthier on average than the vegetarians, who were slightly more healthier than the omnivores, within all the groups, there were people at the top who were doing really well.

because they were really eating the most different plants. So diversity of plants is really the key factor. And if you do that, really, you don’t have to worry about the macros and the nutrients and the vitamins and the fiber, because it all just goes hand in hand. It’s virtually impossible to have that diversity and not be healthy. I think that’s the key here. If you’re talking about real plants and you’ve got to think about what are these 30? Well, that’s really tricky.

Kimberly Snyder (09:13.228)
Mmm.

Tim (09:39.277)
They, you know, they have fruits, your vegetables, but then you’ve got your nuts, you’ve got your seeds, you’ve got your herbs, you’ve got your spices. You know, a teaspoon of spice counts as a plant. Coffee is a plant, right? So people forget the origin of these things. And so drinking…

Kimberly Snyder (09:46.613)
Okay.

Kimberly Snyder (09:55.583)
got it. It’s not just fresh.

Tim (10:07.091)
of cups of coffee gives you a significant amount of fiber, about the same as a banana. you know, yeah. So that’s the American diet. If it didn’t have coffee in it would be, you know, a third worse in terms of fiber. It provides about a third of the US intake in fiber. So it’s all about rethinking about what our food is and what is the original plant? Has it been highly processed? Is it not? But

Kimberly Snyder (10:12.014)
Is that true?

Kimberly Snyder (10:27.383)
Wow.

Tim (10:36.271)
This diversity one really is the key. And that’s why I wanted to have that as the first principle. And that’s why in the cookbook, you’ll see all the recipes in there really have a great practical examples of what you can add to your plate and try to encourage people, not only when they’re shopping, but also when they’re cooking, to just add more different stuff in there all the time. I always think, you know, is this a food opportunity I can use?

to feed my microbes better. My microbes like diversity and we’re talking about coffee, but you know, they’re so fussy, we forget. We have thousands of these different types of species. These are fussy little guys. There’s one in there that only eats coffee.

Kimberly Snyder (11:07.36)
Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (11:23.55)
Right. So the diversity is strengthening the overall microbiome.

Tim (11:28.407)
Yes, absolutely. because they’re fussy, they’re waiting for that food to come down. And they’re only eating McDonald’s every day. They’re not going to get that diversity. So most of them will be in a suspended animation or have died off. And so the more you have of them, the more different chemicals they produce because your microbes are essentially chemical factories, like mini pharmacies.

producing thousands of vitamins and chemicals that help you improve your metabolism, your immune system. And so you need that diversity of pharmacies, know, these chemicals. And the only way to get that is through different foods. And that’s why even, you know, the subtle difference between tea and coffee or green tea and black tea, you’ll have a different set of microbes coming out, eating it. And that means you’ll get different, they will produce different chemicals.

Kimberly Snyder (12:23.148)
Wow.

Tim (12:26.851)
which get into your bloodstream through your gut and help your immune system. So that’s why we think it’s pretty core. And so once you start thinking along these lines, it really blows your mind a bit and you start thinking, well, if that’s true, then I need to change the way I’m eating. I can’t just have the same iceberg lettuce and a Caesar salad. My microbes are not going to be very happy when I’m eating just that stuff every day. I need to really mix it up.

Kimberly Snyder (12:31.726)
Wow, that’s so helpful.

Kimberly Snyder (12:55.182)
Bye.

Tim (12:56.857)
When I go shopping, I’ve got to not just get the same 20 things that I put in my basket. I’ve got to start thinking, what else can I have new this week? And so this is where this whole concept of at least 30 plants as a goal comes from. Because the average American has probably around 10.

Kimberly Snyder (13:17.752)
Wow. I also want to say, Tim, as a mother of two young children, as I look through your book and I read your concepts, my kids and I have been vegan. We’ve been plant-based. I’ve been vegan for over 15 years, and they’ve been vegan since conception. And so I know we have a lot of moms in the community listening to this and thinking, well, my kids are really picky. But what I do with my kids, Tim, is I put out different, when they come home from school and they’re sort of chomping away, I put out different veggies. I see what they’re drawn to.

which changes over time. My younger one or my older one was really into broccoli. Now he loves cauliflower. So I sort of, instead of fighting, I’m like, they love, like right now they love carrots, green beans, know, cauliflower or mangoes, like whatever they love. And then it changes. But I find as a mom, it’s important to just keep trying different things because I’m surprised my little one loves edamame. He loves cilantro.

