Barbecue season should be a golden opportunity to eat well – sunshine, open flames and plenty of time to eat slowly and socially. But most of us are getting it wrong. Piling our plates with salty sausages, beige burgers, sugar-laden sauces and not a vegetable in sight, we're turning what could be a gut-friendly, health-supportive way of eating into the opposite. Experts warn that these typical barbecue habits – heavy on red and processed meats, white carbs and booze – could quietly sabotage everything from your heart to your microbiome.
That doesn't mean it's time to cancel your next grill session. In fact, it's what you choose to cook that makes all the difference. Swap ultra-processed meats for lean cuts, marinated chicken thighs or oily fish; ditch the shop-bought sauces for something homemade with citrus and herbs. And for the love of your gut bacteria, throw some vegetables on the grill – the more colour, the better.
From there, it's all about balance. Have your sausage, just maybe one instead of three, tucked into a flatbread next to a tangy slaw and something fermented. Tim Spector, the gut health guru himself, says barbecues can be incredibly beneficial – if you do them right.
And while you're thinking about how to eat better, NHS doctor and MasterChef winner Dr Saliha Mahmood-Ahmed has a trio of gut-friendly summer recipes to get excited about. Her smashed greens with feta and mint on toast sneak in fibre at breakfast; a Mediterranean-inspired pasta salad that's fridge-friendly and bursting with prebiotic ingredients; and a spice-roasted aubergine traybake that's hearty, vibrant and generous with the herbs. Each dish is colourful, easy to throw together and rich in the plant variety your microbiome loves – no cutting out, just packing more in.
That same celebratory spirit runs through two summer recipes from Arete founders George Colebrook and Neil Paterson. Their scallop crudo with housemade bergamot kosho is clean and zippy, while tempura purple sprouting broccoli with elderflower mayo takes a fleeting seasonal vegetable and makes it sing. Yes, the vinegar requires an overnight steep and the kosho takes a few days to ferment – but the results are light, elegant and the sort of thing you'd expect in a restaurant, not a garden table.
If effortlessness is more your style, food writer Gurdeep Loyal has the pantry shortcuts to help. In his new cookbook Flavour Heroes, he makes the case for five punchy ingredients that can instantly elevate your cooking: harissa, toasted sesame oil, dark roasted peanut butter, nduja and the deeply citrusy Japanese chilli paste yuzu kosho. He uses them in dishes like fennel sausage and gochujang pasta, chipotle hoisin chicken wings and intensely fudgy brownies laced with espresso and treacle. There's nothing cheffy about them – just big, loud, joyful flavours, layered onto everyday ingredients.
And speaking of everyday favourites, the humble burger gets the fine-dining treatment at Heard, a new opening from former two-star chef Jordan Bailey in Borough. There's wine pairings, Ogleshield cheese, jalapeño honey and truffle mayo – but as our reviewer Lilly Subbotin finds, no matter how high the pedigree or precise the sourcing, sometimes a burger is still just a burger. A bloody good one, mind you. Just make sure you save space for the ice cream sandwich. It's all anyone can talk about.
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The best and worst barbecue foods for your health, according to the experts |
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Barbecues could be a golden opportunity to eat well – but most of us are getting it badly wrong. Hannah Twiggs grills the experts on what to avoid this summer
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Barbecue season should be a golden time for health. You're outside, cooking from scratch, eating slowly (ish) and enjoying yourself. The method is simple and fire-kissed. No deep-fat fryers or ultra-processed ready meals in sight. But the way most of us do barbecues? That's a different story. Salty supermarket sausages. White bread buns. A plastic pot of coleslaw sweating in the sun. Possibly some scorched halloumi if someone's feeling fancy.
What should be a wholesome, gut-friendly way of eating – grilled proteins, heaps of vegetables, fermented sides if we're really doing it right – quickly turns into a bloated, beige pile of processed meat, saturated fat and sugar-laden sauces.
And it's not just the waistband-tightening aftermath we should worry about. Experts warn that the typical British barbecue could be quietly sabotaging your gut, heart and long-term health – but it doesn't have to be that way...
Read the full article here
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| Flavour Heroes by Gurdeep Loyal |
Gurdeep Loyal's Flavour Heroes invites home cooks to wield 15 pantry powerhouses – harissa, yuzu kosho, miso, 'nduja and more – to instantly amplify everyday meals. With 90 vibrant sweet and savoury recipes, this clever cookbook skips foodie fuss and celebrates bold global flavours you can genuinely cook and enjoy every single day.
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