Excellent article, thank you. I'm very much in the pick and mix camp - I pick up bits and pieces from different places and we've made a lot of changes in recent years - but I'm wary of the advice of any one expert. The main thing I now try to do is, like you, buy ingredients rather than meals (any slim remaining interest in buying ready meals was firmly squashed by the recent BBC documentary on the ready meals industry). The kids and me still eat (top quality) meat but I'm trying to cut this to once or twice a week - so I've been on a quest to find vegetarian meals everyone likes (getting there slowly). I also grow a good amount of our own food in containers in our front yard - this makes it easy to eat a lot of salad and fresh herbs - and helps to make simple food taste great. I started making our own bread (sourdough), pizza and, occasionally pasta, 18 months ago and there has been no turning back. Also a top quality pressure cooker has been a revelation for cooking dried beans, which we now eat a lot of (the kids recently claimed our veggie chilli is as tasty as the meat one - yay!). We also do kefir every day, and kimchi sometimes when I get round to it (not as often as I should), but kombucha still remains a mystery. Are we any healthier? Who knows. But I'd say we enjoy our food more than ever, I find it more rewarding to cook more things from scratch, a bit less comes from the supermarket than it did, and we have less plastic packaging to throw away.
Hi Mark, thanks for commenting- it’s always great to hear what other people are up to! Sounds like you’re on the same trajectory as we are, daily kefir, often kimchi, but kombucha is firmly on our table, which has has greatly reduced my husband’s alcohol consumption. We both eat and enjoy eating meat, but manage a few days without every week - top favourites are kimchi rice with an egg, and that cucumber salad with peanut butter dressing everyone’s on about and frittata. I wish I were a better vegetable gardener - i am excellent at germinating seeds and then it’s all downhill from there!
Hilary! Thanks for your reply. I cannot believe that microbiome score, it’s very good indeed… I’m too scared to have mine done in case despite my best endeavours i get a low score - I’ll behave like a spoilt child and just start eating crisps! I’m so sorry to hear you’ve been poorly, but hopefully your excellent quality microbiome is helping rather than hindering, and you’re on the road to recovery. I’m terrible with recipe books. I buy them, peruse them, semi remember recipes which I continue to adulterate each time I make them, and thereafter rarely get the books out at all!
My initial Zoe score was 96, which I was thrilled about, then they re-tested all the samples they had on file and mine went up to 98! Bad blood sugar (?coz on steroids) and poor blood fat, but hey ho!
Hello Caroline Thank you so much for writing this. Like you say we aren’t lab rats so same thing won’t work for all. I find a lot of silly things are said by some gurus on social media to get the algorithm making them go viral and selling their products. I think one of the most important things you can do for the health of you and one’s family is to cook from scratch and plan enjoyable meals. Eaten around a table even! I don’t think there’s any short cut from that. Unsexy message I know!
Hello Jeanette thanks for your reply! Well all the best advice around nutrition and well being is fairly unsexy really isn’t it? Eat together, eat food, sleep, move, all very prosaic. Unfortunately it works! See below for a lovely comment about your book the Gut Makeover
A great article, Caroline. Since learning how delicious kefir is (thanks, you!) and adding that to my daily (32 oz) home brew kombucha habit together with sauerkraut I am felling the benefits of fermented foods. Unfortunately that has not translated into magical weight loss or lower blood sugar levels. So I'm spending more time at the gym (as boring as it often is, podcasts help pass the time) and daily walks. It was *so* much easier in my 20s. But that was a lifetime ago...
HI Ian, thanks for your comments - that’s very annoying that in real true life all those fermented foods don’t magically reduce your blood sugar levels - must be genetic!! It does seem to get harder and harder doesn’t it? At least you know that you’ve done your very best to improve your gut health which hopefully will be having some positive metabolic effects even if they aren’t immediately visible…. Gosh That is a lot of kombucha - is that a litre a day? Are you drinking a sugar free one? If it was mine, which runs at about 3% sugar, I’d be having nearly 30g sugar just from the booch!
That;s a wake-up call! My home brewed kombucha is *not* sugar free. In fact I measure it as 4.4% Brix, which I believe means that in a 16 fluid oz serving (453 grams) I'm consuming 16g of sugar twice daily or, as you suggest, 32g of sugar a day from the kombucha. Ugh! I had not realized that was the case. I've been doing this for over 15 years so will have to cut back.
