The Zoe cookbook has landed – here’s what’s inside, plus a healthy pasta recipe to try
Professor Tim Spector’s Zoe recipe book is stuffed with gut health-boosting advice and blood-sugar-balancing dishes. Let’s have a browse
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The gorgeously-filmed recipes on the Instagram grid of the Zoe personalised diet programme do big business (the most popular one to date, cottage cheese pancakes, has been saved 142,000 times) so it makes sense to collate all of these blood sugar balancing and gut-microbiome friendly meal ideas in one place.
Zoe co-founder Professor Tim Spector’s new book, The Food For Life Cookbook, is a great way to dip your toe in and, at £14, is far cheaper than signing up to the programme (prices start at £300). The tome is the latest launch from the fast-expanding Zoe empire – following the online menopause tracker, the supplement you sprinkle over your lunch, and a gut health drink in collaboration with M&S Food so far this year.
The book covers all eating occasions – including (hurray!) sweet treats, like this carrot cake recipe, and snacks, plus there’s a 15-minute meal section, which is perfect for those post-work hangry meltdown moments (just me?). We especially like this surprisingly simple-to-make aubergine traybake that contains a massive 15 different plants (Spector recommends eating 30 different plant types per week for optimum gut health).
There are loads of ideas for interesting, flavoursome things to do with vegetables (Spector is vegetarian) and every dish looks delectable rather than boringly healthy. We think the broccoli and walnut orecchiette recipe below is one crowd-pleaser to make on repeat. When our (Italian) tester reviewed the Zoe programme, returning to her beloved pasta – something she’d cut out fearing it would make her gain weight – was a pleasant surprise. Combining it with healthy fats and fibrous veg, as in the recipe below, says Spector, “is a great example of how combining foods can help your blood sugar response.”
The book is full of up-to-date, science-led, achievable nutrition advice from the author – such as these golden rules.
Prof Tim Spector’s 6 rules for eating well
1. Eat 30 plants per week
“The diversity of plant species in our diet is more crucial for gut health than the specific type of diet we follow,” says Spector. “Consuming a variety of about 30 different plants per week emerges as a key strategy for nurturing a health gut microbiome and, by extension, overall wellbeing.”
Think 30 sounds a lot? Trust me, it’s totally achievable. A sprinkle of spice, for example, counts as 1 plant. You can easily clock up eight plants by breakfast by chucking a bunch of seeds, nuts and berries onto your yoghurt or porridge.
2. Eat the rainbow
It’s an old adage but a goody. “Each colour and hue in the plant kingdom signifies a different set of chemicals in edible containing nutrients and polyphenols that benefit the body in unique ways,” says Spector. So enjoy that fruit salad.
3. Get your protein from whole foods not shakes
Spector argues that we’re currently obsessed with protein but rather than snaffling highly-processed protein shakes and bars, we’d be better off focusing on whole foods such as “nuts, edamame, natural yoghurt, cheese, kefir, beans, lentils, peas, mushrooms, tofu, eggs, and – if you eat them – small amount of good quality fish and meat”.
4. Think food quality not calorie quantity
This boils down to reducing the amount of ultra-processed foods in your diet, rather than obsessing over calories. It’s difficult to cut out UPFs entirely – check out what nutritionist and author Rob Hobson has to say about why you’re probably eating more ultra-processed foods than you think for more on this – but you can cut down. Rather than buying a supermarket loaf, for example, try baking this super-easy cottage cheese bread.
5. Up your fermented foods
Foods such as Greek yoghurt, kefir, kombucha, sauerkraut, kimchi “teem with beneficial bacteria that add goodness to the existing bacteria in your gut when you eat them regularly,” Spector points out. He’s a big fermenting fan so there are plenty of recipes and tips in the book. Or Try Liz Earle’s make your own kombucha recipe.
6. Try a 12-14 hour overnight fast to give your gut a break
A period of fasting give your gut time to “rest and rejuvenate”, says Spector. But you don’t have to go to extremes. He pinpoints a 12-14 hour overnight fasting period as “the sweet spot for improved metabolism and healthy weight maintenance”.
This regime is sustainable in the long term – it’s not overly challenging, for example, to have dinner by 6pm and then not eat until breakfast at 8am the next day.
Fancy putting some of these tips into practice? You’re in luck – we have a quick veggie pasta dish from Spector’s book for you. It’ll be on the table within 25 minutes so it’s perfect for a midweek speedy supper. Apron on!
Tim Spector’s Broccoli and Walnut Orecchiette recipe
“Pasta is a fantastic vehicle for flavour and texture, and this dish is a great example of how combining foods can help your blood sugar response. There are plenty of healthy fats from the walnuts in the delicious and satisfying sauce, as well as fibre from the broccoli – both of which slow your blood sugar response. This is fuss-free, healthy cooking at its finest.”
Serves 2, preparation time 10 mins, cook time 15 mins
Ingredients
– 100g orecchiette pasta
– 150g cherry tomatoes
– 80g walnuts
– 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
– 1 large head of broccoli (350g), cut into small florets
– Salt and black pepper
Method
1. Bring a large saucepan of salted boiling water to the boil and cook the pasta for 10 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, put the tomatoes, walnuts and nutritional yeast into a food processor with a pinch of salt and pepper, and blitz until you have a chunky paste.
3. After the pasta has been cooking for 10 minutes, add the broccoli florets to the pan and cook for 2 minutes longer. Drain, reserving about 100ml of the cooking water.
4. Tip the walnut and tomato paste into the saucepan with almost all the reserved pasta water, mix and heat through for about 1 minute. Return the pasta and broccoli to the pan and toss to combine everything. Add a splash more water if needed, season with salt and pepper and serve.
The Food For Life Cookbook, £14, by Tim Spector with Zoe is out on 10 October 2024.
All photography by Issy Croker
