How to reduce your heart disease, dementia and cancer risk with 12 everyday high-fibre foods | Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall & Prof Sarah Berry

Introduction to Fiber

0:00Welcome to Zoe Science and Nutrition, where world-leading scientists explain how their research can improve your health.

0:14Imagine discovering that one of the most powerful tools for protecting your health has been hiding in plain sight all along. Not locked away in an expensive supplement or the latest wellness trend, but sitting quietly on supermarket shelves, overlooked for decades. For years, protein has dominated the conversation. It's been added to cereals, yogurts, snack bars, and even water. But while we've been chasing protein, an essential part of our diet has all but disappeared from our plates.

Fiber's Comeback

0:44Now, fiber is making an unexpected comeback. From social media fees to supermarket shelves, people are suddenly paying attention to it. But is this just another nutrition craze, or are we rediscovering something we should never have neglected in the first place? If so, how do we end up eating so little? And can getting more really be as simple as reaching for more peas? Many of us are intimidated by fiber. Unlike protein ice cream, plants require us to actually do something with them.

1:14Luckily, joining me today is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, a legendary chef who champions seasonal local ingredients. In the UK, he's a household name, known for his TV show, River Cottage. His new book, High Fiber Heroes, celebrates 12 everyday ingredients that prove that eating more fiber doesn't have to be expensive or complicated, and certainly not boring. Also joining me is Sarah Berry, professor of nutrition at King's College London, a world leader in large-scale human nutrition studies, and chief scientist at ZOE.

1:44Today, Hugh will not only show us why these ingredients aren't boring, but also outline some wonderfully easy ways to incorporate them into our everyday diet.

Exploring Fiber's Importance

1:53In this episode, we'll explore why so many of us are dangerously short on fiber, if fiber maxing is the next big nutrition movement, and which plants are the best. We'll also hear why Hugh believes everyday vegetables deserve hero status, and discover simple, delicious ways to eat more of them, starting today.

2:14Hugh, do you have some fantastic yet simple recipes for us today? I certainly do. That's a yes. Sarah, can you get all the protein you need from plants? Yes. Hugh, does following a high-fiber diet have to be expensive? No. Sarah, is fiber maxing a dangerous new internet craze? No. Hugh, is cooking fiber-rich meals difficult and technical? No. Sarah, I don't like kale. Do I need to eat it to be healthy?

2:49Oh, no. I don't like it either. But you should try my kale porridge. Hugh, in the Elizabethan era, did women sometimes wear carrots in their hats? Yes. One of my favorite things from the book. Okay, and finally, Hugh, what's the most common myth about fiber that you come up against? I think the most common myth about fiber is that it's somehow boring or difficult or both, and it's absolutely neither. And we'll knock that myth on the head in the next hour or so.

3:19I do think that the word fiber immediately feels really boring to me. And it's felt like for a long time, protein has been this incredibly sexy nutrient that's been in the spotlight. But I have noticed that the public's attention definitely seems to be turning towards fiber over the last year. And so I think one of the questions is, is this like yet another social media craze that benefits no one, that's driven by some people trying to sell some things and then we'll move on? I'm looking forward to understanding whether this is a long-term trend or yet another internet flash in the pan.

3:54But can I just start with the beginning? Like, what is fiber and where does it come from?

Chef's Perspective on Fiber

4:01Well, from a chef's point of view, fiber is basically a really exciting and useful thing that's in almost all plants in one form or another. Just to pick up on the boring question, if we think about fiber in a reductive way, the fiber inside the plant, maybe we extract it all as bran or some sort of chicory reduction or something. And then we start using it as an ingredient additive or we sell it in capsules. That's pretty boring. When we talk about fiber in our kitchen and in our recipes, we should never forget the wrappers.

4:33The wrappers are plants. They're all the best ingredients you can have in your kitchen. They're full of flavor. They're full of goodness. You can eat a lot of them raw. They blend together to make incredible flavors. They stand out on their own. So it's the vegetables and plants, nuts and seeds and whole grains that are the fiber packages that stop fiber being boring. If all you wanted was to get the fiber out of them and eat that, that would be pretty dull. We don't need to and we definitely shouldn't. We should be embracing the wonderful myriad diverse packages of fiber, which are plants.

Fiber's Role in Health

5:06And Sarah, why is fiber important for our health? So fiber is important because it impacts so many different mechanisms related to health. Most importantly, it impacts our gut microbiome, but it also impacts how we metabolize food, how full we feel, how quickly we absorb food, where we digest food. It impacts, therefore, so many different chronic diseases. And we know that if you have a higher intake of fiber, it reduces your risk of cardiovascular disease, of strokes, of heart attacks, of certain cancers.

5:41And we're now starting to understand there's even evidence emerging around many other diseases, such as Alzheimer's, for example, and other cancers. And this is because partly the role it plays in terms of our gut microbiome. We know that what we call soluble or fermentable fibers. So these are fibers that pass through our gut, enter our large intestine, and then provide this wonderful food for our gut bugs. We know that these then can be eaten in simple terms by our microbes.