So there is a lot of diversity even as parents that we can bring into our kids diet with trying different things.

Tim (14:20.047)
Absolutely. And there’s certain phases in life when it’s easier for your kids to choose this stuff. You know, they say there’s this window up to the age of three when they eat anything. And then they start getting pickier.

Kimberly Snyder (14:29.655)
Yeah.

I have a four year old and an eight year old now, so they got a little more picky.

Tim (14:37.359)
But again, know, re-showing the same vegetables back to them. Don’t just give up the first or second time. Sometimes they need to be trying in small amounts for five, you know, five or six goes before they’ll actually start to enjoy it. But as you said, I think you’re right. Give them not just one vegetable with the beige food. You know, they should be having multiple different ones. Choose different colors, make it

Kimberly Snyder (14:44.684)
Yeah.

Tim (15:06.255)
you know, make it fun. it doesn’t matter if they don’t particularly like one that day, they can come back to another, you know, I think that’s, that’s the way to, to train kids. But having gone through this myself, I do know it’s not easy. I had a son who refused to eat all fish. And so I had to produce underwater chicken for him, which a new concept which

worked for a short while until he figured out how I was tricking him.

Kimberly Snyder (15:39.54)
So what if someone’s listening to this doctor and they say, grew up and I could say this for my husband, I had a terrible diet growing up, pretty much he only got one vegetable, he got broccoli. Can we say as an adult, even though we didn’t get to choose as a child or if a mom’s listening to this like, hey, it’s been really hard to feed my child another 10, we can go forward, we can still create improvement and change with these amazing recipes in your book and armed with this knowledge now.

We can’t change the past, but starting now there is still this, we call it elasticity in the brain, like in the gut, the gut can be strengthened. I right?

Tim (16:20.267)
Absolutely. mean, I used for 20 years, I studied genetics and it was quite a depressing thing because you one thing you can’t do is change your genes. You can’t change your parents. And the difference with gut health is you can totally change your gut health just by making a switch in your diet. And this can happen at any age. So I think it’s really, really important message that we make

Kimberly Snyder (16:29.164)
Great.

Kimberly Snyder (16:44.973)
wonderful to hear.

Tim (16:49.709)
hundreds of food choices every day or every week, and we’re in charge of those food choices and that is the most important thing we can do for our health. So we’ve seen in our studies and with the Zoey program where we give people, we’re making them switch to mainly plant-based diet, giving up on the ultra processed foods and

moving them towards thinking about their gut health. We’ve shown in trials against the standard USDA recommended low calorie foods, the vast majority of people are getting quite rapid changes. Over 80 % of people changing within a couple of weeks significantly improve their gut health. So we don’t have to wait months or years.

Kimberly Snyder (17:36.344)
Their gut health changing. Wow.

Tim (17:43.503)
The other thing is people notice a change in their mood as well. So that’s the first thing that you notice when you improve your diet. We’ve shown this in the Zoey trials. Mood and energy within a few days will improve and that shows you on the right track. And generally doctors will be pretty poor at asking about mood and energy. We don’t tend to put it into the trials, but now with the feedback from the Zoey members, we’ve…

this is now being re-prioritized because it’s the first sign that your body’s on that right track to improve health and the gut microbes are working well. yeah, that’s the optimistic message here, which is why this message is so important because everybody can improve in ways they maybe hadn’t thought about and certainly doctors hadn’t thought about.

Kimberly Snyder (18:23.842)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (18:36.652)
And we can also say that’s a hopeful message, especially for parents who have children with ADHD or hyperactivity or a lot of just, you know, we could say just energy when we start to shift their diet to have this incredible diversity of plants, there can be great improvement in our children’s behavior. I see it with my kids as well. When we were evacuated and we were in a hotel for a little bit and it was not as great, I could see them getting more riled up.

