5 Ways to Fix the Western Diet

Across the "West", life expectancy and healthy life expectancy are stalling, and in some cases getting worse. A lot of this has been attributed to the Western diet, which is the most common eating pattern of the people in North America, Europe and Australia. It is also increasing in urban areas all around the world.^[1][2][3][4]

The Western diet is based on ultra-processed foods, red meat and processed meats, refined grains, sugars, unhealthy fats, alcohol and sugary drinks. It has been linked to several health conditions: all the most common ones and all the bigger killers (i.e., cardiometabolic diseases, obesity, metabolic syndrome, dementias, gut problems, cancer and poor mental health).^[1][2][3][4]

The modern iteration of the Western diet is probably one of today’s most significant challenges for public health. But it wasn't always like this. In fact, we think it is one of the easiest (and cheapest) things to fix.

Diagnosing the nutritional problem

Although there is no standard Western diet to analyse, studies have identified several common nutrient "gaps" and "excesses" in people from Western countries. They are:

• Too much: ultra-processed food, calories, dietary fat, saturated fat, sodium, added sugar, refined grains and animal foods.
• Too little: dietary fibre, vitamin D, omega-3 fatty acids, magnesium, calcium, potassium, fruit and vegetables. Also, iron and folate for women.

Sources: ^{[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]}

How to fix the problems with the Western diet

The Western countries aren't short of health organisations, government health interventions, dietary advice, top scientists, nutritionists or public communication channels.

So, what's gone wrong? It's really a trillion-dollar question; once you add the upfront health costs, welfare costs, the life years, healthy life years, and all working life years lost across the West.

We believe that a significant portion of the problem lies in the fact that most advice available is overly complicated. Every month, there are new headlines, position statements, guidelines, food labelling systems, recommendations, reference values, reference intakes, plates and pyramids.

Add to this the mixed messaging: track your calories, macros, micros, superfoods, eat your 5 a day, eliminate sugar, eliminate meat, eliminate eggs, eliminate carbs, eliminate fat, eliminate processed food, eliminate cooked food, eliminate gluten, and eliminate dairy; it goes on and on.

It is all too much, and it has all failed. Look at the real-world results. People are busy, people run out of money, people hate cooking, people like tasty food, and people tend to slide back into old habits.

The ultra-processed food companies get it; a lot (but not all!) of the health scientists, nutritionists and politicians don't. It doesn't matter how sophisticated, accurate, or good the marketing is; if the recommendations aren't followed, they have zero use.

Look at the history of the 5 a day campaign. After 40 years of pushing it, millions spent on marketing, and 90% of adults are aware of the advice. However, 83% of adults and 91% of children still don't follow it. Fruit and vegetable intake is at an all-time low. The scientists have now also changed their minds, and the advice is considered to be out of date.^[9]

Turns out that you actually need to consume more than your 5 a day. What a waste of time and money.^[13]

Methods: How we arrived at our recommendations

To solve this problem, we designed a different approach.

1. Identify the dietary gaps and excess consumption for both individual nutrients and food groups.
2. Screened potential solutions through a "return on intervention" ("ROI") filter, based on.
   1. Nutrition: Does this food solve a specific nutritional problem with the Western diet?
   2. Friction: Is it cheap, accessible, edible, sustainable, has a long shelf life, and quick and easy to eat?
   3. "Forward" selection: What are the additional benefits of the recommendation, over and above the other ones?

Using this, we have come up with 5 recommendations, which are ordered by "ROI", from highest to lowest (most nutrition for least friction first). So, start with recommendation 1 and work towards doing all 5 if you can. If you can add these five simple habits to your weekly routine, you can bring your diet close to the Western equivalent of a gold-standard Mediterranean-style diet.

Recommendations

1. Eat oats for breakfast, as often as possible

Traditionally, most people in Western countries ate oats for breakfast on most days. This was before sugary breakfast cereals, pain au chocolat, doughnuts and coffee, industrially produced white bread, and toasters became kitchen or take-out staples.

