Issue #9 - How Much of Each Plant Food to Eat

Welcome to Weekly.health’s ninth issue. Every week, we explore cutting-edge research, actionable advice, and science-backed nutrition insights to help you live longer and healthier.

Our aim is to help you live another 10 healthy years and cut your risk of age-related disease.

🗒️ In This Issue:

• 📅 This Week at Weekly.health

• 📚 Books We’re Reading Right Now

• 🥕 Stop Guessing: Here’s How Much of Each Plant Food to Eat

• 🛍️ Things You Might Like

• ❤️ Support Weekly.health: Help us keep the research flowing

• 📘 Glossary of Terms: Definitions for technical terms in this issue

📅 This Week at Weekly.health

We wanted to bring you a slightly different issue this week.

Instead of our usual research digest and longevity section, we thought you might benefit most from some clarification on previous research we’ve covered.

In our past eight issues, we’ve covered many references to research showing that consuming more fruits, vegetables, and other plant foods, is often associated with lowered risk of all-cause mortality and various diseases.

In this issue, we’re clarifying just how much and of which plant foods you should be consuming - rather than just covering research that suggests you eat more fruit and veg yet again.

We felt this would be much more actionable and more useful to you than anything else we could cover right now.

Next week we’ll be back to normal with covering the latest research.

📚 Books We’re Reading Right Now

🥕 Stop Guessing: Here’s How Much of Each Plant Food to Eat

In the past eight issues we’ve given you many, many references to research showing that diets rich in certain plant food groups are consistently linked to longer life and reduced risk of chronic diseases.

But we’ve not covered much of the research into exactly what you should eat, or how much of it. So we thought, that’s not particularly useful, is it?

This week, we’re doing exactly that. Below, we’re showing you exactly how much of each plant food group you should consider consuming, based on current research.

We’ve broken this down into;

• The minimum amount you should consider consuming daily, based on research supporting the lowest level of consumption with benefits.

• A recommended amount, based on what appears to be highly beneficial but non-excessive level of consumption. Beneficial health outcomes increase quickly up to this level, according to research.

• The optimal or upper limit of consumption associated with beneficial effects, where beneficial effects increase up to this point but may not continue increasing beyond this level.

The below research separates plant foods into their own categories. So for instance, research on vegetables does not include whole grains or legumes, and these are given their own category, so the suggested intakes are additive and don’t overlap.

Non-starchy vegetables and fruit

Non-starchy vegetables typically include all plant parts that are not fruit, and exclude starchy vegetables such as potatoes, sweetcorn, and peas - such as leafy salads, cabbage, kale, broccoli, carrot leaves, and so on. Both leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables (such as broccoli) show the strongest data for health benefits.

We recommend to eat the rainbow and don’t just eat green vegetables or orange fruit - eat purple, orange, red, and other colours where possible, as these pigments often convey their own benefits to health.

At the lower levels of intake, data suggests to consume 60% vegetables to 40% fruit, but for higher levels there’s no fixed recommendation. Generally, you should consider consuming more vegetables than fruit.

Minimum Intake: Aim for at least ~240 g (≈8.5 oz) (~3 servings) of non-starchy vegetables daily , when combined with at least ~160 g (≈5.5 oz) (~2 servings) of fruit. That’s a total of ~400 g (≈14.1oz) (~5 servings) at 60% vegetables to 40% fruit. This is consistently associated with lower all-cause and CVD mortality when combined with fruit, and meets governmental 5 A Day recommendations. (source)

Recommended intake appears to be around 550–600 g (≈19.4–21.2 oz) (~7-7.5 servings) combined fruit+veg daily, for most of the benefit to cancer risk. (source)

Optimal intake of up to ~800 g (~28 oz) (10 servings) of combined fruit+veg, shows continued cardiovascular benefits and all-cause mortality, but generally plateaus after this level. (source)

Highlighted vegetables are leafy vegetables such as salads, and cruciferous vegetables - broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, and similar - which contain the phytochemicals glucosinolate and isothiocyanate, associated with cardiometabolic benefits and reductions in cancer risk. (source)

Highlighted fruits include apples, pears, citrus fruits, tomatoes, and berries, for their association with improved CHD, stroke, cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality risk. (source)

Whole grains

This includes whole-grain bread, whole-grain cereals, oatmeal, wheat germ, brown rice, whole-grain pasta, and similar foods where there is minimal to no processing of the grain.

Biscuits, cookies, pastries, and white bread are considered refined grains, but in some studies are still included in the research if they contain more than 25% whole grain or bran.

