9) Make your own oven chips

Replace your oven chips with chopped potatoes drizzled in a little olive oil, seasoned and baked. For an even healthier version, try sweet potato. And for an even better one, replace oven chips with roast carrot, celeriac or cauliflower - the greater the mix, the better the diversity.

Easy, tasty tips to make your food healthier

2) Upgrade your breakfast

Instead of quickly reaching for cereal, have full fat Greek yoghurt topped with nuts, seeds and berries. It contains less sugar, and the toppings will help you reach your 30 plants a weeks. Research shows people who eat 30 different plants a week tend to have a more diverse gut microbiome than those who eat 10. A flourishing microbiome can help the body fight infections, reduce the risk of autoimmune disease, and regulate appetite and body weight.

12) Swap ketchup for kimchi

Incorporating fermented foods into your meals can introduce beneficial live microbes, enhancing gut health. Mix kimchi or sauerkraut with cream cheese and put on toast. Swap creme fraiche for milk kefir, which is less processed with gut-friendly microbes. Swap a sweet chutney for kimchi, which has less sugar, pickled gherkins for sauerkraut, or ketchup for spicy kimchi sauces.

14) Have salad before carbs

There is emerging evidence that eating salads or other vegetables as starters 10 minutes before you have a carbohydrate-rich meal can help keep you fuller for longer and reduce blood sugar spikes from the starchy foods. Combining starchy foods with fats and fibre will slow the absorption and make the meal more satiating.

3) Consume plenty of colours

Eating the rainbow not only supports your gut health and reduces the risk of disease, it also enriches your diet with a greater range of flavours and textures. A simple and cheap way is to buy pre-mixed combinations; packs of multi-coloured peppers are a good example, as are combinations of other root vegetables, or mixed nuts and seeds.​

15) Eat more nuts and seeds

They're an important high-fibre, high omega-3-fatty acid and high polyphenol addition that has been shown to improve heart disease risk. Add a handful to a salad, or some mixed seeds to your breakfast granola and yoghurt. Whole seed spices like coriander, cumin, fennel and caraway are all nutritious - and delicious.

7) Swap stock cubes for miso paste

The former are ultra processed and high in salt, while miso paste is a pure food that contains protein and has a depth of flavour from the fermented soya beans.

5) Let your chopped veg sit for five to ten minutes

Rather than chopping and then throwing your garlic and onion straight in the pan, wait five to ten minutes. Onion and garlic as well as cabbage and broccoli, are good sources of sulforaphane, a chemical that has been shown to improve glucose control and cholesterol levels. Cooking destroys the myrosinase, from which sulforaphane derives. But if you let your vegetables sit for five to ten minutes before cooking them, the sulforaphane is activated and survives the cooking process.

1) Spread olive oil on your toast

Drizzle extra virgin olive oil on your toast rather than butter, for greater health benefits. It tastes delicious.

8) Don't remove the skin from fruit and vegetables

If you are worried about pesticides or bugs, it's usually best to wash your fruit and veg. Try not to peel them; for many plants, most of the nutrients, polyphenols and fibre is on the outside layers.

From adding seeds and nuts to using olive oil - small changes can make a big difference. (source: Tim Spector)

13) Don't forget the vinegar

It doesn't have to be expensive, or even apple cider vinegar, as it seems to be the acidity level that is important for balancing blood sugar. There is now some recent evidence in small studies to suggest that you can blunt your body's blood sugar responses short-term by using vinegar on your salads before the main course.

10) Make easy carb swaps

Simple things like swapping plain white rice for bulgur wheat, and white pasta for wholegrain or chickpea pasta make a huge difference. The alternatives are less processed and contain more gut-friendly fibre.

11) Bulk up with beans

Beans and pulses are one of the most nutritious plants we can eat in terms of fibre, protein and nutrients, yet we've been eating less and less of them over the past 30 years. Swap out the minces beef or lamb in a chilli or bolognaise for black-eyed beans, kidney beans or lentils.

4) Add celery to your onion and garlic.

Most good recipes begin with onion and garlic, but try adding some celery too. It doesn't taste as flavoursome on it's own, but chopped celery, garlic and onions sweated in extra virgin olive oil is agreat way to routinely introduce more flavour, polyphenols and fibre to your meals. Studies have shown that combinations like these release even more healthy polyphenol chemicals for your microbes than when they're used individually.

16) Have two teaspoons of herbs and spices

Spices and herbs count towards your 30 plants a week, even though they are traditionally eaten in much smaller quantities than leafy greens, because they have an extra high concentration of plant chemicals.

6) Brush your tomatoes with olive oil

There's evidence that you extract more nutrients from tomatoes when they're cooked with extra virgin olive oil.