Or….. just do it differently. I ferment my kombucha for longer, so it’s used up more of the sugar, and then dilute it with sparkling water. That way lots of organic acids and less of the sugar. Works a treat ( but dont ferment it too long, or it will have no sugar and then it’s a very joyless experience).
Brilliant, fascinating article, Caroline! Great insight into the current situation and lots of food for thought - oops!!
Funny you should ask who our gurus are - I have to tell you that for a few years now, whenever I’ve voiced a fermenting query, my husband’s response has been to tell me to ‘ask the guru’ - wonder who that could be?! 😉 As for general ‘health gurus’ I do pic ‘n mix from various sources when either evidence based new information is posted or recipe ingredients appeal to me!
However, I shall always be grateful to Jeanette Hyde and her superb book ‘The Gut Makeover’ recommended by my physio about 9 yrs ago. Amongst other things, I had debilitating IBS, TGM was my first proper introduction to the microbiome. It made sense, explained everything so clearly and conversationally. I didn’t find it difficult, especially as I began to feel so much better within a week. Following it obsessively made a massive improvement. Losing 10lbs during the month was a bonus and I never felt hungry.
As a Zoe recruit, my microbiome score was 98, so I’d clearly learned from Jeanette and was still eating for my gut health. It was useful to know more about my personal metabolism, but for me, Zoe made too many contradictions and lost credibility as it became over commercialised. And, I put on weight!!
The things that work for the Gilmartins are pretty much the same as in our house, my personal challenge is accepting smaller portions as I have always been a bit of a glutton. I love cooking and eating good food. I would be embarrassed to say how many cookery, books about food and files of recipes I own, but when I have time it’s lovely to browse and keep ringing the changes. I still can’t resist adding more to my bookshelves.
I have been unwell for several weeks and not up to shopping and cooking, but my strategy for not giving in to temptation at times like this is to have a freezer full of emergency home cooked good stuff. I am just beginning to restock after depleting the reserves! Thanks again for such a relevant article 🙏🏻
Loved this brainstorm of the nightmare of navigating health do’s/dont’s!
I’m 67, grew up eating home grown vegetables (thanks to my parents) and my Mum was a great/adventurous cook. Ultra-processed food just didn’t figure at all.
So I consider myself very lucky to have had that grounding from early days.
I tend to try things out, keeping those that work for me (kefir from you still going strong years later) and I do have my favourite health/food people that I pay attention to - Jenna Macchiochi, Megan Rossi, Rupi Aujila and all the Guardian Feast writers - Meera Sodha in particular.
Above all I think your point about having evolved thus far with our ‘processing’ - is just to really enjoy the food we choose to eat!!
Sue! Thanks for your reply - and delighted to hear that those kefir grains are still going. Yes, I think you’re really lucky to have had such a solid start in life with all that proper food - I think that makes a real difference. Also, that’s a really good point - enjoyment of food isn’t a given and I think here in the UK we’re not very good at it. We eat for fuel, eat in front of the telly, scoff a “meal deal” (meal deals are NOT a meal!!), and don’t celebrate the act of eating as well as other nations do….
What a brilliant summary. I think everything in moderation is important and eating unprocessed food and so much more I would agree with you here. I have been making my own 5 grain sourdough for 5 years now but buy kefir etc. I do grow some veg but try and buy organic otherwise and we eat some meat but concentrate on veg, pulses and wholegrains. I have a sweet tooth so like you try to keep biscuits etc out of the house. I am gluten intolerant so gluten free alternative cake etc are ridiculously expensive. We are getting towards our 70’s so it is more difficult to lose the weight that creeps on but we keep on going! Thank you for your Instagram which I have been reading since Covid
Hello Shirley thanks for your comments - I recognise your name, you used to order my things when I had the fermentary! Yup it sometimes feels like it’s just getting harder and harder! we can only reassure ourselves that we’re doing the very best we can to ensure that we’re as healthy as possible for as long as possible…. I have decided that if i make it to 88 I might give up and just start eating biscuits to make up for lost time! I love the sound of your sourdough. I must get baking again, I’m going to wake up my starter!
