Let our British countryside be the answer to moving our health forward, as we celebrate our British harvest!

With our senses now freshly awakened to nature, embracing its gifts can provide us with a fabulous route to sustainable, good health! Even better, this approach works for the benefit of all, nurturing healthy people and planet. After all, we’re a vital part of keeping our ecosystem in balance…

  Take time out from all life’s expectations, temptations and pressures, nurture your wellbeing in our peaceful Countryside and on our glorious Coast. Enjoy some brisk walking and space for clearer thoughts – it’s a chance to destress too: our main stress hormone Cortisol does our health and mood no favours longer-term so doing all we can to reduce it is hugely beneficial.

  Embrace biodiversity to keep our soils healthy & hedgerows and wildlife thriving. The 10 million microbes in each gram of soil around plant roots increase their nutrient uptake to keep our crops, animals and ultimately ourselves, healthy. Supporting local and seasonal is a great place to start. And so many of our British farmers take enormous care over their land – have a look at how Hillfarm Oils, providers of cold-pressed rapeseed oil in Suffolk, care for their wildlife ensuring their bees have year-round plants for pollen! 

  British Food Fortnight is nearly upon us and truly, our farmers work so hard to provide all we need – Dairy products with valuable and often lesser known nutrients like Iodine & Vitamin B12 to fill nutrient gaps of plant-based eating as well as all its well-known goodness like high quality protein and calcium. Its lactose even nurtures our all-important gut bacteria and for those who are lactose-intolerant, try ready fermented products like British Kefir or Bio-live yogurt like Tim’s Dairy produced in our beautiful Chiltern countryside and delivered to our door by the milkman! Listen to the low down on British Dairy, how sustainable it is and all its benefits to our health, recorded during lockdown for The Greatest Online Agricultural Show in May. My Vet hat knows that our animal welfare standards in the UK are among the highest in the world and Beef is a valuable source of easily absorbed iron, crucial for all our energy needs. Try even healthier pasture fed beef often from native breeds perfectly adapted to our British climate and land, lower in saturated fat and more efficient for carbon capture. MacBeth’s in Scotland and Native Beef here in the Chilterns are two great examples!

  Love oily fish! Our British Trout, farmed in the purest waters, is one of the most sustainable fish you can buy – it actually produces more of its own body weight than the weight of the food it is fed! Our trout farmers pay great attention to welfare standards which is resulting in far less antibiotic usage now too. Oily fish like trout is also a fabulous source of Vitamin D, Iodine, heart-healthy Omega 3 and antioxidants, all of which are important for a strong immune system too. And don’t forget that our clear chalk-stream Hampshire waters produce humble watercress too, packed with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, these micro-nutrients can help to protect us against the effects of ageing & chronic disease. 

  Fibre in our crops is our very best friend! It nurtures our vital gut bacteria. More on the benefits of these here. Fibre-rich food can also be a fabulous tool for weight management. Enjoy our bountiful British harvest now by eating a variety of seasonal veg and fruit. Choose grains from innovative British producers like Hodmedods – your Quinoa and chia seeds can come from Essex rather than South America! Or visit British Sea Buckthorn to see the inspiring story of the Eagle family who, after losing one third of their land through rising tides from climate change switched from their long-standing Dairy farm to this innovative crop. It’s literally packed to overflowing with plant-based goodness to slow ageing and boost your immunity. Choosing organic as well, if you can, not only encourages biodiversity but nurtures your inner garden of gut bacteria too!

  Let our British countryside be the answer to moving our health forward, as we celebrate our British harvest!