6:12They use them for wonderful fuel, so they're all happy having their party, which is great. We know we love it, Zoe, a healthy gut microbiome. But they also produce byproducts. These byproducts are called short-chain fatty acids. And these short-chain fatty acids have lots and lots of diverse roles in our body from impacting inflammation. So, for example, reducing inflammation to impacting our hunger signals. We know that inflammation is at the heart of many chronic diseases. And so fiber plays a really important role in feeding the gut microbiome and creating all of these amazing chemicals.

6:45But it also does other things as well. So as well as the soluble fiber that reaches our gut and provides the food for our microbes, we also have insoluble fiber. And insoluble fiber is the kind of fiber that you might actually notice more when you're eating food. Yeah, when you chew celery or a cabbage leaf, you actually end up with a sort of wad of fiber, which may be your problem with kale. I was literally thinking that is my problem with kale. But if you cook the kale right and make it nice and tender, maybe strip out the middle stalk, which, of course, you can then put in a beautiful ferment because it's a brilliant ingredient in a kimchi or a sauerkraut.

7:21That's where the microbes go to work outside of your tummy and get some of the work done before they go in. But that's such a brilliant summary from Sarah, touching on so many important roles that fiber has. I mean, a sort of layman's description that I like to use is that fiber becomes almost like the soil in your gut microbe garden. And like a good soil or a good compost, it's great if it's been contributed to by many diverse types of plant offering up different types of fiber. And even the soluble fibers from different plants will be different from each other and the insoluble fibers.

7:55And they have other things with them, which will add to the diversity of food on offer to the microbes. So if you want your gut microbiome garden to be blooming, fiber is the magic soil and the compost all rolled into one that will make it bloom. And I think as well, the role that it plays in the microbiome, which is really, really important, I think it's important to recognize the other roles that fiber plays. So we've got these two kinds of fibers, the soluble and insoluble, and they act in slightly different ways. Hence, like you said, it's so important to get a diversity because you want both mechanisms of action.

8:30But then once in your stomach, both the soluble and insoluble cause a bit of the swelling of the tummy. These stretch receptors in your tummy feed back to your brain, say, hey, you're full. You don't need to eat any more food, which for most of us is a good thing in the food environment we live in. Then when it enters a small intestine, which is where your stomach empties the food into, the soluble fibers particularly form a gel-like substance. And so it's quite thick. So what that does is it slows down the rate that your food is passing through your gastrointestinal tract, slows down the rate it's passing through your small intestine.

9:04Why is that important? Well, it's important for a number of reasons. It means, firstly, assuming you're eating that fiber with other foods, which is how you should be eating it. So you're consuming it as part of a food that will have carbohydrates in, might have sugar in. So fruit, for example, it will delay the rate at which you're absorbing the sugar, so the glucose, into your bloodstream. So you'll get a lovely kind of blunted, natural, normal peak in blood glucose, blood sugar that your body handles then very well. The other thing that happens that I think is really exciting, you also absorb it slightly lower down your gastrointestinal tract.

9:39It's passing more slowly. It's not absorbed rapidly at the top, the other bits of the food. And what that means is you have more of these fullness receptors. So like GLP receptors, most people have heard of GLP, you know, your kind of fullness hormone. And so it's there for activating more of these receptors because the fiber is allowing it to be digested lower down your gastrointestinal tract. So again, it's feeding back saying, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're full. And then the magic happens as well in the large intestine, in the colon, like we've just discussed.

10:12So you have all of this wonderful soluble fiber that the gut microbes feed on. I asked a question at the beginning about how many people are eating enough fiber, and you said less than one in 10. So how much fiber are we supposed to be aiming for each day?

10:30Another notification. Something else to add to the to-do list? Is it work? Is it life admin? Or maybe another email from your boss? Your heart rate might be quickening at the thought. After all, life is full of little moments that add to our mental load. If you're feeling wired, tired, irritable, or on edge, that's your hormones responding to everyday stresses. They're trying to tell you something, and your diet could be part of the solution. Your gut is a hormone factory, producing and responding to all the hormones that affect your hunger, mood, energy levels, and stress responses.

11:07Feeding it the right foods is a crucial step to supporting those systems. That's why gut health experts, Zoe, and reproductive health pioneers, Hertility, have teamed up to create a free guide, grounded in science, to help you decode what your hormones are trying to tell you. You'll find out how stress responses can impact your body, and how diet influences hormones, metabolism, and mood. You'll also find delicious recipes that support these systems. Learn more about your hormones today, and download the free guide at zoe.com forward slash Hertility, or click the link in the episode description.

Daily Fiber Recommendations

11:43So, in the UK, our guidelines are 30 grams of fiber a day. In the US, they give a recommendation based on how many calories you consume. So, they say 14 grams per 1,000 calories. So, that's anywhere between, let's say, 25 grams to kind of around 38, 40. That's what the current recommendations are, but there's so much emerging evidence now of these added benefits, particularly for our gut microbiome, that suggests that actually an ideal amount would be potentially to go to 40, or even to go to 50.

