The go-to lifestyle guide for a happy gut, with easy-to-understand assessments and 50 gut-loving recipes If you ask Dr. Megan Rossi about the best investment you can make in your future, she’ll tell you: Look after your gut. Seventy million Americans suffer from gut-related issues, diagnosed or otherwise. But it’s not just about gut symptoms: Whatever our wellness goals are–weight management, … are–weight management, improved fitness, healthier skin, stronger immunity, or even happiness–gut microbes can be our best allies.
Dr. Rossi opens Love Your Gut with easy-to-follow questionnaires that will help readers discern their current health status and craft a personal action plan. She follows with evidence-based strategies on everything from sleep to yoga; expert advice on dealing with IBS, food intolerance, and other challenges; and over fifty delicious meal ideas: from Banana, Fig, and Zucchini Breakfast Loaf to Creamy Pistachio Pesto Pasta. (Did you know your gut microbes crave variety? Ideally 30 different plant-based foods each week!) Love Your Gut makes it fun and easy to supercharge your digestive health and transform your well-being–from the inside out.
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In Love Your Gut, registered dietician Megan Rossi provides a very simple explanation of how your gut and its microbiome work. She then offers guidance on identifying and treating various gut problems, such as constipation, bloating, acid reflux, IBS, and food intolerances. The book functions somewhat like a workbook, with numerous assessments, flow charts, and worksheets to help you design your own plan for improving your gut health. Because of these features, I think this book will work better as a paperback than an ebook.
I appreciated the chapters on sleep, stress, and exercise. Dr. Rossi includes a series of yoga exercises that I’ve found helpful, as well as suggestions for strengthening the pelvic floor and giving yourself an abdominal massage.
Almost a third of the book consists of high-fiber, plant-powered recipes that the author describes as offering flexibility for “intolerances, time limitations, space constraints, budgets, [and] cooking skills.” I tried a good sampling of the recipes and was happy with their flexibility, healthiness, and flavor. Some of the recipes looked very easy, and some were more challenging, but they did seem clearly written with helpful tips. All of the recipes feature a diversity of plant foods and can be made vegetarian; most could be made vegan. Many of the recipes include gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, or nightshades, but they are usually still workable with her suggested substitutions or omissions for those with allergies or intolerances.
The Quinoa Sushi Rolls were excellent and will become part of my regular recipe rotation. I was delighted by the recipe templates, such as Mix-and-Match Porridge, Mix-and-Match Sliders, and Good Gut Bowls, that offer different choices for each category of ingredients. This is a great way to use up leftovers, and if you’re feeding a group, it allows each person to customize their meal. Recipes such as Fermented Overnight Oats and Microwave Popcorn are easy to assemble and offer a choice of toppings.
Most of the recipes include photographs on a separate page, but I was disappointed that the book doesn’t include nutritional data. Some recipes include ingredients that may be unfamiliar and difficult to find, such as freekeh, banana flour, and gelatin sheets, but most recipes can be made with more widely available ingredients. Some recipes require a food processor. The recipes were originally written for publication in the UK, and measurements aren’t always easy to accommodate in the USA without a food scale; as an example, I wasn’t sure how to measure 5 ounces (150 grams) of sweet potato, or 1.5 ounces (40 grams) of oats.
The book also includes information about and recipes for fermenting and sprouting.
If you’re looking for healthy new recipes to add more variety to your diet, this is worth trying. Although much of this content will likely be review if you’ve read much on the subject, this is a good book if you’re experiencing unpleasant gut symptoms and want an individualized plan for improving your gut health. You might still need to work with a gastroenterologist and/or a dietician, but this is a good place to start. I also recommend The Bloated Belly Whisperer by Tamara Duker Freuman.
I was provided an unproofed ARC through NetGalley that I volunteered to review.
Learn to love your gut with this jam-packed book.