Description

---

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.
 

About the Author

---

LINDSAY MAITLAND HUNT is a writer and recipe developer. She was an editor at Real Simple and BuzzFeed, and is the author of the cookbook Healthyish. Find her on instagram @lindsaymaitland.

Praise For…

---

"A lightning bolt of lucidity in a crowded and jargon-laden field of often impractical and unsustainable dietary approaches." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)   "Hunt's sincerity and belief in the benefits of e-gut-ilibrium is 150 percent contagious." --Booklist   "A worthy follow-up to Healthyish that can more than stand on its own." --Library Journal (starred review)   "Much more than a cookbook, Help Yourself is the inspiring tale of one woman's journey back to health, fashioned into a Bible for a new way of eating. Lindsay's clear-headed, research-based approach, combined with her passion and talent for creating cookable recipes, add up to a book my gut tells me will make a delicious difference in many lives." --ADEENA SUSSMAN, author of Sababa: Fresh, Sunny Flavors from My Israeli Kitchen   "Lindsay has achieved the impossible with Help Yourself: a book about health that trades in pleasure, and manages to cast gut microbes as guests at a fantastic party that your body gets to host. Through the lens of her own experience, and with the scientific rigor often missing from the fact-averse #wellness canon, Lindsay imagines a world in which food can offer both joy and salvation in the same bite." --JORDANA ROTHMAN, food writer and co-author of Tacos: Recipes and Provocations    "Most cookbooks just focus on how to get food from supermarket to mouth. In Help Yourself, Lindsay goes a lot further, examining how our bodies actually process (or don't) what we eat. Lindsay presents a compeling case for how we can all be gentler on our bodies and our guts, without sacrificing big flavors." --CHRIS MOROCCO, deputy food editor, Bon Appetit    "As someone who's suffered my fair share of food-related health issues and the joyless diet plans prescribed to treat them, Lindsay's "taste-first" approach to healthier eating is a revelation. Her recipes rise above soulless science to give you solutions you'll actually enact with recipes you'll crave. This book is an indispensable guide to a better way of treating my body through food, and I'll be cooking from it every week." --BEN MIMS, cooking columnist for the Los Angeles Times   "Help Yourself isn't just a provision for hearty eating, it provides us with peace of mind, exploring the links between our personal microbiota and a symbiotic approach towards better gut health. What's doubly impressive is that these restorative recipes are delicious too; they home in on Lindsay's talents as a cook without getting outdone by the edifying science preceding them." --MICHAEL HARLAN TURKELL, award-winning photographer, author, and podcast host   "Lindsay Maitland Hunt has done it again--nailing the delicate intersection between healthful and delicious. She has meticulously and thoughtfully laid out a plan for gut health-forward eating so we don't have to, all while keeping our taste buds downright delighted! I'm already craving another bowl of saucy coconut collards, chocolate-chunk-peanut-butter 'nice' cream, and those pistachio butter thumbprints..." --SARAH COPELAND, award-winning author of Feast and Every Day Is Saturday   "This book is an act of compassion and of service. Lindsay equips us with the (delicious) tools to treat our bodies right and, by candidly and sometimes hilariously detailing her own health journey, she makes those of us who have suffered through similar discomforts feel less alone. (I also —