Tim (18:56.353)
Absolutely.

Kimberly Snyder (19:05.634)
And then once we got to a stable home and we were eating well, there was more calmness.

Tim (19:10.989)
Yeah, well, a lot of people believe that, you know, this current epidemic of mental health problems, particularly in kids and teenagers, due to the worsening diet in that group and these snacks and these, you know, these all the ultra processed drinks and things they’re having. I think everyone needs to bear that in mind. Having said that, you know, having having gone through being a parent of a teenager, I know how difficult it is.

Kimberly Snyder (19:23.566)
you

Tim (19:40.707)
to change their minds on food. if you can get them to do some experiments, bribe them, whatever you do to make them do it and say, okay, go on a really bad diet for two days, then go on a really good diet to see if you’ve noticed the difference. I found that can sometimes work.

Kimberly Snyder (19:41.186)
Peace.

Kimberly Snyder (20:01.656)
Have you done that with your child?

Tim (20:05.291)
They’re too old now. My children are their 30s now. I did do an experiment though on my son. I don’t know if you heard about this, when, this is about 10 years ago now, and I was doing experiments on myself and I wanted to look at the effects of eating McDonald’s for 10 days.

Kimberly Snyder (20:07.68)
Okay. Okay. Okay.

Kimberly Snyder (20:31.79)
Tim (20:31.951)
Only eating McDonald’s, sort super-sized me type. And I must say, I wasn’t really looking forward to this. you know, so I thought, who can I get to do this, you know, who really likes McDonald’s, hard up for money, and also happens to be my son? Well, you know, and he was very keen to volunteer. So he did it, Tom. And basically, while he was at

Kimberly Snyder (20:36.058)
my-

Tim (21:00.655)
He was away at college and he had all his meals at the local McDonald’s and he was reporting every day. I’ve done the idea was to test his gut microbes. He thought it’d be easy. After four days, he wanted to stop. So, so, you know, he said, I really want feeling well. He was supposed to do the 10 days. So I was, uh, you know, I was disappointed, but as, know, as a concerned parent, said,

Kimberly Snyder (21:18.125)
Wow.

Tim (21:29.591)
no way of stopping, know, we’re going to publish this in the Sunday Times. So we had to carry on. so he did, but he lost a third of his gut microbes in those 10 days of his diversity. he’s not, yeah. So it took him about five years to recover his gut health. Yeah. Yes. So it’s a…

Kimberly Snyder (21:41.969)
my gosh.

Kimberly Snyder (21:50.882)
Five years?

from just a 10 day experiment?

Tim (21:58.667)
Okay, it’s just N of one. I don’t know whether everyone would do that. It’s sort of not. It’s whether it’s ethical to only do this on your child. I don’t know. But it’s a hard study to do for long term. But I think it shows the it shows the dangers of, you know, teenagers going through these periods of their life where they’re getting no fiber at all. And it’s not just the occasional binge.

Kimberly Snyder (22:12.236)
Yeah, just lean back.

Kimberly Snyder (22:25.303)
Yeah

Tim (22:27.679)
it’s not just on a Friday night or a pizza night or whatever it is, it’s like all the time. Then I think then you can get this killing off of your beneficial microbes, which I think is what we saw there. And it took a really long time to get them back. And I think this is what happening to at least half of America, that they are on this continuous ultra processed food diet.

Kimberly Snyder (22:32.63)
Right.

Tim (22:55.021)
that’s having this effect on the gut microbes, it’s killing them off and then they don’t get the right chemicals for the brain. The brain’s affected, the immune system’s affected, metabolism’s affected and everything goes out of whack.

Kimberly Snyder (23:12.462)
Would taking some probiotic capsules help offset, let’s say you do have a teenager having a horrible diet, but you could get them to take probiotics, would that help? I mean, not as much as the diet, of course.

Tim (23:28.455)
No, not as much as a diet and probably not as much as fermented foods. That’s another principle in the book is to always add fermented foods to your diet. And studies have shown just within two weeks, you can significantly improve your immune system, your immune health by significant amounts.

