To help support good gut health, it is important to include as many plant-based foods as possible in your diet each week.

I challenge you this week to keep a log of the different plant-based foods that you eat. These will include all fruit and vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds and legumes, nothing forgetting that different colours of the same fruit or vegetable will be counted as different plant-based foods.

Each week, aim to increase your list of plant-based foods by 10% until you are eating 30 different plant-based foods per week. This is a challenge that I set for myself and I started out with these 25 different plant-based foods. Note: I also included natural yogurt (even though it’s technically animal based) as yogurt is a source of probiotics.

1. Wholemeal bread
2. Basmati rice
3. Pearl barley
4. Natural yogurt
5. Banana
6. Melon
7. Blueberries
8. Strawberries
9. Orange
10. Red apple
11. Green apple
12. Pear
13. Tomato
14. Avocado
15. Yellow pepper
16. Red pepper
17. Garlic
18. White onion
19. Red onion
20. Broccoli
21. Potato
22. Carrot
23. Almonds
24. Walnuts
25. Soy Beans

To help me reach my 30-per-week target:

• I aim to eat porridge or overnight oats at least one morning per week
• I add more seeds to my homemade brown bread
• I buy the multi-coloured pack of peppers instead of sticking to one or two colours

Let me know if you take on this challenge. I’m on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

You can learn more about your gut health in another blog post – read about how the gut works.