Help Yourself: A Guide to Gut Health for People Who Love Delicious Food

by Lindsay Maitland Hunt

More than 125 gut-friendly recipes plus science-backed advice for wellness in body and mind
 
This game-changing cookbook will make you rethink how you eat.
 
It turns out that gut health is the root of all health: A happy equilibrium in the body’s unique community of microbes promotes good health throughout the body, including a stronger immune system, better sleep, and lower stress.
 
Despite eating healthfully, author and recipe developer Lindsay Maitland Hunt was plagued by symptoms such as depression, fatigue, incessant itching, and joint pain—until a gut-friendly way of eating helped bring her back to a state of balance. In fact, she felt better than ever before. Out of Lindsay’s journey from sickness to health, and her extensive research, comes this practical and nourishing guide, with irresistibly delicious recipes that make you feel good too.
 
Dishes emphasize plant-based ingredients like vegetables, nuts and seeds, beans and legumes, and whole grains, along with eggs, fish, and some meat and dairy, if you like. Lindsay also walks you through integrating fermented foods into your daily life and reducing added sugar and processed foods. It’s an approach you can tailor to your own lifestyle, whether you’re vegan, gluten free, or just love to eat! Recipes cover any time you eat, from quick weeknight dinners to party-worthy treats, including:
  Seeded Almond Flour Waffles with Raspberry-Flax Smash Garlicky Shrimp and Quinoa “Grits” Special-Occasion Short Ribs with Olive Oil and Kefir Mashed Potatoes Parsley, Kale, and Pumpkin Seed Pesto Brussels Sprouts and Peanut Butter Curry Bowl Peanut Butter–Banana “Nice” Cream Plus go-to essentials (roasted vegetables, simply cooked leafy greens, sprouted grains, and more) for building meals off the cuff  
Beyond the recipes, Lindsay explains what you need to know about your gut microbiota and offers smart strategies and solutions to help you navigate real life, like a new food pyramid for gut health and tips for tracking (and rewarding) healthy-living habits.
 
Help Yourself isn’t a fad diet, a detox, or a cleanse. It’s a common-sense approach to food, backed by science. If you’ve been living with symptoms such as allergies, chronic pain, inflammation, bloating or weight gain, exhaustion or poor sleep, acne, irritability, if you’ve been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease—or if you just want to feel your best in your body—this book offers a pathway to wellness via the gut.
 

Genres: Cookbooks, Food, Nonfiction, Health, Cooking, Ebooks

368 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 8, 2020

Reviews

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Her introductory chapters were good. This is one of the more balanced approaches to healthy eating that I have encountered. I felt empowered to eat a more plant focused diet, and that experimenting with new vegetable pairings was within reach. Her recommendations are based on scientific research, not from a blogger trying to sell a product.
The recipes, however, didn’t hold up to her stated recipe goals (i.e. food should not pretend to be what it isn’t) and didn’t do much to tempt me. I am willing to try new ingredients, but limit myself to one new endeavor a week to not overwhelm my busy schedule. Only about 10% of the included recipes seemed worth the trouble to learn.

[Hannah Babki]

I picked this book up as I'm looking to eat more vegetables, reduced added sugar, and reverse my prediabetes. The book is beautiful, well laid out, and the recipes sound delicious. However, as someone who has previously struggled with orthorexia, this book's puritanical zeal is too triggering for me to use it. Despite the author's disclaimers against orthorexia and obeying extreme food rules, some of the language feels oddly stringent or obsessive - a heading where she writes "don't eat any sugar at all," an aside where she mentions not eating any bread when she first started her diet, and the encouragement to track meals with a scorecard. It is difficult to heed her disclaimers of not thinking obsessively about food when some of the encouraged behaviours feed into, well, obsession. Given her disclaimers I don't think this was the author's intention, and this is certainly not an issue unique to this cookbook, but for people who have previously struggled with eating disorders I would skip this one. For those who don't mind this level of structure, or have health issues that require them to make strict diet changes, this book could be great!

[Little · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a gimmicky book. It's a simple, lay-person's guide to the interconnection between diet, gut microbes, and overall health. And it's a good recipe book. Hunt knows how to write tasty recipes using real ingredients, and she brings that skill to "gut friendly" cooking. And all health claims aside, I found a lot of the recipes inspiring for just normal daily cooking for my family.

