Eat These 3 Foods for Better Health, Say Food Professors
It can be hard to know what foods to prioritise in your healthy diet overhaul. Should you eat more protein, boost your fibre or focus on supplementing superfoods? Well, according to top nutrition experts, there are three key ingredients we should all be adding to our plates this year.
Professors Sarah Berry and Tim Spector, both scientists at food and health monitoring app Zoe, say the most important thing is prioritising a whole-food diet. However, that does not mean eating 'rabbit food', Professor Berry says on the latest episode of the Zoe podcast: 'I always say to people, if a food is too healthy to be enjoyed, it's just not healthy at all. It's so important that we choose food that we also enjoy. Food is there to bring us pleasure.'
So, if you're looking for good-tasting but beneficial foods to add to your diet, they have suggestions.
3 Foods for Better Health in 2025
1. Mushrooms
The first food they recommend prioritising is mushrooms. Professor Spector says we will see 'an explosion' in mushrooms, which he says 'are an incredible food and have all kinds of links with helping people fight cancer and [other diseases].'
Mushroom supplements, including powdered and capsuled lion's mane and cordyceps, have become popular in recent years. However, the Zoe team are particularly interested in mushrooms as food.
While recommendations typically focus on plant-focused diets for health, mushrooms technically aren't plants – they're fungi. These are packed with vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals that can all protect health. A 2021 review of research reported that higher mushroom consumption was associated with a reduced risk of cancer.
Researchers in different studies classify a "high" intake differently, but the minimum seemed to be at least four grams of mushrooms a day.
2. Kimchi
The second food the nutrition team reckon should be on all of our plates this year is kimchi. '[This] is a Korean sauerkraut, which you can mix in with all your foods [and is a] fantastic fermented food,' says Professor Spector.
Fermented foods are brilliant for helping healthy bacteria in your gut thrive. That's because it contains live microbes that can colonise your gut. In a small study from the Journal of Clinical Biochemistry and Nutrition, 32 participants ate 100g of fermented kimchi every day for 10 weeks and their gut microbiome changed significantly. Their levels of 'good' bacteria were up, while 'bad' bacteria was down.
3. Rye Bread
Finally, Professor Spector suggests eating rye bread, which he says is 'probably the healthiest bread you can have.' Made from wholegrain rye flour, the bread is dense and dark and packed with nutrients, including protein, fibre and phytonutrients. It's also associated with reduced glucose spikes compared to wheat bread.
Add these three foods to your rotation this year and see if you feel the benefits.
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