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Why Plant Proof?

Welcome to Plant Proof™ – a resource created by Nutritionist, and podcast host, Simon Hill, to assist those looking to add more plants to their plate and upgrade their health. Think of him as your personal guide to help you successfully adopt and maintain a plant-based diet.

Prior to transitioning from animal foods to a plant-based diet, Simon shared many common fears among men, and many women, in this position: am I going to lose muscle? Will I gain fat and feel bloated? What about my iron? Will I get enough protein?

Through reading countless scientific studies and books, interviewing health professionals across the globe and studying a Masters in Nutrition Simon has been able to answer all of those questions and more.

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MEDICAL DISCLAIMER

The information found on PlantProof.com or any of its media platforms is intended for informational and educational purposes only. Any statements made on these platforms are not intended to diagnose, cure, treat or prevent any disease or illness. Please consult with your medical practitioner before making any changes to your current diet and lifestyle.

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The Plant Proof 40 challenge 🥬🍓🥝
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Here

The Plant Proof 40 challenge 🥬🍓🥝
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Here’s why you may want to give this a go:⠀
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We know the number 1 predictor of healthy microbiome composition in our gut is how diverse the plants are in our diet. Studies comparing people with animal focussed diets versus plant focussed fibre rich diets with good diversity have shown this clearly - more unique plants = healthier microbiome (microbiome is a fancy term for the bacteria, fungi, archaea & viruses that live on us). ⠀
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The benefits of having a healthy balance and diverse range of bacteria (microbes) in your colon include better digestion, improved mood and lower chronic disease risk. The problem is in this day and age many of us, plant based or not, stick to the same old plants each day/week and fail to consume enough fibre. For many years this was me 🙋🏼‍♂️⠀
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Fortunately we can make changes to our diet that rapidly restore the balance in our microbiome that’s responsible for these benefits. Here’s how. The microbes in your colon (large intestine) rely on prebiotic fibre + resistant starch as fuel to do their job and stay alive. Essentially you can think of fibre as fertiliser for the gut and when there is enough fertiliser the good microbes proliferate and outnumber the bad microbes leading to better health outcomes but locally (in the gut) & systemically (other parts of the body). Just like humans, the different species of microbes in our gut have different food preferences. So it’s not was easy as just downing 30g of Metamucil! Each plant brings with it unique prebiotics that feed these different microbes, which is why diversity of plants in our diet is key is we want to unlock all of these benefits on offer! ⠀
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The #plantproof40 challenge encourages you to include at least 40 individual types of plant in your diet per week. Start by counting the number of plants you eat in the next week without trying to add more (this will get your baseline & give you a number to progressively work up from). Any step closer to 40 is a good one! Even if you’ve done it before it’s a great exercise to do every now and then to ensure you stay on top of the diversity in your diet.

Certain parts of the nutrition space will have you

Certain parts of the nutrition space will have you believe observational studies (epidemiology) looking at the health outcomes of large populations are completely unreliable. There’s a huge problem with this line of thinking. We can’t just throw out epidemiology when the results do not suit our chosen narrative. When observational studies show remarkably consistent results over and over, on massive scale, they cannot just be ignored. Consider smoking and lung cancer. The recommendations to stop smoking are based on observational studies alone. Why? Because it would be unethical, far too expensive & impractical to conduct a randomised controlled clinical trial looking at the effect of smoking on health outcomes. And frankly, there’s enough observational evidence to tell us that we are better off saving our money & using it to study something else. Rather than throwing out epidemiology or labelling it as ‘unreliable’ we need to be able to decipher between good & bad epidemiological studies and then use their observations within the context of the overall body of literature, including intervention trials and mechanistic studies where they exist, to make evidence based recommendations. Good epidemiological studies perform what is called a multi-variate analysis. This allows them to control as best as possible for other variables so we can get a closer feel for the effect of diet independent of other variables like alcohol consumption, exercise, body weight etc. It’s not perfect but as I said above, we would never rely on one single observational study to make a public health recommendation. We are looking for converging lines of evidence from multiple levels of science (Petrie dish, observational studies, & clinical trials) that are replicated by different sets of researchers and different subject groups. All too often I see people claim “healthy user bias” and then turn to an n=1 anecdote. That’s a completely inappropriate way to use science to make public health recommendations Listen to my latest podcast for more on this and follow me on Twitter - things are heating up over there 🐥. Happy Sunday friends. 🌱🙏🏼

Just a FYI for anyone who’s taking omega 3 algae

Just a FYI for anyone who’s taking omega 3 algae oil supplements. The absorption rate appears to be as good, or slightly better, than that found in fish and fish oil. This is as we would expect - DHA and EPA actually originate from microalgae. The only reason fish contain them is because they feed on the microalgae or eat other fish that fed on the microalgae. Personally I take @nutrikynd daily which gives me about 400mg of DHA/EPA (along with B12 and D3) and then I take another 450mg of DHA/EPA on top of that separately totally to about 850mg per day. Checkout my latest podcast for more details on this dose along with information on other nutrients of focus. Simon 🙏🏼🧠🌱

Whole grains have been consistently shown to reduc

Whole grains have been consistently shown to reduce our risk of developing chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and cancer, and promote longevity. So, where possible it’s best to choose bread made from whole grains - but sometimes that can be slightly tricky. So here’s a bread 101 guide to help you next time you’re at the grocery store. Simon 🙏🏼🌱

Two of my favourite food groups. Enjoy the episode

Two of my favourite food groups. Enjoy the episode friends - it’s been a while 🙏🏼