Excellent article, thank you. I'm very much in the pick and mix camp - I pick up bits and pieces from different places and we've made a lot of changes in recent years - but I'm wary of the advice of any one expert. The main thing I now try to do is, like you, buy ingredients rather than meals (any slim remaining interest in buying ready meals was firmly squashed by the recent BBC documentary on the ready meals industry). The kids and me still eat (top quality) meat but I'm trying to cut this to once or twice a week - so I've been on a quest to find vegetarian meals everyone likes (getting there slowly). I also grow a good amount of our own food in containers in our front yard - this makes it easy to eat a lot of salad and fresh herbs - and helps to make simple food taste great. I started making our own bread (sourdough), pizza and, occasionally pasta, 18 months ago and there has been no turning back. Also a top quality pressure cooker has been a revelation for cooking dried beans, which we now eat a lot of (the kids recently claimed our veggie chilli is as tasty as the meat one - yay!). We also do kefir every day, and kimchi sometimes when I get round to it (not as often as I should), but kombucha still remains a mystery. Are we any healthier? Who knows. But I'd say we enjoy our food more than ever, I find it more rewarding to cook more things from scratch, a bit less comes from the supermarket than it did, and we have less plastic packaging to throw away.
Hi Mark, thanks for commenting- it’s always great to hear what other people are up to! Sounds like you’re on the same trajectory as we are, daily kefir, often kimchi, but kombucha is firmly on our table, which has has greatly reduced my husband’s alcohol consumption. We both eat and enjoy eating meat, but manage a few days without every week - top favourites are kimchi rice with an egg, and that cucumber salad with peanut butter dressing everyone’s on about and frittata. I wish I were a better vegetable gardener - i am excellent at germinating seeds and then it’s all downhill from there!
Hilary! Thanks for your reply. I cannot believe that microbiome score, it’s very good indeed… I’m too scared to have mine done in case despite my best endeavours i get a low score - I’ll behave like a spoilt child and just start eating crisps! I’m so sorry to hear you’ve been poorly, but hopefully your excellent quality microbiome is helping rather than hindering, and you’re on the road to recovery. I’m terrible with recipe books. I buy them, peruse them, semi remember recipes which I continue to adulterate each time I make them, and thereafter rarely get the books out at all!
My initial Zoe score was 96, which I was thrilled about, then they re-tested all the samples they had on file and mine went up to 98! Bad blood sugar (?coz on steroids) and poor blood fat, but hey ho!
Well you can’t have it all - that would be most unfair 😂
🤣
Hello Caroline Thank you so much for writing this. Like you say we aren’t lab rats so same thing won’t work for all. I find a lot of silly things are said by some gurus on social media to get the algorithm making them go viral and selling their products. I think one of the most important things you can do for the health of you and one’s family is to cook from scratch and plan enjoyable meals. Eaten around a table even! I don’t think there’s any short cut from that. Unsexy message I know!
Hello Jeanette thanks for your reply! Well all the best advice around nutrition and well being is fairly unsexy really isn’t it? Eat together, eat food, sleep, move, all very prosaic. Unfortunately it works! See below for a lovely comment about your book the Gut Makeover
Aw thank you Caroline I will go looking for that now. How nice to hear.
A great article, Caroline. Since learning how delicious kefir is (thanks, you!) and adding that to my daily (32 oz) home brew kombucha habit together with sauerkraut I am felling the benefits of fermented foods. Unfortunately that has not translated into magical weight loss or lower blood sugar levels. So I'm spending more time at the gym (as boring as it often is, podcasts help pass the time) and daily walks. It was *so* much easier in my 20s. But that was a lifetime ago...
HI Ian, thanks for your comments - that’s very annoying that in real true life all those fermented foods don’t magically reduce your blood sugar levels - must be genetic!! It does seem to get harder and harder doesn’t it? At least you know that you’ve done your very best to improve your gut health which hopefully will be having some positive metabolic effects even if they aren’t immediately visible…. Gosh That is a lot of kombucha - is that a litre a day? Are you drinking a sugar free one? If it was mine, which runs at about 3% sugar, I’d be having nearly 30g sugar just from the booch!
That;s a wake-up call! My home brewed kombucha is *not* sugar free. In fact I measure it as 4.4% Brix, which I believe means that in a 16 fluid oz serving (453 grams) I'm consuming 16g of sugar twice daily or, as you suggest, 32g of sugar a day from the kombucha. Ugh! I had not realized that was the case. I've been doing this for over 15 years so will have to cut back.