It doesn't matter whether the oats are hot, cold, microwaved, overnight, rolled, steel-cut, or diamond cut. Just eat them for breakfast every day, or as often as you can. They take minutes to prepare, whether you're cooking for 1 or 10 people, and they cost pennies per serving.

We have rated this at number one because breakfast is the easiest meal of the day to "automate" and make into a habit. Nutritionally speaking, Western breakfasts are also one of the worst offenders: they're usually ultra-processed, sugary and calorie-dense.

Oats contain a lot of soluble fibre. And a lot of a unique type of soluble fibre called "beta-glucan", which lowers bad LDL cholesterol. When you eat oats, they form a gel-like mass in your digestive system, slowing down stomach emptying and absorption into your bloodstream. This means flatter blood sugar or insulin spikes even if you eat them with other carbohydrates or sugars.^[14][15]

Oats have also been linked to good gut health, immunity, gluten-free status, and have anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties. They're one of the healthiest carbohydrates around.^[16]

The Health Benefits of Eating Oats for Breakfast

Oats are popular for a reason. In addition to being cheap, sustainable and hardy, they have several well-known health benefits.

Alphabet GuidesDr. Robert Davies

2. Add 1 can of legumes to your weekly shop

Buy exactly one standard can (400g / 15 oz) of chickpeas, lentils, black beans, kidney beans or whatever local legumes are available every week. You do not need to cook them from scratch.

Simply open the tin, rinse them in a colander, and eat them throughout the week. Put them into bolognese sauce, taco meat or chilli. Add them to soups, stews or salads. Mash them into a puree (with other flavourings) and spread them on bread or toast.

They are number 2 on our list, as they address several nutritional deficiencies in the Western diet. They contain a lot of fibre, magnesium, potassium, protein, lysine, low-GI carbohydrate, folate and non-heme iron. Because of the last two nutrients, they may even be ranked number 1 for women and girls.

They are probably the most nutritious food per dollar on the planet. They are also great for the environment (natural fertilisers), so eating more of them will increase food security in your region.^[17]

One can provides around 3 servings (~80 g serving) of legumes for pennies, which is around what you should be eating (3 servings a week). Intake of legumes has been associated with prevention and treatment of many chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, inflammatory diseases and cancer.^[18]

Adding them to your diet can lower your cholesterol, LDL levels and triglyceride levels, blood sugar and insulin levels, blood pressure, and body weight. They're also great for gut health and gut function, containing resistant starch and soluble fibre.^[19]

Health Benefits of Legumes: Just One Can a Week

Adding just one simple can of legumes a week to your weekly shop can transform your heart and gut health, your wallet, and the planet.

Alphabet GuidesDr. Robert Davies

3. Make canola (rapeseed) oil your main fat

Swap the butter, lard, vegetable, coconut or palm oils for canola (or rapeseed) oil. You can buy a standard variety for cooking with, and a cold-pressed version for drizzling on soups, stews, salads and spreads on toast.

Extra-virgin olive oil is also a great choice; it has kept the Mediterranean healthy for centuries. However, it can be expensive, difficult to access in some places, and has a strong flavour that doesn't suit all Western palates.

Canola oil is cheaper, better to cook with, more sustainable (when at scale), and is grown and processed locally in Western countries. It has the lowest saturated fat content of any cooking fat or oil.

It contains healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated (omega-3) fats, vitamin E and other antioxidants. It has been shown to lower cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and improve cardiometabolic health when you replace other cooking fats with canola oil.^[20]

Canola vs Olive Oil: Best Oil for New Western Diets

Olive oil probably has stronger health data, but canola (or rapeseed) oil may be the smarter, more sustainable choice for Western countries.

Alphabet GuidesDr. Robert Davies

4. Add 1 can of oily fish to your weekly shop

Buy one tin of oily fish a week: sardines, wild pink salmon, herring, mackerel or kippers. Unless you're already a regular seafood consumer, skip the fresh fish counter; it's expensive, it smells, it's difficult to cook and spoils in 48 hours. Simply open 1 can of oily fish, mash it with a fork and put it on toast, into a salad or eat alongside some eggs for brunch once a week.

