This is how a health summit at Goodwood House in West Sussex could help transform your life - and that of your baby

Mary Poppins might have famously sung that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down in a most delightful way.

But the unpalatable truth is that far too many of us are eating our way into early graves and robbing ourselves of the quality of life and good health that we and our families deserve.

The message from a panel of experts at the first Goodwood Health Summit a year ago was uncompromising. Many of us are consuming too much refined sugar and salt in ready-meals produced in an ultra processed way.

Ultra Processed Foods dominate supermarket shelves but have been linked by the NHS – and many other studies – to conditions such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

The message of the first summit was to get back to basics – eating real food that has not been tampered with to make it more addictive.

Clinical nutritionist Stephanie Moore who is working with the Goodwood Estate to promote good gut health and helped organise last year’s and this month’s second summit is clear on what people need to do to protect and nurture the gut microbiome - the collection of microorganisms that live in your body and play such a crucial role in our physical and mental wellbeing. It starts with the three F’s.

“You feed your healthy microbes Fibre-rich foods - plant food basically. Fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, beans and lentils. Enjoy as wide a variety as possible and you are almost by definition going to be improving the complexity, the diversity of your gut microbiome. The greater the selection of plant foods the wider the range of microbes.

"You feed them with Fibre, you top them up with Fermented foods, and you give them a rest by having Fasting windows that are 12 hours or more overnight. So that starts to change the dynamic of your microbes, the quality of your gut lining, the information coming from your gut microbes around the body including to your brain."

She is a strong advocate of three key ingredients – good fats like olive oil, protein, and fibre. “Those are the three things your body fundamentally needs. It doesn't need anything else. So if you want the fluff - the potatoes and the rice and the bread that's because you choose to have it and not because you need it.”

It is also about appreciating what you consume. “Chewing well, chewing slowly. Focussing on your food. Not eating in the car, not eating in front of a television or a screen - that's a hard one for people but it is possibly a game changer to how your body then uses the food that you are eating.”

https://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/health/why-eating-last-nights-left-overs-at-breakfast-time-could-help-save-your-life-according-to-the-goodwood-health-summit-4355369

So what does that look like on the plate?

Cut out sugary factory-produced cereals and start the day with a drink of fermented milk known as kefir. Organic is best. Then have something savoury – any meat or veg left over from dinner, or perhaps some scrambled eggs, avocado, tomatoes, and fish.

Snack on an apple or banana or some nuts.

Fill yourself up with lots of vegetables – like broccoli or kale – and a slice of lean meat or fish if you are not vegetarian. A shot of olive oil, a tin of mackerel, some beetroot, and there is a growing body of evidence that an apple a day really does keep the doctor away.

Avoid processed meats, ultra processed ready meals, anything stuffed with refined sugars, salt and thickeners.

But don’t starve yourself or you will never sustain the diet. Keep meals simple and easy to prepare, enjoy as wide a range of rainbow colours on the plate, and eat as much of the good stuff as you want – if you go to bed hungry you will never sustain the change. This is not about dieting it is about eating differently.

This year’s summit built on this critical theme with a return appearance by the renowned – and some would say revered – Dr Chris van Tulleken who continues to show immense courage in taking the fight direct to the food manufacturers.

But this event also extended its reach to the importance of nurturing the gut health of our babies. The clear message was breast feeding is best because breast milk is such an extraordinarily complex and marvellous supporter of the infant’s microbiome. There was an acceptance too that breast-feeding is not possible for everyone and the benefits were explained in a non-judgmental way.

After the summit, the Duchess of Richmond said that delegates heard that one pound spent on health in the first thousand days yields a bigger return than at any other stage of life.

But she was clear that improving early years nutrition must happen in a kind way, so that mothers are not stigmatised either for choosing breast feeding or formula.

She told the Chichester Observer and Sussex World: “I was thrilled to have such high calibre speakers and amazing people in the room. It was an extraordinary event.

"I hope we have got a few projects underway just because we introduced people from different disciplines and areas, which is wonderful.

"The panel made clear that we now have a lot of information which tells us why breastfeeding is so helpful to the health of the baby and that should be a gamechanger really. If we understand that that choice will enable the baby to have the best start in life it is a no-brainer.

"If I can take something from the day to new mothers and expectant mothers, I would say download the Baby Buddy app which is free. On the app there are something like 300 two-minute videos about all the challenges you are going to face during pregnancy, during birth. And the first two years. And there is also an app that is for the expectant father.

"The other thing is really educate yourself, so I would recommend reading The Politics of Breastfeeding if you can get your hands on it. It is still in print after nearly 40 years. And really trust your body. Your body is designed for this. You don't need specialist education. You don't need branded goods to feed your baby successfully.

"The single biggest indicator of whether a mother will successfully breastfeed her child is the attitude of her partner. The intelligence of the mother and baby diet at a totally unconscious level is fantastic and we interrupt it at our peril.

"But in all this, the most important point made during the summit was that women don't fail, society fails women. And I think that is the most crucial thing. If you haven't got community support it is very hard to succeed.”

The first summit and its focus on good gut health had a huge impact generating enormous publicity. “That has moved on brilliantly. I think the recognition of UPF has been fantastic. Chris is a great communicator and people have taken it to heart. Te pressure is now coming from a groundswell of public opinion.”

Given the power of these summits to bring about real awareness and change for the better, attention is already focused on the third one next year.

The Duchess said: "The topic next year will be the soil microbiome and the human microbiome so it's what we grow our food in and the food that the animals eat and how that effects our microbiome.

"It's the link up between our personal health and the world in which we live.”