Barbara O’Neill’s Approved Food List

Barbara O’Neill is a nutritionist who is an advocate for alternative medicine and utilizing foods to heal a variety of ailments. She eats a plant-based diet – but what does it consist of and what other foods does she recommend that we eat?

What Does Barbara O’Neill Eat?

Barbara O'Neill has two main meals – breakfast and lunch, and a much lighter meal, such as soup, in the evening. She says: “Eat breakfast like a king. Lunch like a queen and tea or supper like a pauper.” The reason she eats a lighter meal in an evening is to give her body time to complete the digestion process before she goes to bed. She says, “you will sleep better if your stomach is allowed to sleep too.” Our bodies needs to perform other important tasks while we sleep, and if we eat too close to bed our body will be busy digesting any recently eaten food. Barbara mentions she often doesn’t have a meal on an evening at all, and she places much more importance on breakfast and lunch.

The nutritionist chooses to eat a plant-based diet due to the majority of foods in this category having an alkaline effect on the body. She states: “The diet I follow is a plant-based diet. I eat a high fiber diet. I eat generous proteins. I have legumes, in fact some days I have them every meal.”

Barbara O’Neill puts an emphasis on eating foods high in fiber. She also notes the importance of protein. She states that she eats generous amounts of protein “because every membrane around every cell is 50% protein. The body needs amino acids to build new cells – so we need protein. And the best protein, the cleanest burning fuel protein is legumes and nuts and seeds.”

The third macronutrient she places importances on is good fats. Barbara says “I have two main meals and I have fats, not a lot of fats. I might have a teaspoon of olive oil a meal. I might have a few nuts and seeds after every meal.”

Barbara O’Neill Food List

Here are some of the examples Barbara O’Neill has given regarding what she eats for each meal:

Breakfast

Two or three pieces of fruit
Sourdough spelt toast with olive oil and avocado
Red lentils or brown lentils or black eyed beans or scrambled organic tofu
Nuts (10 per meal)
Seeds (quarter of a cup)

Lunch

A big salad
Steamed or stir-fried vegetables
Legumes
Nuts (10 per meal)
Seeds (quarter of a cup)

Dinner

Avocado and crackers, or soup

Honorable Mentions

Legumes ( e.g. lima beans, black eyed beans, cannelloni beans, chickpeas, lentils)
Dark green leafy vegetables (e.g. kale, parsley, spinach, collard greens)
Quinoa
Celtic sea salt
Raw honey
Coconut oil
Garlic
Fresh herbs