Cardiovascular disease is still the most common cause of death in the West (by far), followed by brain diseases. Deficiency in omega-3 fatty acids (specifically EPA and DHA) and vitamin D in the Western diet is thought to be one of the causes.

So, fortunately, oily fish is probably the single most concentrated natural source of these nutrients on Earth. They are also rich in protein, vitamin B12, calcium and several other minerals.

They're probably the number 1 single healthiest and most nutritious item on this list. But it falls to 4 because they are a bit more expensive than the other items, and a lot of people simply don't like the strong flavour of it. However, you can mask it with strong ingredients like the Mediterranean people do (e.g., tomatoes, garlic, herbs and spices, vinegars or lemon juice).

Even if you struggle to eat oily fish, you should still consider buying them, as the health benefits are worth it. Eating 1-2 servings a week of the small, cold-water, oily fish is linked to better heart health, brain health and lower inflammation.^[21][22][23]

Oily Fish: Health Benefits

An overview of oily fish as a superfood, highlighting heart, health, and brain benefits. Get the recommended servings, what to eat, and practical tips to get omega-3-rich fish in your diet.

Alphabet GuidesDr. Robert Davies

5. Half of your shopping basket should be fruits and vegetables

When you shop, draw an imaginary line down the centre of your basket or cart. At least half of that physical space ("volume") should be filled with fruits and vegetables. It doesn't matter if it is fresh or frozen. But it doesn't include your legumes, grains or white potatoes.

This is probably the most difficult recommendation on the list, but it will be the most impactful on your health.

Research shows that the more fruits and vegetables that you eat, the longer you live, and the lower your chances are of getting or dying of cardiovascular disease or cancer. Every extra serving of vegetables a day reduces your disease risk by around 10%.^[24]

Fruit and vegetables have a very low energy density — meaning you can eat a large volume of them for relatively few calories. A full plate of roasted vegetables might contain 150 calories, whilst the same volume of white pasta could contain 600 calories or more. 

The high fibre and water content of vegetables also slows digestion, stabilises blood sugar, and stops you from eating too many calories and other less healthy foods.

Plant-Based

Evidence-based resources on plant-based diet meal planning, recipes, and health benefits: clear, practical guidance for healthier eating.

Alphabet Guides

Notes & Substitutions

We do not see any adequate substitutes for recommendations 2 and 5 (legumes, fruit and vegetables). However, there are some potential alternatives for the other ones:

• If you can't eat canned oily fish, swap it for a quality cod liver oil (not fish oil) supplement. While cod liver oil supplements will provide the key nutrients (i.e., DHA, EPA, Vitamin D), they also miss other ones that whole oily fish have (e.g., protein, energy, several micronutrients).
• Canola oil can be swapped for extra-virgin olive oil. If you don't like oils, try adding a handful of nuts and seeds to your shopping basket instead. They provide healthy fats, vitamin E and magnesium. They are great for cardiovascular health.^[24]
• If you can't eat oats, replace as many refined grain products as you can with wholegrain ones. Barley and rye products are the two top substitutions.^[25]
• We advise keeping ultra-processed food intake to an absolute minimum.
• Dairy (particularly fermented dairy: yoghurt and cheese), eggs, white meat, some red meat, fish, and wholegrains are all great options to fill the rest of your shopping cart with — they just don't make the top 5.^[26]

Frequently Asked Questions

Bottom Line

You do not need to overhaul your life, spend hours prepping meals, counting calories or restricting yourself to a miserable regime of dull food. All we ask you to do here is to focus for 20 minutes a week while you do your weekly shop.

You obviously have to eat the food, but there are no strict rules on when, how, or how much; no food is banned. Minimum friction, ultimate flexibility, and, in our opinion, the best returns for your nutrition and health.

Your next shopping list:

• 1 large box of oats
• 1 can of legumes
• 1 bottle of canola (or rapeseed) oil
• 1 can of oily fish
• Half of your shopping basket should be fruit and vegetables

Once stored in your pantry or freezer, they are ready to eat whenever you want. They don't spoil too quickly; they don't require master-chef skills, but they'll efficiently improve the nutritional content of the standard Western diet.