12:18The problem is, is fiber, like you said, is being considered boring, unsexy. There hasn't been loads of research on these different amounts. So, we believe as nutrition scientists that to go up to 40 would be a fantastic amount to achieve. I think it's very hard to overdo it with the fiber, if your main source of fiber is natural whole foods. I think it's important to say that if you know you're at a pretty low fiber intake at the moment, you don't want to go from zero to hero too rapidly, because there are consequences for your tummy getting used to a high fiber diet.

12:51So, take it a little bit at a time. Don't go onto a massive fiber fest straight off the blocks. But if you do it gradually, you can build things up, you know, within a matter of a few weeks, you can get to that 30. And if you want to, you know, smash it and go up to 40, you start to just know when you are moving in the right direction. You feel the benefits. You see plates of food that just look right once you start to read fiber. What makes everything Sarah said so important about the slowing down and the sending the little microbe love letter to the brain?

13:24Thank you so much for this glorious fiber. You can stop eating now. And we're just going to have a marvelous time looking after the fiber, looking after you. Leave it with us. That's a great message. It's such an important message in contrast to what's going to be happening if you're eating a lot of very low fiber, highly processed foods, where very different events are going to be going on in your microbiome and very different messages are going to be sent to your brain. And they're going to be messages like, have you just eaten something?

13:57I thought I tasted something, but now I'm not so sure because I don't feel full. Well, if it slipped down easily, why not have another mouthful? Oh, go on. I'm not sure I'm there yet. That's the kind of messages we're getting when we eat a lot of junk food. So we overeat. We don't feel full. And we don't look after our microbes with that lovely garden of fiber. Brilliant. I've just come back from a vacation in Scotland, which was brilliant. But I had the same experience that I often have when I'm traveling, you know, driving around, going to lots of places.

14:28You really have no idea what you're going to get to eat until you sit down at the restaurant. And there were some cases where I was able to get lots of plants. And there are others where it's almost impossible to find it on the menu. And I definitely notice how I feel now when I've had a meal that sort of hasn't had any of these plants and any of this fiber in a way that I never would have been aware of how it made me feel 10 years ago. So it's something you can sort of learn to be aware of. But I think we're not generally brought up to be attuned to this.

15:01But it's a very self-reinforcing thing. If you make a few changes in your shopping and cooking and you're feeling the benefits within weeks, if not days, that's fantastically reinforcing. And that's what I think helps people. But also, the idea that it has to be all very virtuous and sort of bland or austere, completely wrong. I mean, high fiber meals, you know, they can be spicy. They can be saucy. They can be full of delicious things that make them exciting and fun to eat.

15:32But it's not about suddenly going on this hair shirt diet of eating, you know, boiled cabbage and raw carrots. Totally agree. And in fact, the best meals that I had were high in fiber and delicious and had all sorts of other things as well. Hugh, before we go on, could you put this like 30 grams a day into context? Like, I have no idea what a gram is. Like, what does that look like on a plate? Well, if you've got a plate in front of you, like a nice beanie chili, whether it's got meat in it or not, if it's got some beans, carrots, onions, and you're a reasonably generous portion, maybe with a small portion of brown rice rather than a big portion of white rice, you're probably close to a third of the way there.

16:14You're probably eight, nine, or if you're the generous helping, close to 10 grams of fiber on that plate, particularly if you've gone for the whole grain rice. Maybe there's a quick breakfast of whole grain toast with a little bit of nut butter on it as you fly out the door. Probably, again, six, seven grams of fiber. You might get something similar from a bowl of muesli or granola. So if you're making these whole natural food choices quite regularly, and some of them are built into your routine, and then whenever you cook, you've always got two or three veg and maybe some pulses going into, even if you're eating meat or fish or whatever,

16:51you're back on track. The issue is that so many of us are dependent on meals that we don't make ourselves. They're made for us by manufacturers who want cheap ingredients, want malleable ingredients, so therefore they're using refined white flours, be they from wheat or maize or rice, and spinning them into all sorts of combinations that they're very good at pushing our buttons and getting our taste buds going. Let's not pretend that the problem with ultra-processed food is either any more than it needs to be with high fiber food.

17:23It's not that it's bland and boring. It's that it's very easy to eat. It's probably got something crispy and spicy on the outside and creamy and gooey or easy to swallow in the middle, and it presses a lot of buttons. But nutritively, it is very, very lacking in the stuff that we need. Not just fiber, but serious nutrients. The team said to me that an apple has about four and a half grams. Is that right, Sarah? Yeah, around that. So does that mean that, you know, I could eat whatever it is, seven apples or something a day, I'd get my 30 grams, and I've solved my problem?

18:01Well, it would be great that you're getting 30 grams of fiber, but there is increasing evidence regarding the importance of having a diversity of different fiber types. So we touched briefly on the fact that you've got soluble and insoluble, and, you know, in simple terms, the soluble feed your gut microbes, the insoluble bulk out your stomach, bulk out your poo, et cetera, et cetera. But within those groups, there's so many different fiber types, and they all behave very differently. So, for example, the fiber that's in apples, pectin, that's a fabulous soluble fiber that will feed your gut microbes, but not all your gut microbes like pectin.

