30 plants a week: how to get there

What counts as a plant, eight simple ideas to vary what you eat, and what the number 30 really means.

Thirty different plants in a week sounds like a lot. It is less so once you know what counts: not just fruit and vegetables, but also whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, herbs, spices, mushrooms and seaweed.

What counts as a plant

Each different plant counts once in the week, whatever the amount: in My Microbiote, a pinch of parsley counts like a plate of lentils, as long as something intact reaches the colon. Other methods count herbs and spices as a quarter.
What the process removed decides. Grinding, cooking, drying, freezing or fermenting removes nothing: almond butter counts as almonds. Refining, clarifying or extracting leaves only a molecule or fat: refined oil, sugar or clear juice do not count.
Herbal tea does not count: you drink the water, not the plant. Matcha, which you swallow as a powder, counts.

The details, form by form: the logging rules.

Eight ideas to get there

Buy mixes. A bag of mixed seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, flax), mixed nuts or frozen vegetables brings three or four plants at once.
Add herbs and spices. Parsley, cilantro, cumin, cinnamon: each one is a plant, and they keep for a long time.
Switch legumes. Lentils, chickpeas, kidney or navy beans: canned, a different can every week.
Vary your grains. Rolled oats, buckwheat, barley, brown rice, bulgur: one more in the cupboard is one more plant.
Put several in the same dish. A soup, a curry, a mixed salad or a stir-fry easily brings six to ten plants together.
Load up breakfast. Oats with walnuts, seeds, a fruit and cinnamon: five plants before you leave home.
One new plant every time you shop. A vegetable you have never tasted, a fruit in season, a fresh herb.
Log what you eat. It is easy to forget what you ate on Tuesday: let the app do the counting.

One day, sixteen plants

Breakfast: oats, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, blueberries and cinnamon — 5 plants.
Lunch: lentil salad with arugula, tomato, red onion and parsley — 5 plants.
Dinner: chickpea and spinach curry with garlic, ginger and turmeric, and brown rice — 6 plants.

Where the number 30 comes from

From a 2018 study, the American Gut Project (McDonald et al., mSystems, doi:10.1128/mSystems.00031-18): people who ate more than 30 different plants a week had a more diverse microbiome than those who ate 10 or fewer. It is an observation, not a law: it does not say whether variety causes diversity, and nothing special happens at 30. What is well established is the direction — more varied plants, more fiber. Take 30 as a landmark: in the app, the goal can be set from 20 to 100.