[Lora · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great cookbook with a solid, scientifically-based intro about gut health... which is an ugly phrase, but a fascinating topic. I especially love how the recipes are delicious, healthy and plant-focused, but don’t necessarily exclude any food groups (meat, dairy, etc.) completely. Moderation is a beautiful thing! :)

[Catie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really appreciate the author sharing her own story and giving us the latest in gut science and why it’s so important. I have been eating a very similar diet so I was so excited to see yummy recipes since I’d been feeling in a rut. I like the tips and prep ideas she has to make cooking this way an easy way of life.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review is for the opening of the book, which I thought was really well written. An excellent starting point for people who don’t know where to start to get a handle on their gut issues. I haven’t tried the recipes yet, but they all look really good!

[Laila · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading the first section about her journey to good gut health and the scientific evidence behind her assertions. I think we do need to be focusing more on gut health than we do generally. I think it's a great idea for people to eat more veggies and whole grains than other things. And I appreciated how she didn't want to focus on calories as a measure of how "good" a food was for you. But not being a cook, I was intimidated by her recipes. They looked delicious. But they were a bit too much for me at this busy stage of my life. Others may feel differently, and this book is certainly worth a checkout at the library!

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the science explanations in this book and some of the recipes were certainly intriguing. But as other reviewers have noted, there is quite a bit of restrictive language, even though helping yourself is supposed to benefit your gut microbiome. Some of the meal ideas are silly though—4 dates, peanut butter, and seeds for breakfast? Sounds delicious but 2 dates is pushing the limit!! And half a cup of kimchi plus an entire avocado? Yikes.

Anyway. Some nice ideas for roasted veggies (mg fave!) and I did make some garlic sautéed daikon radish greens. A fun experiment!

[Lora · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t agree with everything she says from the research I’ve done (FYI first 100 pages are all on gut health), but there are some solid tips for those new to this kind of thinking. I will make a few of her recipes and appreciate all the ingredients and simplicity, although most are all crazy expensive and unattainable to the average person in America. Which is sad. Good food shouldn’t be so expensive. But I am definitely having her tuna and kimchi bowl for lunch this week! (Although the amount she has as a serving would leave me hungry all day!!!)

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciated the reading part more than the recipes that seemed both too simple and too complicated. Ingredients I don’t want to make caramels with dates or hunt down quinoa flakes or hemp seeds. But I also don’t need a recipe for a black bean burrito. Some recipes looked good, a millet burger (but that would require me to get millet), a trout artichoke and chive dip. Lots of sweet potatoes and lots of quinoa.

[Nessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book! I love how it's explained in a way that stays with the reader, especially for those of us that have to watch our colon health. A must read for those who keep having health issues that can't be fixed with traditional Rx.

[Arlene · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciated Hunt’s well written introductory text about the benefits of a low-glycemic, high-fiber diet, but she lost me after I made one of her recipes. The pickled shallot recipe was time consuming to make. It tasted like raw onions and vinegar. Yuck!

[Lindsay Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

1. I added this as reading bc roughly the first 100 pages are about gut health. The recipes are in the second half.
2. I checked this out from the library, but I'm going to buy a copy bc every recipe we've made so far has been liked by everyone in the family!

[Kanani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great information about gut health and related terms, and some tasty-looking recipes with lovely accompanying images.

[Sosa Coleone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stop it

[Brianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best approaches to this complex issue I have seen so far.

[Natalie Quast]

Lots of good info about the gut microbiota (my favorite topic) and recipes!

[Debbie Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Borrowed it from the library, so good I chose to buy it for my library. Lots of talk and recipes for gut health.

[Marcie Marzullo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful pictures - nontypical ingredients that may not use too often.

[Val · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are just starting your gut health journey, this is a good place to start. The intro chapters contain a lot of good, basic information without all the medical and sciencey data.

[Alissa Quinlan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book!! Lots of ways to infuse veggies and good grains in so many creative ways.

[LemontreeLime · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant! (Cauliflower croutons! I❤️you)