18:36And so what we know is that different microbes preferentially feed on different types of fiber. And we know from our own ZERI research and other published research that it's important to encourage a diversity of different microbes, particularly the good microbes. So you want a diversity of different foods. But we also know some fibers have very specific functions. So take oats, which contain beta-glucans. We know that beta-glucans have a really potent role in reducing our bad cholesterol, our LDL cholesterol. We've done a whole podcast on this, Jonathan, for anyone that wants to find out the mechanism.

19:08And so, for example, if you want to benefit from all the wonders of fiber in terms of our health, getting that diversity means that you're getting everything from the cholesterol-lowering effect to the stool-bulking effect to the cancer-reducing effect to the microbiome effect. And then even more importantly, which picks up on a really important point that you said as well, is that you're actually getting all the other wonderful things that come with those foods. So you're not just getting in an apple the fiber. You're getting all the polyphenols that are in that apple that you wouldn't get just from a fiber extract, for example.

19:42And that's why diversity, in my opinion, is so important. So it's not just quantity. It's also the quality, the foods that it's coming from, but also the diversity of those fibers. And, of course, that's what makes life in the kitchen interesting. You know, different flavors, different tastes, different textures, different ingredients every day. That doesn't mean an endless shopping list. And, of course, if you work through the seasons, different things become available to swap in for other things. And then you get a chance to just explore in a way that fits in with what's best and freshest.

20:14And, you know, so you can get a fantastically diverse high fiber diet based very largely on homegrown British seasonal produce. Well, let's talk about this fiber maxing trend, which has been shooting around the Internet so that even I have noticed it.

Fiber Maxing Trend

20:31I mean, firstly, Hugh, what is fiber maxing? I don't spend masses of time online looking at the latest food trends, but I think it's also useful to be aware of what's going on. And I did look at some fiber maxing stuff earlier in the year, and I was sort of mostly really quite happy with it. And a lot of it's quite good fun. And also, fiber maxing as a trend tends to be offering up pretty whole natural foods, quite a big diversity of them, because one thing people want to be online is a little bit original, and they want to do something a bit different.

21:03So that's all good. And the one thing about it that I think maybe is just a tiny bit misleading is there's a huge amount of emphasis on seeds and nuts and grains that are very high in fiber, which is not wrong. But the way in which fiber maxes tend to count their fiber, obviously dry ingredients are going to have higher per gram or per 100 gram scores than fresh vegetables, simply because fresh vegetables are between 70% and 85% water.

21:37So no wonder 100 grams of chia seeds is going to have more fiber than 100 grams of tomato. The irony is that whenever you're eating dry, fibery things, you've got to add a load of water. You know, you can't have the chia seeds without pouring on the water. And yet they get this fantastic high fiber per 100 gram score compared to, I don't know, cabbages or cucumbers or leeks or apples. And that's a little bit misleading because it sort of tends to put a higher value on them.

22:08It's like top trumps for fiber, chia seeds beat an apple. And it kind of doesn't because the apple's got a beautiful package with all the water that helps you digest it. It's got different fiber in the skin than it has in the flesh of the apple. And having said that, nuts, seeds, whole grains, great ingredients. But don't think that they're the shortcut that means you don't need the fresh fruit and vegetables because somehow you've got these magically high fiber ingredients here. Fresh fruit and vegetables are a brilliant package.

22:39When you're increasing your fiber intake, yes, like you said, you need to increase it slowly. But it's really, really important you also consume adequate amounts of water because we know the fiber absorbs the water. Otherwise, you can actually have the reverse happening to what you would think would happen. And you can actually end up with constipation as well as lots of other GI symptoms. So make sure as you're increasing your fiber, you also increase your fluid intake. So, Sarah, like we're talking about fiber maxing, but the, you know, the other trend that, you know, I'm really aware of is that the whole world has gone crazy about protein and it's been added to, you know, everything.

Protein Craze

23:17How do you think about that craze? And has that actually played into the, you know, the amount of fiber that we're all eating? So I think the protein craze is a totally unnecessary waste of time craze. I'm with you on that. How many people do any of us know who are suffering from a protein deficiency? I think the protein craze is a gym bro thing. It's actually, it's about acquiring a certain type of body and it isn't necessarily always a healthy one. There is a literal recipe for getting ripped, which is time at the gym plus very low carb, high protein diet produces a particular low fat body shape that some people think is very desirable.

23:58That does not represent gut health. It does not represent overall health. It's a body shape. And I think people have extrapolated from that so that people who actually aren't even that bothered about their body shape are grabbing high protein bars off the shelf thinking it's doing them some kind of good. And I'm happy to hear you say that, Sarah. I've just expressed a slightly kind of, not necessarily irrational, but a fairly strong prejudice. And I'd now love you to give me the fantastic scientific backup. Am I right, Sarah? You are right, Hugh. It started like with the gym bros and then all these claims about protein keeps you fuller for longer.