This mornings breakfast and a few practical tips:⠀
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This porridge is made from whole grains (oats, barley, amaranth, rye & quinoa). If you listened to the new podcast I put up yesterday you would of heard me talk about gluten. Overall far too many people remove gluten who don’t necessarily need to. However, rather than being dogmatic about it, it’s actually not such a big problem to be removing gluten containing whole grains if one makes a conscious effort to include gluten free whole grains in their diet. Thankfully that’s not too tricky - quinoa, buckwheat, amaranth, brown rice and millet are just a few of many GF whole grains. ⠀
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Berries are a low calorie vitamin and phytochemical powerhouse! A particularly good source of vitamin c, vitamin k1, anthocyanins (polyphenols thought to improve cognitive performance & decreased cognitive decline) and fibre.⠀
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Nuts. As I always bang on about the research is very clear. Swap foods rich in saturated fat in your diet (meat, full fat diary etc) for foods rich in unsaturated fats (nuts, seeds, avocado, fish etc) & you are trading up & lowering your risk of cardiovascular disease. Walnuts are a particularly good source of omega 3 fats and Brazil nuts are one of the best sources of selenium - an essential mineral. ⠀
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Cinnamon - My favourite tea at the moment is this organic Vanilla Chai tea by @pukkaherbsaustralia because aside from being delicious it contains 40% cinnamon from cinnamon bark. Pukka don’t hold back on using high quality herbs and spices which is why they’ve been my go-to tea’s for years now. I also added a tsp of ground cinnamon to the porridge. Besides being rich in polyphenols and therefore good for our microbiome, cinnamon has been shown in several trials to help improve blood sugar control in healthy individuals and people with diabetes. However it’s worth noting 1-2 tsp per day appears to be the amount required to see benefit, and only after 1-2 months of consecutive daily consumption. (If you’re currently taking medications for diabetes this is a spice you would want to speak to your doctor about as its addition to your diet may affect the dosage of your meds).

Happy Sunday friends. Simon 🧠🌱

While there is no one superfood for the brain ther

While there is no one superfood for the brain there are a few food groups that stand out. One of these is berries which have been repeatedly shown to be associated with lower risk of cognitive decline and risk of developing Alzheimer’s. Numerous clinical trials (including the one by Whyte et al in the second slide of this post) also suggest that berries have a more immediate effect on our brain function. That is, they may help prevent cognitive fatigue in the hours after consuming them. These benefits are thought to be due to anthocyanins, a potent group of polyphenols found in berries. ⠀
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Does this mean we can simply add berries to any old diet and expect miracles? Not really, because anthocyanins are just one of several nutrients and phytochemicals in our food that work together like different instruments forming a symphony (omega 3s, b6, b9, b12, Vitamin e etc). But it does provide some added weight to recommending berries as a focus food group within a dietary pattern that places strong emphasis on an abundance of whole plant foods while being low in saturated fat. This is the type of dietary pattern that time and time again has been shown to be associated with the best long term brain outcomes.⠀
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Simon 🙏🏼🍓🌱🧠

I’m interested to hear from folks who have tried

I’m interested to hear from folks who have tried various types of fasting and their results? It’s an area of science that is rapidly growing and terribly interesting. Here’s where I’ve landed with regards to what I think is most important for us to focus on as of today:⠀
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1- Diet quality matters most. Fasting isn’t a magical antidote to the standard western diet that’s rich in saturated fat from animal products and far too many calories from ultra-processed foods. A diet that de-emphasises both of those is more important than when we take our first bite of food each day. ⠀
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2- Once the foundations of a healthy dietary pattern are laid down there is preliminary evidence to suggest that most of us eat too frequently and are not spending enough time in a non-fed state. While science explores the benefits of specific eating windows I think a safe bet is a 12 hour eating window (I’ll explain below). ⠀
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3- Chrononutrition studies (the field of science studying meal timing and our metabolism) suggest that our body uses more energy to digest breakfast than it would for the same meal at dinner. This creates a case for a big breakfast - particularly if weight loss is a goal (think of this as an extra tool in the toolbox). Other studies suggest that we are better at utilising energy from our food (as opposed to storing it) when we have an early dinner compared to dinner right before bed. This creates a case for not eating directly before going to sleep. Again the hypothesis here is that as the day goes on, and we get closer to falling asleep, our cells are less effective at receiving glucose and breaking down fat. ⠀
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So what’s all this mean. Firstly, I want to reiterate diet quality matters most 🥦🥑. Secondly, a 12 hour eating window (eating with rise and fall of the sun) with a good size breakfast to kickstart the day and minimising food a few hours before going to sleep seems like a sensible option for most until science teases out the specifics. Finally, whatever it is you do it needs to fit within your lifestyle and be something you can sustain in the long term.
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Simon 🙏🏼 (References in comments).

Hard to believe that we are already approaching th

Hard to believe that we are already approaching the end of this year but somehow here we are. As some of you will be aware I was originally pencilled in to publish my book in October however with the curveball that 2020 has thrown us that changed to early 2021. So 2021 it is 🥂⠀
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If you would like to be kept up to date with details about the book including the title, global release dates, how to win a copy and live event dates please sign up to my book mailing list at plantproof.com/book. Rest assured your details will be secure, won’t be shared to any third parties and you will only hear from me when there’s an important announcement about the book and/or some interesting new science to share.⠀
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This book has been years in the making and I am very much looking forward to sharing it with you so together we can clear the confusion and upgrade our health. Just be prepared - while i’ve written it for anyone to enjoy, I’ve purposely made it enjoyably challenging. It takes time to go through the confusion - more time than simply telling one how to eat. But if you’re up for a small challenge, and want to be armed with information that stops you jumping from diet to diet and being confused by media headlines, then it’s going to be well worth it. Together we will walk through why we are confused, where the science lies, what’s on the line, and finally the practical information needed to confidently make changes to our plate.
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Simon 🙏🏼🌱 (and no, I’m not on the cover nor is this the title 😊)

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