When this goes with that - good food combinations that may deliver extra health benefits

It's called food synergy - meaning when eating two or more ingredients together provides a bigger health benefit than if you ate each food separately. You probably know one example of food synergy already - teaming a good source of vitamin C (orange juice or tomatoes, for instance) helps you absorb more iron from food eaten at the same meal.

But as science discovers more about how different plant chemicals work together, more examples of this dietary teamwork are emerging. One is that good fat in olive oil or avocado can help you get more antioxidants from other plant foods - add some avocado to a bowl of sliced tomatoes and you'll absorb more of an antioxidant called lycopene. More lycopene on your plate isn't a bad idea - besides giving tomatoes their red colour, it may help protect against prostate and breast cancer, and heart disease. Toss some spinach into the same bowl and the fat in the avocado helps you absorb more of an eye-healthy antioxidant called lutein which may help prevent age related vision loss. Are you with me so far?

Just suppose you're eating wholegrain bread with your tomatoes and avocado - by dunking it into a yoghurt- based dip like tzatziki, the yoghurt will help you absorb more zinc from the wholegrains. Other happy couples include:

- Turmeric with black pepper Turmeric is the spice that gives curry powder it's golden glow - and there's speculation that its widespread use in India may help explain why rates of some cancers are much lower there than in the west. Turmeric contains an antioxidant called curcumin which has been linked to a lower risk of some cancers and Alzheimers'disease. Adding black pepper - which many cooks do intuitively in curries and other spicey dishes - may boost curcumin absorption, according to research.

- Turmeric with cauliflower Lab studies suggest that combining curcumin from turmeric with a substance found in cruciferous vegetables like cauliflower or broccoli can reduce the growth of prostate tumour cells more effectively than when they're used alone.

-Broccoli with tomatoes. Both vegetables are believed to have anti-cancer potential - lab studies suggest the effect is stronger when they're put together.

- Fresh marjoram and salad. A tablespoon of fresh marjoram can boost the antioxidant value of a mixed salad by 200 per cent.

-Chopped, unpeeled apples with berries. Combining unpeeled apple with berries may have more of an anti-cancer effect that one of these fruits alone. Lab studies suggest the antioxidant quercetin found in apple peel, together with another antoixoidant called ellagic acid found in berries, can kill cancer cells. Whether this works as well in fruit salad as in the test tube isn't certain - either way it's a good-tasting combination.

There are probably hundreds of other examples of this teamwork in the food supply - we just don't know what they are yet. Although this is still early research, it's another argument for eating as big a variety of plant foods as possible - good nutrition isn't just about single nutrients working alone, but a whole team of food chemicals working together to help keep us healthy.(It's also why we're better off putting our faith in food rather than supplements.)

In my kitchen I try to scoop up as many different nutrients as possible by combining lots of different foods in one dish - like homemade muesli with eight or nine different ingredients or salads that include up to ten different ingredients.