24:33So feeds into also people's, you know, fear of overeating, weight management, etc. My 13-year-old son joined a gym a couple of weeks ago. And he's never had any interest in nutrition, Hugh, despite what I do. But suddenly he's like, oh, my God, where can I get pure protein? Obviously, he started watching certain people on TikTok. There's a massive difference between fibre maxing, protein maxing. Fibre, we have a massive deficiency. Most countries internationally are not consuming enough fibre.

25:03In the US, in the UK, in many, many countries, we're now getting more protein. than what is considered necessary for normal bodily function. OK, there isn't a harm in getting more. But if it's at the cost of other good nutrients, that becomes a problem. What we've seen, recent analysis actually that was just published only recently, showed over the last 10 to 15 years, the intake in the UK, and I would imagine it's similar in the US, of protein has increased by 20%. Now, that's quite big. Now, what's good news is we have seen very recently a slight increase in fibre in the UK and the US.

25:36But, I mean, we're talking tiny. We're talking about half a gram to a gram. Now, there is the question of by protein maxing, are we then limiting our fibre? There isn't much data actually to show that by adding in more protein, those people tend to have less fibre in their diets. And we've analysed from our own Zoe Predicts studies, looking at if people who have more protein, do they tend to have less fibre? Now, if people are doing it in the way that we would advise people to do it, you can get a really good level of protein and a good level of fibre in your diet.

26:11Where it becomes a problem is more, I think, Hugh, these kind of gym bros that are really minimising their carbohydrate. And once you minimise your carbohydrate in order to increase your protein to less than about 25% of your calories, that's when it becomes really tricky to get enough fibre. Yeah, because you're starting to tell yourself that a carrot's got too much carb or a whole grain has got too much carb. So these things that have got loads of good things that are healthy foods are being struck off your list in favour of more protein that you don't really need.

26:42So before we start switching to focus on these high fibre heroes and what we can do,

Eating Meat and Fish

26:47I guess I just want to wrap up around protein and ask you, Hugh, about what are your thoughts, therefore, on eating meat and fish? You historically were rather famous for this. Have you now thrown it out the window and it's only vegetables on your plate? I'm still an omnivore. I mean, I've written books about fish and meat separately, quite big tomes on each of them. But overall, I've written a lot more about eating plants, some of that more recently. But I've always been a huge fan of veg. And what I've learnt about meat and fish is they are great ingredients.

27:21If you source them well, they're very healthy and they can be sustainable. But what I've learnt from a chef's point of view is they're quite tyrannical ingredients and they hog a lot of attention. For chefs and enthusiastic home cooks, if you've got a nice piece of meat, that's what you make your fuss about. Your marinade or you put it on a barbecue to get the nice chargurl stripes on it or you concentrate on getting the skin of the fish perfectly crispy. And when you're obsessing with your main animal protein-based ingredient, you start to forget everything to do with the veg starts to be the bit on the side.

27:54And that's the emphasis that's really changed in the way I cook. I've sort of recalibrated. And in order to do it, I did become vegetarian for six months, not with a view to it necessarily being a permanent change, but a way to it just shifting the way I cook so that I wanted to have a repertoire of absolutely slam-dunk, veg-only, delicious dishes, which I could go to whenever I wanted as a break. And the best way to enjoy really good plant-based food is not to have a bit of meat and fish next to it to compare it with.

28:25And the best way to make a lot of plant ingredients delicious is to give them a little bit of that attention, like maybe a little bit of oily marinade with some spices in it, put it in the oven, make it crispy, concentrate the flavors, caramelize it, put it on the barbecue. There are very few vegetables that can't be barbecued. Get some of those charcoal stripes on the veg, not just on the meat. Build up those flavors and the complexity. Combine different ingredients for contrast. And then you start finding that these plant-based meals

28:56really start punching through, delighting the palate, and they don't seem like the poor relative of the plate that's got a big piece of meat or fish on it. You know, as ever, it's so much about balance. And it is fair to say that my balance has shifted and I eat less meat, probably not much less fish because I live by the sea and I've got an opportunity to get very fresh, sustainably caught fish. But I'm just more comfortable than I've ever been about putting plants-only food on the table more than half the week. Let me put it like that.

29:26I mean, we've got, we've raised chickens, goats. We've had goats and sheep at home, occasionally beef. And so I usually have a freezer full of home-reared meat, but it doesn't come out every day. It comes out once or twice a week, and then it has at least two or three outings. And if I've taken something out at the weekend, that's probably it for, that might be it for 10 days because there's lots of things to enjoy with the leftovers. If you want any behavior change from anyone anywhere about anything, you've got to promise

29:59that life is not going to get worse, you know, that actually it's going to get better. So people believe you say it's going to get better because you're going to feel better. They can probably buy into that. But does that mean it has to taste worse? Because if that's the root, I'm not sure I'm up for it. The answer is it absolutely doesn't have to mean that. I feel like that is the beautiful transition to start to talk about, okay, so what can I do if I'm listening to this

Increasing Fiber Intake

30:23and saying, well, I would like to increase my fiber intake. I've heard this brilliant story from Sarah that, you know, 30 grams a day is going to make me live longer and be healthier, like 40 grams even more, probably 50 grams even further away. So just like the more I can do, the better. But actually, I have no idea really how to do that. And Hugh, your new book focused on 12 high fiber heroes. And I was expecting them all to be like difficult to find, you know, rare plants. They're really expensive. You thought chia seeds would be at the top of the list.