Kimberly Snyder (23:33.262)
Yes, I noticed this section in your book. Love the sauerkraut. Love all that.

Tim (23:57.101)
by having at least three portions a day. And we’re talking a cup of yogurt, some kefir, some sauerkraut, some kimchi, kombucha drinks, miso, all kinds of stuff. It’s quite easy to add in. And lot of the recipes I’ve got in the book are ways where can just slip it in without anyone even noticing. It’s like, just stick some sauerkraut in there. That’s fine.

Kimberly Snyder (24:21.228)
Yeah. It’s delicious.

Tim (24:26.735)
you know, mix in bit of kefir instead of you might be putting in some cream or coconut cream. Just use something fermented live and studies clearly show that these do work now and probiotics a bit more hit and miss. So that’s what the science shows is that you can be lucky and you might have just the right gut microbiome that

Kimberly Snyder (24:35.853)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (24:46.669)
Mmm.

Tim (24:56.503)
fits with a single probiotic, but chances are you’ll need the wider approach of fermented food because fermented foods like a kombucha drink or a kefir or a kimchi have got maybe 20 or 30 microbes in them, different ones. Whereas probiotic may just have one or two or three strains. as we’re all very different, we’re very personalized in our gut health.

Kimberly Snyder (25:20.397)
Yeah.

Tim (25:26.403)
That’s why there’s this difference, but a difficult teenager, take, take whatever you can do, you know, if you can do a little bit, but, if, but if you can give them a cafe, shot or a kombucha shot, you know, as well, that’s an easy way to, to, improve their health. So I think there are some ways that you can do this. once you start thinking in this, with this mentality, the, anything you can add because

Kimberly Snyder (25:43.939)
Mm.

Kimberly Snyder (25:54.082)
Yeah.

Tim (25:54.871)
What we’re trying to do is to add things to the normal diet that just make you healthier rather than making a big shift or excluding any particular groups. It’s about adding and having more diversity. children should be less concerned about that if you’re putting more things on, different things on their plate.

Kimberly Snyder (26:15.96)
So one of the things, one of the big topics that you do address in the book is protein. Because like you said, this is a different mindset. We’re talking about focusing on the diversity of plants where there’s a lot of conversation out there, doctor, as you know about protein, protein, protein. It’s sort of.

went away for a time. remember maybe 10 years ago because I’ve been vegan for so long. At first it was like, where are you getting your protein? And I’m like, everything is protein. I eat seeds and I eat nuts. My dear friend Dan Budner, who’s been on this podcast so many times, has talked about the longevity of these blue zones, eating beans all the time. And then it kind of, I felt like died down, but then for some reason it feels like it’s ramped up in the last few years. And there are certain doctors out there just saying,

Protein is basically the fountain of youth and you can’t get too much and that’s what you focus on. So can you speak to that a little bit from your science background, also from a microbiome background, what too much protein can do to your gut health and so on.

Tim (27:11.182)
Yeah.

Tim (27:18.575)
Yeah, I was shocked. I was in LA in November and talking to members of the public and doing some interviews and things. everybody’s obsessed with protein. It’s like, he said, what do have for breakfast? I have a high protein breakfast. I, you know, raw eggs and I have a protein bar and I have three protein bars for, you my lunch and,

Kimberly Snyder (27:29.069)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (27:40.98)
No concern with fiber, it’s all protein right now.

Tim (27:44.203)
Absolutely. we say, you realize, well, you know, that 90 % of Americans are getting enough protein already, and you can’t store it. And you’re just paying it out and you know, or it’s turning to fat. And they go, what? That’s not right. And yet, you know, 95 % of Americans are not getting enough fiber. So it’s a complete con by the

food industry, the supplement industry, by influencers who are selling their own special protein shakes. And the science really just doesn’t back it up. And it’s also going, you know, it’s this reaction against the plant or vegan world by saying, well, you know, you can’t get the right proteins just from eating plants, which is complete nonsense. and

Kimberly Snyder (28:37.294)
Bye.