Minimum Whole Grain Intake: Strive for at least ~30 g (≈1 oz) of whole grain products daily, such as 1 thin slice of whole grain bread or 1/3 cup of dry oats. This has been associated with a steep reduction in all-cause mortality risk when moving from consuming zero whole grains. (source)

Recommended intake for whole grains is around ~90 g (≈3.2 oz) per day, which is associated with reductions in type 2 diabetes risk, and notable reductions in cardiovascular events. (source)

Optimal intake is up to ~225 g  (≈8 oz) of whole grains daily, showing further reductions in various risk factors, and the highest end of intake showing the lowest risk of all-cause mortality. (source)

Highlighted whole-grains are generally not covered in studies, as most of the research is on total whole-grain intake.

Typically, the less processing a grain undergoes, the more nutritious it is and the gentler its impact on blood sugar levels. Therefore, we recommend minimising intake of breads and cereals - even those marketed as “whole grain” - as they are often still heavily processed. Instead, prioritise intact whole grains such as steel-cut oats, brown rice, quinoa, barley, buckwheat, freekeh, and whole rye berries, which retain their natural structure and nutrients.

Legumes (beans, lentils, pulses)

Minimum Legume Intake: Try to consume at least ~50 g (≈1.8 oz) of cooked legumes per day on average. This could mean a quarter-cup serving most days, or a half cup of cooked beans every other day. This level, and every additional 50 g/day, was shown to reduce all-cause mortality by 6%. (source)

Recommended intake of 100–150 g (≈3.5–5.3 oz) daily is an intake common in many long-lived cultures and conveys notable benefits according to the above source. This is around 1/2-3/4 cup of cooked beans daily.

Optimal intake could be ~200 g (≈7 oz) daily, with evidence favourable up to this level, yet there is no clear plateau to benefits in meta-analyses. This is a little over 1 cup of cooked beans daily.

Highlighted legumes don’t appear to be necessary. In research, all legumes appear notably beneficial and non appear to stand out. To ensure you benefit the most, consume a wide variety of beans, peas, lentils, and so on.

Nuts and seeds

Minimum Nut Intake: 10-15 g (≈0.35–0.53 oz) daily shows benefit.

Recommended Nuts/Seeds Intake: ~20 g (≈0.7 oz) of nuts/seeds per day is a very achievable intake, estimated to significantly reduce the risk of cardiovascular events. (source)

Optimal intake of ~28 g (~1 oz, a handful) per day. This is roughly 1 small palmful of nuts, or about 2 tablespoons of nut butter. At that level, we see significant reductions in mortality risk, and multiple studies encourage “a handful of nuts a day” as part of a longevity diet. (source)

Highlighted nuts and seeds include flaxseed, which shows particular benefits to blood pressure in hypertensive subjects. (source)

Other “plant” foods

Mushrooms and funghi

As little as 18 g (~0.6 oz) daily of mushrooms has been associated with a significant reduction in total cancer risk, and benefits appeared to plateau beyond 30 g  (≈0.7 oz) daily. (source)

Extra virgin olive oil

Over 7 g (≈0.25 oz) (1/2 tbsp) of daily extra virgin olive oil has been linked to lower total and cause-specific mortality, with greater risk reductions when replacing butter, mayo, or dairy fats with up to 14-28 g (≈0.5–1 oz) (1-2 tbsp) daily . (source)

The research on olive oil appears to be strongest when it is used to replace other fats, so we don’t currently recommend to simply add olive oil to your diet. If you currently use butter on bread, replacing it with extra virgin olive oil is a great example of how you might experience beneficial outcomes.

What you should be eating according to research - summarised

We hope that our research here puts into perspective our prior findings and makes it easier to see exactly what and how much you should be eating daily.

If this helps you change your diet for the better, we’d love to hear from you (just reply to this email).

Clearly at the higher end of the scale, the research supports consuming up to around 1,250 g (44oz) of plant foods daily, with the majority of that being a combination of fruits and vegetables, followed by whole grains, and then by legumes.

According to research, around a third of UK adults consume the minimum level of fruits and vegetables (source), and we’re a little afraid to look up statistics on how many consume the minimum level of whole grains, legumes and others, but we hope this might help you make favourable changes to your diet.

🛍️ Things You Might Like

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🙏 Thanks for Reading!

That’s the end of this issue of Weekly.health.

This newsletter is written by a small, independent team, led by James — who’s been following nutrition science for nearly 20 years and is now working towards a formal, industry-recognised qualification.

We’re based in England, so if you’re over the pond, you might notice a few strange spellings.

Our goal is to make cutting-edge, evidence-based nutriton advice simple, useful, and genuinely applicable to everyday life.

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See you next week!

📖 Glossary of Terms in This Issue (Alphabetical Order)

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