An NHS doctor’s guide to resetting your gut health this summer
How to include the kids
It can be an uphill battle to make children eat gut-healthy, so Dr Mahmood-Ahmed’s first piece of advice is not to be too hard on yourself.
“You have to just keep trying and recognise that kids prefer less strongly flavoured food sometimes.”
What’s helped with her own children is to get them involved with meal planning and letting them select their own meals.
“We take them shopping and allow them to find the ingredients so they are really invested in the process of cooking and eating.”
While she acknowledges that it can be a time-consuming approach, she says: “Once you go down that rabbit hole, it’s quite rewarding to do.”
As they get older you can help them develop cookery skills. “Give them a blunt knife so they can cut up peppers.”
Getting started
The key is not to feel overwhelmed by the task. Begin by focusing on one culprit meal at a time. “If you think your snacks are a problem, change them. If you think breakfast is where you should be doing better, focus on breakfast. Sometimes it takes changing one meal to get you going for the rest of your diet.”
Be realistic about what is achievable. As a full-time working mother with budget in mind, Dr Mahmood-Ahmed is a discount hunter and meal planner. “It took me a few years to work out how to do it,” she admits.
However, she states that you can cook gut-healthy meals in 20-30 minutes. “It takes less time to cook than for me to order a takeaway.”
She is passionate about equipping people with the cooking skills to make things quickly and easily. “It’s why I’ve written my books,” she says.
Cooking from scratch is not only healthier but cheaper, too: “Remember that plant-centricity is cheap,” says Dr Mahmood-Ahmed. “The common mistake people make when they turn veggie or vegan is buying highly ultra-processed vegan foods. That’s not going to make it cheaper or healthier. It defeats the point of being plant-centric to achieve good gut health.”
To help you stay on budget, her advice is to meal-plan as much as possible and keep a record of how much you spend eating gut-healthy recipes, and then compare it to your previous food shop. “I think people are often surprised at the results,” Dr Mahmood-Ahmed says.
However, she urges a note of caution when making dietary changes.
“When you change what you eat, it may give you digestive symptoms, because your gut won’t be used to having so much veg in it. So you may experience bloating,” which will pass, she stresses. For a full gut reset, “slow and steady does win the race.”
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