The Food Matrix

What is it, how we can optimise our nutrition, and how to avoid the nutri-bollocks

The How, What, Why and When of what we eat, can be a cosmos of possibilities, and it very often conforms to a narrowed pattern, based on what we are used to, but when looked at in more detail can unlock our ability to use nutrition positively and help achieve our health goals.

Discussions about gut heath, gut microbiomes, obesity, and ultra-processed foods are hot topics, and with so much conflicting information out there, it’s a minefield to navigate. How do we successfully form an operable plan to ensure we eat a balanced diet, with the right level of macro & micro nutrients, keeping our body fat, weight, metabolism and energy all in check?

The answer is… It’s complicated, but there are ways to keep it simpler to which we would be wise to adhere.

Dr Sarah Berry, Professor of nutrition at King’s College, London, chief scientist for Zoe and the Predict project and an expert in the field of metabolism and fats in foods, explained accurately in some recent podcasts on Diary of a CEO (DOAC) & High performance how the Ws are very important in understanding how we metabolise and use foods, and ultimately how this dictates our health outcomes, can be summarised as follows:

How

Most of our food is processed in some way, whether that be by freezing, cooking, preserving or making it easier to package and consume. Overly processed foods, using poor raw materials, unhealthy chemical additives, and preservatives, are generally considered to be the worst for our short or long-term health. Yet these foods can often represent easy, quick-satisfying and comfort choices made at times of emotional vulnerability or tiredness.

What

A predominantly plant based diet is recommended. Tim Spector and the good people at Zoe Project, recommend consuming 30 or more different vegetables or fruits each week from a natural or raw source. Organic foods are also highly recommended, to avoid toxic chemicals which enter the food cycle in mass-produced farming. For example, non-organic porridge oats, a go to breakfast for many of us, can contain high levels of Glyphosate, the active chemical in pesticides and weed-killers, is highly carcinogenic and a gut-biome and endocrine system disruptor.

Why

Would you like to live a longer, healthier, happier life? Would you rather listen to so-called social media experts and take the unscientific, simpler, faster, well-sold nutritional options? Have you struggled with your weight and healthier food options in the past and aren’t convinced that they actually work? Are you fed up with dieting unsuccessfully and are interested in quick fix options such as Ozempic and other new weight loss drugs? These are all questions we should ask ourselves. There is no doubt that there is a lot of confusing and contradictory information out there and we are all subject to some degree to believing information that may not be true.

Dr Berry has amusingly coined the phrase: “Nutri-bollocks” to describe the vast wash of nutritional nonsense that is spread out there - we need to be eyes-wide open to it and call it out when we see it. In the modern world, our lives are overrun with misleading information often distributed by talented salespeople, confusing facts, driving us to consume (usually big business) items that most often negatively impact our health and wellness. We are time poor, and de-prioritise our food health more than ever before. It’s not hard to see why making the right decision is so difficult.

When

Don’t eat after 20:00, and certainly never after 21:00...

If your goal is weight loss, you work long hours and you get home late from work, all the evidential advice states: Don’t eat a big meal late as this is bad news for so many reasons… disruption to metabolism, higher fat deposits, weight gain, blood pressure problems, increased gut inflammation and sleep disruption. Fasting enables quicker and healthier weight or fat reduction, is a more natural human evolutionary eating habit, our ancestors would have fasted out of necessity in between meals. Studies have consistently shown that fasting is a highly successful form of resetting the digestive system, allowing for a break from metabolic stress, and a good way to enable weight loss and lower body fat levels.

On average over 30% of people in the UK snack after 21:00, and there is plenty of scientific evidence to indicate that these behaviours are doing our cardiovascular systems long-term harm. Sleep deprived people are also far likelier to be obese

But I need to eat…

We all live by creeds and customs, cultural or learned, that inform the way we lead our lives, but when it comes to food these rules should evolve to better fit the changes to our lives that can happen over time.

“You’ve got to eat something”

If you have higher levels of body fat that fall outside a healthy range, you may not like to hear this, but you may not need to eat that meal. You might be far better served having a hot drink and/or popping out for a walk.

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day”

If you are a child or adolescent, then it’s easy to agree with this statement, but if you are an adult, whose waistline is expanding, it may not be valid for you. Fasting or narrowing your eating window is a very effective way to keep your weight or bodyfat in healthy zones.  Eating within a 10 hour window is a simple way of cutting down your calorie intake - people who reduce to eating within 10 hours lower daily intake by 300 kCal on average, driving sustainable weight loss.

To snack or not to snack…

Snacking is often assumed to be bad for us but this is not always true. It does depend heavily on what’s in the snack, for it to be classified as healthy or not. Sugary snacks and drinks, highly processed foods, or those containing harmful chemical additives are generally bad for us. Fresh fruit and vegetables, nuts and seeds, fresh plant dips, and some organic bars with minimal additives are all good examples of healthy snacks. Eating nuts like pistachio, can be doubly beneficial in addition to the fantastic nutritional value, because we also leave about 30% of the nut unchewed and therefore limit the calorific values that end up being absorbed in our gut.

Balance

Food should be a joyous experience, delicious dishes with great company, combined with the occasional treats enhance our lives. Living a long and happy life should be more about pleasure than pain, fun than sacrifice, so there is so much that points to balance as the best option. We also need to consider food as a part of our lives, not in isolation, and alongside sleep, stress, activity, friendship and hormonal changes. We need a balance of fun and pleasure, combined with activity and compromises on less healthy choices, to better navigate the food matrix and achieve increased longevity and happiness. Sarah Berry’s wise words are ‘If a food is too healthy to enjoy it’s not healthy’.  If you can find a way to transform your diet that you enjoy, by using some or all of the advice here, you’ll be making winning choices for you and your future.

Read more..

Whitepaper: The gut microbiome [Zoe]

Ultra-processed foods [British Heart Foundation]

Redefining obesity [The Lancet]

How to improve gut health [Zoe]

The link between obesity and sleep [The Sleep Foundation]

Listen to Dr Sarah Berry’s podcasts: DOAC & High Performance