30:54I definitely thought chia seeds would be at the top of the list. But they're not at all. And I'm going to put you on the spot here. Do you think if I asked you to list your 12 heroes, you might be able to run through them? I'll give it a shot. Peas, carrots, sweet corn, mushrooms, broccoli, cabbage, tomatoes, beans, lentils. How many have I said so far? There's a couple more. The point being basically that they're ingredients. Everybody knows already.

31:25They know what they look like. You know where to get them. You've probably got some of them in your fridge or your cupboard already. They are basically the most accessible, most inexpensive vegetables. I don't mind if they're tinned or frozen. Some of them you're obviously going to be more inclined to buy fresh, but you know what they are. But you're still probably thinking of them as the virtuous side veg. So the aim of the book is to sing about them as the heroes that they are or can be in your kitchen. And the way to do that, as we've hinted at,

31:56is to put them center stage and make them the star of the dishes. So each vegetable has a chapter. And in that chapter, it has eight or nine recipes. And I can promise you in each one, you'll get a couple of salads, a couple of big hearty soups, a couple of stovetop main courses, and a couple of things you can slam in the oven. So sort of tray roasts. They can really start delivering for flavor, for color, for excitement, and not be the boring bit on the side. We're not going to have time to go through all 12 of these,

32:27but I would like actually to dip into four or five today. Sure. And actually, the very first hero in your book is the humble pea, which we've already started to talk about. And I'm really curious, why did you choose to start with the pea of all things? Partly because I think most people have got a packet of frozen peas in their freezer. Most people quite like peas, but they don't get super excited about chasing them around the plate after they've finished the lamb chop. And so my invitation is to get them

32:58into the middle of the dish and let them be the hero. I mean, I'm a huge fan of fresh vegetables, and lots of the vegetables I suggest are things you will generally buy fresh. But the pros and peas, let's be clear, that's not an ultra-processed food. A tin of beans with no sauce, but just in a little bit of brine, which you can crack open and tip into any curry or soup, anything saucy, again, that's not an ultra-processed food. These are natural ingredients, minimally processed or fresh. And they do everything for you

33:30that Sarah has been talking so eloquently about. If you just take those dozen vegetables, for most people, just to bring half of those in or most of those in over a couple of weeks, all accessible most of the year round, you've already upped your diversity within the realm of things that are very familiar, inexpensive and accessible. And hopefully by delving into the recipes, you've upped the taste and flavour and excitement around them too. I have, without fail, a bag of garden peas in my freezer constantly.

34:00And my kids will eat them, even boring on their own with a knob of butter and a bit of salt. But it's something I know that they'll eat. And I love the fact that, again, what you've selected here is affordable and accessible because back to basics, I think, is the way to go. You've both mentioned, actually, this idea of frozen peas. I sort of just assume that frozen peas will be a lot less healthy than like fresh peas. No, absolutely not. So firstly, they're cheaper. So if you look at frozen peas, they're 10 times cheaper per 100 grams

34:31than the equivalent fresh peas. Nobody likes a homegrown fresh garden pea more than I do. But if you can't get them out of the pod within a few hours, the sugars start to turn to starch. And actually, if you're buying whole fresh peas in the pod, even at your local farm shop, if they were picked yesterday and certainly the day before, they will not be as sweet as frozen peas. If you want an incredibly dependable ingredient that you can come back to that's always going to taste sweet,

35:01that's got almost completely nutritionally intact as well compared to a fresh pea, frozen peas are a brilliant product. Yeah, and sometimes they can even be better. So they're normally frozen within about two to three hours of harvest. So you preserve the natural sugars in there so they taste sweeter. But also peas are really rich in certain vitamins and minerals that we know can be degraded by either oxygen, so by air or by light. So vitamin C is a great one. We know that the more it's exposed to air, the more that it's exposed to light, that it can start to degrade.

35:33You're freezing it straight away. You're preserving all of that vitamin C. So in many instances, the frozen pea, unless it's the one that you're literally prodding from your garden when you have it fresh, can actually be nutritionally better for you. If it's lost its flavour, it's probably lost some of its goodness. So Hugh, the only thing I can think of doing with peas is boiling them. How would you make them delicious for me? Well, I think peas are brilliant ingredients in a soup. Fry an onion, maybe a carrot, add a bit of stock, add half a bag of peas.

36:04Blitz it in the blender. If you put a pinch of curry powder in, just a pinch when you're sweating the onion, it gives a lovely warming flavour. I use a herb in the garden called lovage, which has got a curryish flavour. When I don't have lovage, I just put a pinch of curry powder in. Very lightly curried pea soup. Super easy thing. Just peas that have been bashed up with a little butter and garlic and served as a treat on their own with a few things to scoop them up with, like a warm sort of pea hummus. It's so easy to do and really, really tasty.

