The F-Plan Diet: Lose Weight Fast and Live Longer

"Well, she put it into the popular consciousness. I vaguely remember this: people would joke about how it would make you fart. Reading the book now, it is dated, and some of the recipes are dreadful, most of them involving All-Bran breakfast cereal or baked beans. They’re also still very low in fat, using skimmed milk. But the reason I’ve included it is that fibre has been making a comeback. “Some people are much better off skipping breakfast. Others are better off eating it. We shouldn’t force everyone to fit into a single size box” At the time, the discussion was that fibre was important for avoiding cancer. But Eyton’s explanation for its role in weight-loss is interesting: it’s all about how fibre fills you up, stretching your stomach so you don’t feel hungry and stopping other food from being absorbed. She didn’t think it mattered whether food was highly synthetic or wholegrain, as long as it was low calorie, low fat and high fibre. I think that’s really interesting because it brings back how much we’ve developed our knowledge in that area. Our research of the gut microbiome has revolutionised our understanding of how high fibre diets work: it’s all about the quality of the fibre, not just pouring chemical fibre there. Before, gut microbes were only seen as problematic; they gave you traveller’s diarrhoea or cholera. The F-Plan Diet sold millions of copies, I think it was the best-selling diet book of the decade. But very few people stayed on it long term, basically because the recipes are pretty dire. But it was the first time someone said: ‘don’t drink orange juice.’ Just because it sounds healthy doesn’t mean it is; orange juice doesn’t have fibre, therefore it’s not healthy. So there are a few interesting nuggets in there and it’s a great historical document. Look how far we’ve come. Now we realise that it’s not just about the quantity of fibre, but the diversity of fibre. It’s about the range of plants you eat. You’re not going to get that from some processed breakfast cereal. People like breakfast cereals, but I think that we’ve been brainwashed into thinking that cereal is the standard breakfast, and that’s a bit sad. I appreciate that, if you’re busy, then you’ve got this packet of food that never goes off; you just open it and add milk, and you’re out the door very quickly. But, yes, most of them are really bad for you. In Chile, they’ve banned using cartoons on the packaging of sugary breakfast cereals for that reason. We’re far too lenient on the breakfast cereal market. Even the vitamins they claim to contain, they don’t actually have or have in such poor quality that they aren’t absorbed. I think people should experiment with other breakfasts. People should be trying to eat real food and going without that sugar high in the morning. Try a high fat breakfast such as yoghurt, eggs or cheese, or skipping it altogether. Yes, increasingly. Although I don’t actually drink much milk. I now prefer the mouth feel of the cream, and the flavour of full-fat dairy products. But I also use oat milk for environmental reasons. The fake milks are getting better. For me, I think that if people pick foods based on their quality and taste, not some arbitrary definition or label, then they’re better off."