Does rice count as a plant point? And tofu, miso and coffee

Rice counts as a plant point only if it is wholegrain, and only once a week however many bowls you eat. Tofu and tahini count as one point each. Miso is the same plant as tofu. Coffee counts as a quarter, and honey doesn’t count at all, because bees make it.

The scoring everyone uses is a convention rather than a rule, so it is worth knowing where it came from before the food by food answers.

Where does the 30 plants a week idea come from?

One study. The American Gut Project, published in the journal mSystems in 2018, was a citizen science effort: people paid to send in their own stool samples and filled in their own diet questionnaires. The paper reports 15,096 samples from more than 10,000 participants.

Among many other comparisons, the researchers set people who said they ate fewer than 10 different plant types in a typical week against people who said they ate more than 30. Their conclusion was that the number of unique plant species a person eats is associated with the diversity of their gut bacteria, more so than whether that person calls themselves vegan or omnivore.

There is a British link. Professor Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, is a named author on the paper, and he went on to help found ZOE, the company that has done most to bring the thirty figure into British kitchens. ZOE’s own page says the target comes from that 2018 study.

What did the American Gut study show, and what didn’t it?

It showed an association, not a cause. People who reported eating more plant types had more diverse gut bacteria. Nobody was randomly assigned to eat thirty plants and then followed up, so the study cannot tell you the plants made the difference.

It measured the diversity of gut bacteria, which is a rough marker of a gut doing well rather than a health outcome. It also reported fewer genes linked to antibiotic resistance in the high plant group, but that part rested on a much smaller set of around 219 samples.

The diet data was self reported by people who chose to take part, and the authors say so. Their group was better educated, wealthier and less likely to smoke or to be obese than the general population, and they write that generalising from the results should be treated with caution. Nowhere in the paper is there a scoring system. No list of what counts, and no quarter points.

Who made up the plant points rules?

People writing about gut health, after the study. No health body set them. In the UK, the version most people follow is Dr Megan Rossi’s, a registered dietitian and research fellow at King’s College London who writes as The Gut Health Doctor and whose book is built around thirty plants a week. Her rules: each plant is one point. Herbs and spices count a quarter. Tea, coffee, garlic and extra virgin olive oil count a quarter. Vegetable stock counts a half. Refined plants such as white grains and juice don’t count. Fresh, dried, tinned and frozen all count the same.

None of that is NHS guidance, and the recommendation in England is still 5 A Day: at least five 80g portions of a variety of fruit and vegetables. Guts UK, whose microbiome information is reviewed by a British Society of Gastroenterology expert panel, doesn’t mention thirty plants at all; its line is that a varied balanced diet with different fibre sources is the key to a varied microbiome.

So treat the points as a game that gets more different plants into your week, not a target you can fail. The full list of what scores is in what counts as a plant point.

Does rice count as a plant point?

Wholegrain rice counts as one point. White rice doesn’t, under the usual convention, because the bran has been polished off along with most of the fibre.

Brown, red and black rice are all the same species, so strictly they share one point between them. The looser version, the one ZOE uses, counts different coloured varieties of a plant separately because their pigments differ. Wild rice is a different plant altogether, so it is a separate point either way.

Three bowls of brown rice in a week is still one point. That is the whole idea of the count.

Does tofu count as a plant point?

Yes, one point. Tofu is pressed soya bean and isn’t treated as heavily processed for these purposes.

The catch is that tofu, tempeh, edamame, soya milk and soy sauce all come from the same plant. Tofu on Monday and edamame on Thursday is one soya point, not two.

Does miso count as a plant point?

Count it as a quarter, and only if soya isn’t already on your list that week.

Miso is fermented soya bean, usually made with a rice or barley culture, and it goes in by the spoonful. Neither of the main scoring systems publishes a ruling on miso, so this one is my judgement rather than a rule. If you have already had tofu or edamame, miso brings flavour and a fermented food to the week, but not a new plant.

Does tahini count as a plant point?

Yes, as sesame, one point. Tahini is ground sesame seeds and nothing else, and sesame is on the list of seeds that count.

Watch the double counting. In a tub of hummus, the tahini is your sesame point and the chickpeas are a separate point, so hummus is two points. Not one, and not four.

Does coffee count as a plant point?

Yes, a quarter of a point. The coffee bean is a seed, so your morning coffee counts. It goes in the quarter point group with tea, herbs, spices and extra virgin olive oil, because you take in only a small amount of the plant. Decaf counts, instant counts, and a quarter is a quarter for the week, not per cup.

Does honey count as a plant point?

No. Honey is made by bees from nectar, so it is an animal food, and every version of the scoring covers plant food groups only. The same goes for eggs, milk, yoghurt, cheese and meat. Live yoghurt has its own case as a fermented food, but it isn’t a plant.

Which foods count as plant points, at a glance?

How fast should I add new plants?

Slowly. Going at fibre too fast is the quickest route to bloating and wind, and making changes gradually gives your gut time to adjust. Two or three new plants a week is a kinder pace than doubling overnight, and more fibre, more bloating explains why.

It is worth the effort. UK adults are advised to get around 30g of fibre a day, and the British Dietetic Association puts the average UK adult at 18g. Counting plants closes some of that gap without weighing anything. When you are ready to count a whole week, the 30 plants a week checklist has one worked through from a normal UK shop, and the which book quiz points you to the right next step.

One thing matters more than the scoring. If you have bleeding from your bottom, unexplained weight loss, a change in your bowel habit lasting three weeks or more, difficulty swallowing or a lump in your tummy, book a GP appointment rather than changing your diet. If you become seriously unwell, call NHS 111.