Tim (28:39.353)
I mean, if you only have one type of plant, you just add kale every day, they have a point. You need a variety of plants to get them, but that’s the whole point of what we’re trying to say is, is if you have a rich, you’re eating the rainbow, you’re getting everything because every plant has a different ratio of these valuable amino acids, which make up protein. So that’s a key principle in the cookbook is we call it the, you know,

the protein pivot because it’s forget about meat as the only source, meat or fish is the only source. Think about legumes, think about your beans and have them in those meals instead so that it’s super rich. There’s any excuse to stick in beans and legumes, chickpeas, lentils, because they are just so full of protein.

Kimberly Snyder (29:27.458)
Yeah.

Tim (29:38.931)
as well as fiber. So you don’t have to worry about your protein and where you do really have to worry because everybody’s deficient in it in the US, you’re getting that extra fiber and it costs virtually nothing because you get these out of these cans or they’re frozen. They’re all fantastically nutritious and it’s so much better for you and the planet and your gut microbes.

Kimberly Snyder (29:40.919)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (30:04.716)
Yeah. You have some beautiful bean recipes, Dr. In the book, that are so colorful. And I was just looking through any of my little one, those beans. He’s like, ooh, mama, can you make that just really creative? So I really appreciate how accessible the recipes are. And I think sometimes it’s really great to get a recipe book like it,

yours where you get that new inspiration because we do eat a lot of beans but some of your recipes are totally different than the ones that we make in our home so it just sort of you know keeps things you know to your word alive and exciting and diverse.

Tim (30:44.985)
Well, yeah, and I learned a lot doing this cookbook, working with some great people. you used to have a mashed potato, know, big fat of mashed potato, very sort of warm, you know, dish, but it’s not good for you because it’s very starchy and it gives you big sugar spikes. So making a bean mash where you just get some white beans and you stick them in a processor and you add some tofu gives you this, you know,

marvellous equivalent that is so much healthier and tastier and you know it’s super quick to make and there’s lots of ways you know we use that and use that mixture as well as like a bechamel sauce in a lasagna which you know we converted my childhood sort of dream food my mum used to make a lasagna and you know

Kimberly Snyder (31:14.894)
Mm.

Tim (31:43.555)
The bechamel sauce is just basically flour and butter and water. It’s really not good for you. It be lovely, you but it’s very, and so you just create this other bean, you know, bean version. It has exactly the same mouth feel on it, but it’s giving you massive protein and fiber. And yeah, these are sort of game changers really in the way I now cook.

Kimberly Snyder (31:52.43)
Which

Kimberly Snyder (32:13.784)
So one of the things that sounds delicious, by the way, and again, a new idea that as much as we cook, there’s so much creativity that we can learn from others. That’s why I think your cookbook is so valuable. Well, there’s a lot of fear as well that is put out by certain communities about soy. And if you don’t have a soy allergy and you’re getting organic non-GMO soy, it can be a wonderful addition.

I believe. Can you speak to your opinion about that? Especially if you’re getting Tempeh or Edamame or, you know, it’s another way that you can add. And I know they used to consume it in one of the blue zones all the time. And so there’s just these fears that get put out that are, you know, sort of ubiquitous at the

Tim (33:02.031)
Yeah, the when you look at the science behind this soy good or bad, it’s rather confusing because in the US, observational studies of people who have a low soy intakes suggest they do get slightly increased risks of cancer and some other problems. But if you look in Asia,

they have people who have a lot of soy have half the risks of cancer and heart disease. So you’ve got this rather these two very differing views. But in the US, most soy consumption comes from ultra processed food. So it’s probably low quality soy and low quality food that’s causing the problem rather than the soy itself. And so I believe

Kimberly Snyder (33:29.26)
Right.

Kimberly Snyder (33:52.226)
Right.

Tim (33:54.287)
Good quality soy on its own or fermented is a really good health food and it’s certainly packed with protein. It’s fantastically good for the planet in terms of how efficient it is to make protein for us. And so I’ve become a big convert and believer. yeah, love edamame is fantastic.

Kimberly Snyder (34:19.278)
Me too.

Tim (34:23.879)
and as are all the fermented soy products that we have, as well as the tofu’s and tempeh’s, et cetera. So yeah, I’m not worried about it if you have it in its sort more natural form that has gone to the big food companies that have turned it into some monster by extracting bits out of it and sticking it with lots of other chemicals.

