Top 20 Eating Tips to Help You Live Long and Stay Healthy

Nutritionist and epidemiologist Tim Spector, author of the book Food for Life, reveals 20 simple dietary changes to achieve better health.

Instead of following crash diets or setting unattainable resolutions, small, practical changes are easier to maintain and can still enhance your health.

1. Aim to eat a variety of 30 different plants each week

Gut bacteria, which play a crucial role in supporting gut health, thrive on a diverse range of fibers. To ensure a rich variety of beneficial gut bacteria, it’s essential to eat a wide array of different plants. This can include fresh herbs, spices, nutritious nuts, flavorful mushrooms, olives, apples, pears, and seasonal vegetables like artichokes and cabbage.

2. Add mixed spices when cooking to boost gut health

Spices introduce beneficial plant chemicals known as polyphenols into the human diet. Just like fiber, gut bacteria use polyphenols as fuel to produce numerous beneficial metabolites for the immune system.

For example, turmeric and saffron have excellent anti-inflammatory properties. Simply adding a teaspoon of mixed spices to your food daily can improve the composition of your gut microbiome and metabolic processes.

3. Use extra virgin olive oil for cooking and dressing

Extra virgin olive oil has a secret weapon against oxidation: its high polyphenol content, which can be up to 600 times higher than other oils.

Even when cooking extra virgin olive oil at high temperatures in the oven (above 200°C), it retains more beneficial compounds compared to equivalent seed oils or butter. The longest-living people in the world use olive oil for cooking everything.

4. Sun-dry mushrooms before consumption

Mushrooms are rich in natural vitamin D precursors. Exposure to sunlight helps produce a substantial amount of vitamin D2.

Eating more mushrooms is a great way to enhance your diverse fiber intake, plant protein, and beneficial compounds unique to mushrooms. Mushrooms have also been shown to be a beneficial supplement for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.

5. Eat the colorful outer parts of vegetables instead of discarding them

The outer leaves of broccoli, cauliflower heads, and mushroom stems, or the skins of apples and pears are where most of the plant-protective chemicals are produced, helping the plants thrive even in less favorable environments.

However, the outer layers can also accumulate pesticides from non-organic produce, so always wash them thoroughly before cooking. Soaking vegetables in a baking soda solution can help remove any remaining pesticides on the skins.

6. Use miso paste instead of stock cubes

Stock cubes add flavor, salt, and a strong umami taste to many dishes. However, miso, one of the oldest fermented foods, can provide a similar umami flavor while also supporting gut health.

Miso is the perfect addition to soups, stews, and sauces. Its biological properties are preserved if added at the end of the cooking process (to avoid boiling temperatures that can kill the beneficial bacteria).

7. Use Tabasco sauce

As a fermented food, Tabasco sauce contains a significant amount of beneficial plant chemicals from the mixed spices and peppers it contains. Tabasco sauce also enhances gut bacteria vitality and the eater’s taste buds without adding sugar.

A variety of foods contributes to a healthy life. (Image: Fatherly).

8. Chop onions and garlic 10 minutes before cooking

This helps the beneficial polyphenols known as sulforaphane remain intact during cooking. A simple tip is to chop them in batches and freeze them for future use, so you always have a ready supply rich in sulforaphane in your freezer.

9. Eat a variety of colorful vegetables

These vegetables contain beneficial plant compounds such as polyphenols, which serve as excellent fuel for gut bacteria.

10. Eat pasta made from spelt or chickpeas

Pasta is delicious but can cause blood sugar spikes for many of us. Substitute your regular pasta with pasta made from spelt flour or chickpeas to increase fiber intake and reduce blood sugar or stress on the body.

11. Eat beans instead of pasta

Beans are a great source of protein, fiber, polyphenols, and complex carbohydrates at an affordable price. Start slowly by simply adding a spoonful of beans to your daily meals. Once your gut bacteria have adapted to beans in the diet, you can gradually increase the amount used. Beans can be cooked with sauces typically served with pasta instead of the pasta itself in meals.

12. Have breakfast with steel-cut oats instead of instant oats

Instant oats cook faster, but due to processing, the sugars in instant oats can be absorbed into the bloodstream more quickly.

Opt for the least processed steel-cut oats for breakfast. Although they take longer to cook, they provide more flavor and nutrients, such as B vitamins and fiber. You can add nuts, seeds, and fresh fruits, avoiding added sugars, syrups, or jams with high free sugar content.

13. Steam vegetables minimally to maximize nutrients

Many plant nutrients are water-soluble and sensitive to high temperatures. Therefore, to keep vegetables nutrient-rich and crunchy, steam them in a minimal amount of water for just a few minutes.

14. Eat frozen vegetables

Greens start losing nutrients after being harvested due to oxidation. Frozen vegetables can solve this issue: as they are harvested and frozen within hours, the oxidation process is halted and nutrient content is preserved.

This is a perfect choice for those looking to improve their plant intake while reducing food waste.

15. Include small amounts of fermented foods daily

Fermented foods benefit glucose metabolism. Just a small amount of fermented food in your daily diet, like adding some sauerkraut to your salad or replacing soda with kombucha tea, is enough.

16. Eat full-fat yogurt without added flavors or sweeteners

Many flavored yogurts contain additives and sweeteners, which can be classified as ultra-processed foods. Switching back to yogurt with live cultures is one of the simplest changes we can make for our health, especially for children.

17. Choose dark chocolate over milk chocolate

Chocolate has long been considered a “bad” food contributing to an unhealthy diet.

However, dark chocolate, which contains at least 70% cocoa, is actually very good for the body. Studies show that this type of chocolate contains polyphenols that are beneficial for gut health, vascular health, and even pregnancy. It also positively impacts mood and taste.

18. Drink red wine instead of white wine or beer

Drinking alcohol is often viewed as harmful because alcohol and its breakdown products can cause inflammation and neurotoxicity. However, red wine contains a lot of resveratrol—a beneficial polyphenol for gut bacteria and overall health—along with hundreds of similar compounds.

Drinking red wine in moderation can help mitigate some negative effects, providing benefits for your gut and heart.

19. Eat artisanal or unpasteurized cheese

Unpasteurized and artisanal cheeses contain live bacterial strains. In contrast, many cheeses today, like shredded cheese, sliced cheese, and block cheese, have been processed and contain no probiotic strains.

20. Eating Pickled Mustard Greens Without Vinegar

Many types of pickled vegetables are preserved in vinegar, which kills bacteria. Therefore, when purchasing pickled cabbage and other fermented vegetables, make sure that they do not contain vinegar.

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