Diet advice: A guide to eating better and living longer
Food has become noisy. Superfoods, supplements, biohacks, rules. Eat this. Avoid that. Count everything. Track it all. Somewhere along the way, managing your diet stopped feeling intuitive and started feeling like a full-time job.
Thankfully I stopped buying into that a long time ago. I have eaten my way through all the diet fads and trends, from being vegan and gluten free for seven years to trying keto and paleo and everything in between. If I had to label myself today it would probably be ‘flexitarian’, which gives me the freedom to eat a little bit of everything. “Greens, grains, beans and a little bit of everything else” has been my guideline for the last few years.
But when you look at the healthiest, longest-living communities in the world – referred to as the Blue Zones – the way they eat is refreshingly unglamorous. It’s real food, cooked simply, eaten regularly, and often shared just the way I ate growing up. At the heart of it – you guessed it – greens, grains, and beans. They tend to eat smaller amounts of animal-based foods and dairy, and when they do it’s with intention rather than by habit.
The easiest way to implement this in your own diet is to subscribe to a veg box. It means you’ll always be eating whatever is in season, supporting a local farmer and cooking with ingredients you might not normally use. And it will taste great as it’s all bang in season.
I grew up across different countries and cultures, and one thing was always consistent: meals were built around plants. In Tanzania, it was beans and leafy greens. In Sweden, whole grains and root vegetables with dairy used sparingly. In Bulgaria and Norway, pulses, vegetables, fermented foods, soups and stews designed to stretch what was available. Meat was present, but it wasn’t the main event.
The Blue Zones follow a similar logic. Around 90 per cent of their diet comes from plants. Beans and lentils appear daily. Whole grains form the backbone of most meals. Vegetables are abundant, especially dark, leafy greens. These foods are packed with fibre, minerals and antioxidants, supporting gut health, hormone balance and inflammation. Meat, when eaten, is often saved for special occasions. Dairy use is minimal and usually fermented; think kefir, yogurt and cheese.
What I love about this way of eating is that it’s practical. It works in real life. It’s affordable, adaptable, and designed for longevity rather than aesthetics.
I aim to eat some form of greens every day. The easiest way is stirring them into soups, folding them through grains, blitzing them into sauces, or sautéeing them with garlic and olive oil. You can add a whole bag of greens as a finishing touch to a curry or stew.
Grains are often misunderstood. Brown rice, barley, farro, oats, millet and sourdough bread provide slow-release energy, support digestion and keep blood sugar stable. These are foods that fuel you steadily, rather than sending you on a spike-and-crash roller coaster. When eaten in their whole form and paired with vegetables and fats, they are grounding, filling and delish.
But beans are the real stars of the show. Lentils, chickpeas, black beans, cannellini, fava beans. They’re rich in protein, fibre, iron and polyphenols, feeding the gut microbiome and supporting heart health. I often say that if you’re trying to eat well on a budget, beans are your best friend. A pot of lentils can become soups, salads, stews and spreads.
When food becomes less about rules and more about cooking, it stops being stressful. You start to trust yourself again. You listen to your hunger or fullness. You end up cooking more and wasting less. You feel nourished rather than restricted.
I’ll say it one more time: greens, grains, beans and a little bit of everything else. Words to live by – probably for a long time, too!