Kimberly Snyder (34:40.129)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (34:50.05)
Yeah. What about people that are concerned about lectins or anti-nutrients or phytic acid from what I understand, even if we soak our lentils a bit or the way you cook can actually reduce these anti-nutrients, but also it comes down to portion size as well, right? Because sometimes I feel like we’re hyper fixating on things.

And there’s other things that are much more important to focus on. Like you said, a lack of fiber. So what’s your take on that? If people are like, Dr. Spector, I’d love to start eating legumes, but I’m concerned about these things.

Tim (35:28.963)
Yes, the fear about lectins and phytates is in my view, utter rubbish. There’s no… Because as you said, what matters is what’s happening on your plate and in your gut, not in some test tube or in some artificial scenario where in theory, some of these things might do…

Kimberly Snyder (35:44.897)
Right.

Tim (35:56.239)
in certain situations act as an anti-nutrient or stop one particular nutrient working. And most of these things are deactivated when you cook them anyway. unless you’re into raw food, which I don’t approve of generally, because you get more nutrients from lightly cooked or lightly steamed foods anyway, all these fears are really just to sell books and, you know,

Kimberly Snyder (36:07.788)
Great.

Kimberly Snyder (36:25.25)
Yeah.

Tim (36:25.783)
lectin free cookbooks or other nonsense. So it’s just a fad that doesn’t take the holistic view of food into consideration. again, be relaxed about it. The body’s been doing this for a long time. It knows what to eat and avoiding again, it’s this

We keep coming back to this obsession that we need to avoid certain foods to be healthy. No, we don’t. need to put more different ones on our plate. It means you don’t necessarily just eat that one food for the whole of your life, but you have this diversity, these 30 plants that sorts it out. So even if I’m wrong, which I don’t believe I am, if you’re eating 29 other different plants that have no lector, it would be irrelevant.

So that’s the whole point of it. You cover your bases by getting this diversity out there.

Kimberly Snyder (37:30.584)
So if someone’s listening to this or you meet someone who’s in that group of the protein obsessed and we’re crossing them over to Dr. Spector’s Food for Life cookbook, how would you advise them? They really wanna hold on to a high protein diet, so they still wanna have a lot of protein, but it sounds like they can still incorporate some of your powerful principles as well.

Tim (37:54.563)
Yes, that’s right. mean, well, if they want to have a steak and eggs, you know, couple of times a week, that’s fine. I don’t have any problem with that. As long as they’re leaving room every day to have a whole range of plant proteins and plant fiber and plant nutrients, that’s fine. know, I want as many people to be shifting to

plant-based meals as possible. They don’t have to be vegan to be healthy. And I think that’s an important message generally. Vegans on average are healthier. We know that, but don’t have to do it all the way. And it can be a journey that ends up there rather than having to make a decision, you know, black or white. you know, when people realize that, you know, things like picking the right pasta,

picking the right grain, whether it’s quinoa or whether it’s a pearl barley, bulgur wheat instead of white rice, this dramatically improves the protein you’re getting from these plants. Having handful of nuts and seeds is packed with different proteins as well as omega-3s. You realize you don’t need to be stuffing your face with meat and fish which have no fiber and lack

Kimberly Snyder (39:03.32)
Mmm.

Tim (39:19.715)
many of the other things, the advantages of plants. So that’s the whole point is to try and convert a few people to realize that our diversity of plants have everything that you need. As long as you understand how to get them at a shop, right, how to choose the right ones and not rely on ultra processed food, fake foods that pretend to be doing this for you.

Kimberly Snyder (39:24.461)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (39:46.84)
Well, even at these bulk stores where it’s more inexpensive, like Costco, which I don’t know if they have them in Europe, but in America we have them. You can get these huge containers of chickpea pasta and lentil pasta, which is what my kids eat and love. And they don’t really notice the difference because there’s a good sauce on top. And it is that really high quality protein source that’s great for their gut. it’s so easy to make as parents as well.

