This week’s blog post is from our Chef at Coombe Dingle, Tim Hinson, on how a book on gut health rocked his whole perception of how the world works and influences his catering in the pavilion at Coombe.
You probably shouldn’t base your whole world view on astonishing facts. If someone tells you that ants don’t have lungs or giraffes are 30 times more likely than humans to be struck by lightning, then a well-adjusted person will say something like “wow, that’s amazing” and then move on.*
*unless you’re in a pub, in which case you’ll probably want to assemble a panel to speculate on the matter for at least 45 minutes.
However, every so often you learn something that’s so amazing and counterintuitive that it rocks your whole perception of how the world works. This is the feeling I got when I was reading Tim Spector’s Food for Life and learnt that more than half the cells that make up our bodies are not actually human!
Billions of cells inhabiting our gut have non-human DNA. They are bacteria, viruses and enzymes whose origins are distinctly alien. But modern science tells us that the presence of these little critters is not some trivial curiosity, they’re actually crucial to just about every aspect of our physical and even mental health.
Spector tells us that just like the outside world, the ecology of our guts depends upon a healthy habitat. He says we should be eating as many as 30 different plants a week (even a sprinkle of pepper or cup of coffee counts towards your total) and avoiding ultra processed food. In return we can expect a flourishing internal ecosystem that will damp down chronic inflammation that’s been linked to everything from cancer to depression. A healthy microbiome means your body gets better at regulating the fuzzy boundary between you and not you and so we are less likely to be plagued by allergies and autoimmune diseases.
I found it a really interesting thesis. I cut through a lot of the diet discussion that can easily tend towards being obsessive and answers the paradox of how people around the world are able to stay healthy while eating radically different foodstuffs. Instead of being overly prescriptive about what exact food plan we should conform to, Spector makes it really simple: make sure you eat lots of vegetables and not too much ultra processed food.
That is a philosophy that we can get behind at Coombe Dingle where we lead the way in creating mass catering that is based on solid principles of sports nutrition and cooking from fresh, whole ingredients. Peek through the hatch on a Saturday and you’ll probably see me chopping sweet potatoes and mushrooms for lasagna or slicing cherry tomato and mozzarella for a side salad. Now, did you know that 1 in 18 people have a third nipple?
Learn more about the science of eating well here!