Or….. just do it differently. I ferment my kombucha for longer, so it’s used up more of the sugar, and then dilute it with sparkling water. That way lots of organic acids and less of the sugar. Works a treat ( but dont ferment it too long, or it will have no sugar and then it’s a very joyless experience).
Brilliant, fascinating article, Caroline! Great insight into the current situation and lots of food for thought - oops!!
Funny you should ask who our gurus are - I have to tell you that for a few years now, whenever I’ve voiced a fermenting query, my husband’s response has been to tell me to ‘ask the guru’ - wonder who that could be?! 😉 As for general ‘health gurus’ I do pic ‘n mix from various sources when either evidence based new information is posted or recipe ingredients appeal to me!
However, I shall always be grateful to Jeanette Hyde and her superb book ‘The Gut Makeover’ recommended by my physio about 9 yrs ago. Amongst other things, I had debilitating IBS, TGM was my first proper introduction to the microbiome. It made sense, explained everything so clearly and conversationally. I didn’t find it difficult, especially as I began to feel so much better within a week. Following it obsessively made a massive improvement. Losing 10lbs during the month was a bonus and I never felt hungry.
As a Zoe recruit, my microbiome score was 98, so I’d clearly learned from Jeanette and was still eating for my gut health. It was useful to know more about my personal metabolism, but for me, Zoe made too many contradictions and lost credibility as it became over commercialised. And, I put on weight!!
The things that work for the Gilmartins are pretty much the same as in our house, my personal challenge is accepting smaller portions as I have always been a bit of a glutton. I love cooking and eating good food. I would be embarrassed to say how many cookery, books about food and files of recipes I own, but when I have time it’s lovely to browse and keep ringing the changes. I still can’t resist adding more to my bookshelves.
I have been unwell for several weeks and not up to shopping and cooking, but my strategy for not giving in to temptation at times like this is to have a freezer full of emergency home cooked good stuff. I am just beginning to restock after depleting the reserves! Thanks again for such a relevant article 🙏🏻
Loved this brainstorm of the nightmare of navigating health do’s/dont’s!
I’m 67, grew up eating home grown vegetables (thanks to my parents) and my Mum was a great/adventurous cook. Ultra-processed food just didn’t figure at all.
So I consider myself very lucky to have had that grounding from early days.
I tend to try things out, keeping those that work for me (kefir from you still going strong years later) and I do have my favourite health/food people that I pay attention to - Jenna Macchiochi, Megan Rossi, Rupi Aujila and all the Guardian Feast writers - Meera Sodha in particular.
Above all I think your point about having evolved thus far with our ‘processing’ - is just to really enjoy the food we choose to eat!!
Sue! Thanks for your reply - and delighted to hear that those kefir grains are still going. Yes, I think you’re really lucky to have had such a solid start in life with all that proper food - I think that makes a real difference. Also, that’s a really good point - enjoyment of food isn’t a given and I think here in the UK we’re not very good at it. We eat for fuel, eat in front of the telly, scoff a “meal deal” (meal deals are NOT a meal!!), and don’t celebrate the act of eating as well as other nations do….
What a brilliant summary. I think everything in moderation is important and eating unprocessed food and so much more I would agree with you here. I have been making my own 5 grain sourdough for 5 years now but buy kefir etc. I do grow some veg but try and buy organic otherwise and we eat some meat but concentrate on veg, pulses and wholegrains. I have a sweet tooth so like you try to keep biscuits etc out of the house. I am gluten intolerant so gluten free alternative cake etc are ridiculously expensive. We are getting towards our 70’s so it is more difficult to lose the weight that creeps on but we keep on going! Thank you for your Instagram which I have been reading since Covid
Hello Shirley thanks for your comments - I recognise your name, you used to order my things when I had the fermentary! Yup it sometimes feels like it’s just getting harder and harder! we can only reassure ourselves that we’re doing the very best we can to ensure that we’re as healthy as possible for as long as possible…. I have decided that if i make it to 88 I might give up and just start eating biscuits to make up for lost time! I love the sound of your sourdough. I must get baking again, I’m going to wake up my starter!