Tim (40:15.629)
Yeah, you’ll forget you pick the right whole, know, whole grain pasta, you can have, you know, 8 % of it’s that protein and people just forget that things like wheat, protein in it, if you ask the average Joe in the population, they’d say no way that’s not true. They’re carbs, you know, and most food is a complete mixture of all these things. And yet we we stereotype each of them as

Kimberly Snyder (40:16.44)
success.

Kimberly Snyder (40:26.797)
Yeah.

Tim (40:44.331)
in these very rigid groups. So it’s about people getting more educated about what food is, all the different things that are out there. And we need to move away from what the food companies are telling us, where they love us to obsess about macronutrients and calories. That’s how they sell the junk to us. So it’s fighting a battle against this misinformation and

Kimberly Snyder (41:02.339)
Right.

Tim (41:10.959)
embracing the complexity of food and nutrition. For so long, we’ve been trying to dumb it down. I think we need to embrace it and say, listen, it is complicated. Lots of things going on. But your body needs that complexity. We’ve evolved millions of years to be eating this stuff and have a great system for using it all. We’re omnivores. We love variety.

Kimberly Snyder (41:42.616)
Doctor, as a scientist and a researcher, because people are confused and now people are eating huge amounts of red meat and some doctors are saying we were wrong all along about the cholesterol. If someone’s eating a lot of red meat, let’s say 10 eggs in a meal, say no, no, no, it’s safe now. And then they do have some plants. Is that enough to mitigate the potentially harmful effects of that type of diet? Or are you seeing in your research when you’re having, let’s say,

huge amounts of red meat every day and eggs, you know, from a microbiome standpoint and also just an overall health standpoint.

Tim (42:21.497)
Well, short term, many people report they feel fine on those diets. this is, know, influences go on Instagram and they’re talking about how I feel great, you know, just eating raw liver or I’m, know, doing this and crazy. Yeah, exactly. Some of this crazy stuff, you know, and if you’re bodybuilders or, you

Kimberly Snyder (42:30.071)
Right.

Kimberly Snyder (42:38.648)
The lion diet.

Tim (42:48.239)
eating a lot of meat and protein makes people feel good short term. But long term, all the studies show that if you’re having excess meat and got to remember the average American has twice as much meat as the average European. So anything well, are the Americans healthier than the average European? No, they’re not. They’re half as healthy. So that gives you some idea that

Kimberly Snyder (43:04.661)
Right?

Tim (43:17.271)
That’s true. So all the epidemiology studies have looked at millions of people show that any amount of highly processed meat is harmful. Okay, so that’s, that’s your sausages, that’s your mincemeat. Yeah, the deli meats, the hams, all this stuff, burgers, etc. And then people say, okay, but that’s just poor quality stuff. It’s not due to the meat, that’s just the processing. And that’s partly true.

Kimberly Snyder (43:31.896)
telling me.

Tim (43:47.265)
When they look at people eating high quality meat, they find that a small amount is perfectly healthy. having it three or four times a week, that’s fine. But if you have it once or twice a day, then your risk starts to go up long-term of heart disease and cancers, et cetera. So there’s probably a little personal element to it so that we react differently.

Some people can get rid of the saturated fat easier than others and can cope quite well with a quite high good quality meat diet. But many of us can’t. And we did this Zoe study giving every 1000 people identical meals and showed that some people couldn’t get rid of the fat after six hours. And there was a tenfold difference in how we get rid of fats from our body.

Kimberly Snyder (44:39.586)
Mmm.

Tim (44:45.827)
This is why we get these individual exceptions that some people are highly sensitive to fats, other people are not. And up to now we’ve treated everybody the same. And this is where this whole personalized nutrition comes into play because we are much more different than we have been led to believe. Because again, food companies, governments, public health, they want us to all be the same. It’s a lot easier to sell us things or tell us what to do.

Kimberly Snyder (44:56.526)
Alright.

Kimberly Snyder (45:12.194)
Right.

Tim (45:15.759)
And yet we are quite different. But on average, even if you’re eating high quality meat, you’re eating too much of it, it’s going to cause you problems.

