In Conversation with Tim Spector

I was extremely fortunate to spend a couple of hours tasting our new season releases with Tim Spector in London this month.

For those of you outside the UK, it is an understatement to say that Tim is one of the leading medical minds in the world, applying his science and sensitivity to research and knowledge of the gut microbiome. He has published a number of award winning books, perhaps most notably Food for Life, which dives in to scientific detail of how to eat well – we can’t recommend this book highly enough, if you haven’t read it, it should be on your Christmas list

 

Through zoe.com, Tim and his collaborators have seen the most incredible results by figuring out how food affects us as individuals, it is a totally tailor-made approach that results in a personalised plan to best direct your diet, improve your habits and work towards goals that best suit you.  It is remarkable to see how adjustments to diet can result in such an improvement of energy, gut health, mood and overall metabolism. Zoe is only available to US and UK residents at present, but I have a feeling this will roll out further before long – there is a wait list already in place.

Tim is an avid consumer of new season extra virgin olive oil; he even has a few olive trees that he’s nurturing to produce his own house olive oil. On reading his book, it’s notable that extra virgin olive oil appears to be one of the only ingredients that has no negative implications for our gut microbiome and this is truly worth celebrating.  In addition to the 36 identified polyphenols, as a good fat it supports many of our needs, giving us a sense of satiety as well as aiding digestion.  So, it was fascinating to discuss monocultivar oils and the work we have done at Frantoi to pick out the very best each season, reinvesting focus on the seasonality of extra virgin olive oil in order to bring it to the table when the polyphenols are at their highest.

We will keep you posted as our conversations with Tim progress.  In the meantime, get hold of his book, it really is a great read.

 

Tim can be found on Instagram @tim.spector