36:34Some of these beans, peas, pulses are actually really good sources of protein. So they'll also keep you full for longer. Now, my team asked me to ask you, Hugh, what variety of pea to use. And I was confused by that because I thought peas were just peas. So could you help me out here? Well, there aren't a load of demon bad peas out there. Here are the pea varieties you've got to steer well clear of. It's whatever works for you in your garden. And then when you're buying frozen peas, it's basically whatever's in the packet, guys.

37:06I do often, if I can get them, get organic frozen peas, which you can find in quite a lot of supermarkets. I just like to support the organic farming system where I can. Obviously, they're a bit more expensive. I think putti pois have got a certain charm. They're small. They're quite nice scattered on a salad. The idea that we only eat peas sort of hot on a plate. Peas are a brilliant ingredient for scattering in salads. If you've just got a very simple salad of the classic lettuce and cucumber, try sprinkling not just a few seeds on that, but a few quickly blanched peas,

37:36drop them into cold water again, and just fling them on top of your salad. It's a lovely pop of sweetness in a salad. Picks up a vinaigrette or a dressing really, really well. I've almost always got a bag or two of organic frozen peas in my freezer, and I do not know what variety they are. Do you have a friend or family member obsessed with getting enough protein? Or maybe someone who just discovered Fibromaxine and is adding more processed powders to their diet? Send them this episode, because it explains why fiber is having a moment, but more importantly,

38:06why getting more of it may be much simpler than the trend makes it seem.

Carrots and Fiber

38:11I'd like to move on to carrots now. Carrots were a staple of my school meals where they were boiled to death. And I have to say, as an adult, I've always felt that there's nothing really much to a carrot. The list isn't necessarily in order of hero status, but it kind of is. So the carrots are number two, and they could have been number one. And I just, I couldn't emphasize what a fantastic ingredient they are too much. They are brilliant. What I think is really interesting about carrots,

38:42I had the same experience of carrots at school. Cut into rounds and boiled in lots of water, half the flavor's gone with the water that went down the sink. They're probably cooked until they're mushy. Any sense of pleasing resistance or bite about them, that's gone too. So it is tragic that so many of our first experiences of these amazing, wonderful vegetables were disappointing, bordering on revolting. So I think one of the things you find very quickly if you've got kids, often kids don't like cooked carrots,

39:13but they do like them raw. And that's immediately gives you something to work with. Why do kids prefer raw carrots to cooked? Because they haven't been boiled and had all the flavors still in there. And they like crunch. They've got a nice crunch to them. You get the instant sweetness. The actual flavor of a carrot is intact. You've done nothing to do it to spoil the carrot. So the other end of the spectrum from ruining the flavor of a carrot by boiling is how do you make the carrot, a cooked carrot, even more delicious? And one answer to that is, go back to what I said, some of the treatment we lavish on meat and fish,

39:46let's give it to the vegetables. Let's just roast some carrots. Let's toss them in a little bit of oil, a little bit of garlic, seasoning, maybe some spices if we like, and let's roast them in a hot oven till they're just starting to go a little bit burnt on the edges. They've shrunk quite a lot. We've done the opposite of lose the flavor into the water. We've lost the water to concentrate the flavor. That's incredibly rewarding. That's why there are so many recipes in my book where vegetables get roasted or grilled or charred in a way that the water's driven out

40:18or some of the water's driven out. You get this caramelization on the surface. You concentrate the flavors. You create a new flavor by burning the sugars a little bit. Suddenly, you've got these things popping in your mouth like they're really delicious. But of course, you're not just going to put a carrot in that roasting tray. You can put some brassicas in there. You can put some Brussels sprouts. You can put some spring onions or some wedges of regular onions. They'll concentrate the flavors too. They'll also get a little bit burnt. Then you'll start a brassica in there.

40:48Even kale, which for the last five or eight minutes of your roast, you can put some kale leaves scattered over the top. They'll become concentrated and crispy. And they'll have a lovely contrasting flavor. The slight bittersweet flavor of a brassica leaf compared to the really intense sweetness of a carrot. And then the allium, the rounded out allium flavor of garlic or onions. Three things together like that, that's real deliciousness. But even before you put it on the plate, you've got an opportunity to chuck in, say,

41:20I don't know, a handful of chickpeas for the last five minutes. Creates texture, a little bit of creaminess, and again, a bit boring on their own. But again, the contrast and compare, these different plants coming together on a plate, and if you've added a little bit of spice too, I mean, that's a plate full of completely delicious food. Concentrating flavors is a key thing to think about. As soon as you start thinking about it, it becomes obvious when you're doing it. And you start, oh, I see. Well, I'm reducing this down to this. So the flavors,

41:51you know, same thing happens when you bubble down a tomato sauce from a couple of tins of tomatoes. You concentrate that flavor, concentrate the sweetness. You've added a little garlic, you get flavor from some olive oil. Then you've got a base sauce that just wraps around so many different ingredients in a delicious way. You know, carrot's a great example. Yeah, packed full of fiber, packed full of flavor. Brings lots of other nutrients. Every fruit, vegetable obviously brings different types of other nutrients, micronutrients. Take beta carotene. It's what gives the yellowy-orange color