Kimberly Snyder (45:27.244)
Yeah. And back to your book and the philosophy around diversity, around plants, around colors, around, again, not just focusing the dangers of when we focus on one macronutrient or we have this mindset that’s, you know, this is going to solve everything. If I just stuff my body full of protein, I’ll be muscular and I’ll look young at all these things versus this nuanced approach, which is so in alignment with nature.

We look at the natural ecosystems around and how much we live in Hawaii part of the time too, doctor. And you just see how abundant the forest and everything are. You can just see that we’re not meant to be in this sort of one track, very sparse sort of long-term. Yeah.

Tim (46:13.411)
Yeah, it’s like a monoculture versus this perfect ecosystem that everything is playing its part. And so, you know, if you look at monoculture soil or farms, they’re not healthy. just, they’re giving, you know, you have an artificial fertilizer, you’ve got pesticides, you’ve got herbicides, and it will grow one plant okay, that eventually it’s going to give up and that soil will be used up. Whereas

Kimberly Snyder (46:27.181)
Right.

Tim (46:41.419)
If you’ve got a more natural organic place, know, everything’s recycled and you get multiple plants, get fungi, get microbes in the soil, everything’s healthy. So it’s the same idea about soil, I think, is how we need to think of our bodies and treat it the same way. yeah.

reduce the amount of pesticides, chemicals in their antibiotics, all these things that we thought were fine, didn’t have any side effects, whereas actually they do. that’s one of the hypotheses why the Americans probably have the least healthy guts in the world is overuse of antibiotics as children and plus the ultra processed food.

you know, throughout their lives that that and imagine if you think of your body a bit like soil, you can see exactly why that that happens. So I think, you know, we’re at a turning point now. I think people are talking about ultra processed foods and hopefully, you know, we’ve got rid of this idea that it’s only about, you know, the only thing that matters is calories and that we’re

Kimberly Snyder (47:43.107)
Wow.

Tim (48:00.719)
we’re shifting from calories to quality. And that means realizing what foods are ultra processed. And in the US, 60 % of everything that’s eaten by adults is ultra processed and about 70 % in kids. Realizing what that stuff is, avoiding it as much as you can, it’s pretty hard to do it completely. Cutting right back and getting back to basics, I think is really the…

the way forward. But I think we’re at a turning point now, enough people are talking about it, that I’m starting to, for the first time, I’m optimistic about, you know, the American, the future American gut, I think it’s moving in the right direction, finally.

Kimberly Snyder (48:39.928)
that’s good.

Kimberly Snyder (48:46.924)
Well, thank you so much for playing a part in that evolution and that optimistic improvement, doctor. Your book is wonderful. Once again, it’s called the Food for Life Cookbook, 100 Plus Recipes Created with Zoe. And depending on when you listen to this show, it will be available for pre-order or actual order. We will link to it directly in our show notes. And also, doctor, where can we find out more about your book and your work?

as well.

Tim (49:18.391)
Yeah, so I’m on Instagram, Tim Spector on Instagram, or you can follow Zoe on Instagram, or we have a website where people, if they want to test themselves, for example, to check out their gut health and their personalized responses and get a personalized plan for eating mindfully, they go to zoe.com and

They can get that in the US just as they can in the UK now. So and join our members on that. So that’s the way forward. There’s also we do a podcast just on nutrition, which has a wide range of specialist scientific topics as well called Zoe Science and Nutrition. So lots of ways you can find out about us. Don’t have to spend money. You can do it any way you want.

Kimberly Snyder (50:11.672)
Well, wonderful, doctor. And I absolutely love your book. It’s so beautiful and bright and useful. I know me and my family will be inspired with many of your recipes. So I highly recommend Dr. Spector’s book. Again, we’ll link to it in the show notes at mysaluna.com. Thank you so much, Tim, for being here with us today.

Tim (50:30.807)
It’s been a pleasure, Kimberly. Love it. Come back soon.

Kimberly Snyder (50:35.35)
And thank you all so much for tuning in. We’ll be back here Thursday, as always, for our next Q &A show. Check out the show notes, take great care of yourself, and look forward to seeing you back here soon.

Research-based Healthy Gut and Plant Forward Diets with Tim Spector [Ep. 969]

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