42:22to a carrot. It's a precursor for vitamin A. So when you eat carrots, you get a load of beta carotene. Your body can convert it if it needs to into vitamin A. Vitamin A has a really important role in the functioning of your body. Both beta carotene and vitamin A are really important in terms of immune response, in terms of our vision, in terms of protecting our eye, in terms of being, particularly beta carotene, a really powerful antioxidant. You know, we know that if you're getting beta carotene from whole foods, and it's important to caveat,

42:54not from supplements, that actually you can reduce your risk of certain chronic diseases because of the antioxidant capacity of beta carotene. That's just one nutrient that's in carrots. You started with that thing that people used to put carrots in their hat. But a carrot, things become boring because they look so familiar and we've taken them for granted and we have got nowhere close to exploring their full potential or possibilities. As soon as you start doing that, they don't even look boring anymore. You go, oh, carrots, yes.

43:24They've got that amazing feathery green frond. That makes perfect sense to have that flowing like a peacock feather, but slightly less cruel to the birds, flowing off the back of your hat. That amazing pointy orange root, which, by the way, also comes in purple and yellow. People think these are funky modern varieties, but the purple carrot and the yellow are actually going back to some older varieties that predate the orange carrot. And you can be sure of one thing, and I'm betting my bottom dollar that Sarah's going to back me up on this, that a different colored version of the same vegetable

43:54is going to have a slightly different nutrient profile and different's good. You're going to get something from a purple carrot that you don't get from an orange one. Absolutely. We know that what gives different fruits, vegetables, carrots, their color, are different chemicals. Typically, these are different kinds of polyphenols, which are bioactive substances, and they all act in a different way. Jonathan, I just want to pick up on something to do with how we cook carrots because Hugh made the point, you know, and I did, about how if you eat carrots raw, typically kids prefer that, they prefer the crunch. But actually, what happens is,

44:26is that we actually absorb very little of the beta carotene if you eat the carrots raw because it's trapped within the plant cell structure, the fibrous structure of the carrot. If you cook it, then you release a lot of that beta carotene. Now, obviously, you don't want to overcook it for reasons that Hugh said. Or cook it in a sauce where what comes out of it will stay in the sauce or roast it to concentrate the flavor so the only thing that comes out is water and then you're preserving it. But tell me whether you think this is right, Sarah, but I think there's a halfway hazard.

44:57This is a great tip for getting kids to eat carrots if they don't want to munch on a big raw carrot. Grated carrots with a dressing and here's my tip. If your kids don't like a vinaigrette, just try squeezing half an orange onto a bowl of grated carrots, maybe a tiny pinch of salt and stir that in and there's suddenly a juiciness there and the acidity of the orange will start to break down a grated carrot and you will get a little bit of pre-digested beta carotene coming in that if you just munched

45:27a completely raw carrot with no dressing, you wouldn't get. So, okay, we haven't got fermentation starting yet but we've got a little bit of extraction and breaking down of the texture from the acidity of the orange and most kids love the flavor of orange. So a little squeeze of that on your carrots just to get kids interested and excited is a little hack for getting your kids into carrots. And Sarah, can I confirm that you were saying that actually if I cook the carrots suddenly I'm going to get all of these healthy nutrients out that when I didn't cook it

45:58even though I'm eating it raw I'm just not going to get the same thing. You'll still get healthy nutrients regardless of having it raw so if any parents are listening please still continue to give your kids raw carrots. It's just that you are able to access more of some of these healthy nutrients particularly the beta-carotene but then there's other tricks you can do as well. We know that beta-carotene is a fat-soluble vitamin so make sure you're drizzling oil on so if you're putting it in your air fryer or you're roasting on the barbecue whatever drizzle oil on as well because then you're having with some fat and you'll absorb even more as well.

46:30I think I wouldn't actually have thought any sort of cooking or boiling is sort of going to break stuff down and like lose some of the nutrients but actually you're saying potentially I'm getting more out of it out of this thing which I think is not obvious at all. No it's not obvious but in a way it's like if you're going to lose the nutrients where are you losing them to? If you're losing them into the sauce you haven't really lost them but I think we can probably extrapolate from what Sarah just said to almost all other vegetables. You will get different benefits from the cooked version than you will from the raw. Sometimes you'll get things from the raw

47:01which is kind of what you're hinting at that will be lost when you cook them. A cooked tomato and a raw tomato give you quite a different set of polyphenols nutrients etc and the raw will give you some stuff that you don't get when it's cooked. So cooking isn't always giving access to more sometimes it's giving you access to more and taking away things that you would get when they're raw. So cooking, raw, mix it up, bit of everything. I love that. I had originally hoped to cover many more vegetables Hugh but you are so excited about the carrots and beans.

47:32Exactly. I've made very little progress so I'm going to wrap two together. So you have a chapter on cabbage and kale and look I know kale is super trendy. I asked this question in the beginning about whether I was never going to be healthy