Cooking for a healthy gut
ON THE back of the success of her first cookbook, The Yoga Kitchen: 100 Easy Superfood Recipes, Marlien Wright has released her newest offering on the healthy food front – The Mandala
Kitchen: 100 nourishing recipes to heal your gut.
In this book she hones in on the topic of gut health – often a point of interest when it comes to scientific research on how our gut health can be linked to our overall good health and, on the flip side, many diseases.
In an interview, Wright explained how she evolved into a health-food enthusiast.
“During my 20s I lived in the UK for nine years, and during my time there I worked with an amazing French woman in her mid-40s.
“She was so inspiring and had amazing skin, and literally glowed with good health.
“We soon became friends and she taught me about intuitive eating, choosing ingredients and meals based on quality, not quantity.
“Suddenly the penny dropped, and I started thinking about food in terms of high-quality fuel and nourishment, as opposed to just addressing hunger.”
Wright said that choosing whole foods in our diets meant we were excluding unnecessary preservatives, additives, refined flours, sugar, trans fats and the like.
“For me, whole foods is about combining raw and unprocessed ingredients to create a delicious and nourishing meal that we can trust to be ‘clean’ and crammed full of fibre, vitamins, minerals, good fats and antioxidants.”
Commenting on why she thinks “being healthy is sexy”, she said: “Being healthy means being strong, feeling good and as a result, looking your best.
“Once you experience these positive changes your self-esteem will naturally soar and that feeling of self-confidence translates into being ‘sexy’.”
Wright was inspired to pen
The Mandala Kitchen because healthy gut matters were often being raised.
“In recent years the importance of looking after our microbe community (our gut health) has come to light.
“We now know that in order for us to have a super strong immune system, improve our mood and manage our weight naturally we need to ‘feed’ our microbes the right kind of foods. In a nutshell, our microbes need tons of fibre (not the all-bran kind).
“With The Mandala Kitchen I felt inspired to create a practical guide with easy and tasty recipes to help others along their journey for their best and radiant (gut) health.”
The Mandala Kitchen sheds light on which foods and lifestyle choices can either promote or damage your gut health, and offers a collection of easy, delicious and nourishing recipes to heal your gut and, as a result, strengthen your immune system, improve your mood and assist in weight loss.
All the recipes have been designed to be time-saving and family friendly.
Highlights in the book include:
● A Gentle Start – meal suggestions to start healing your gut.
● Lunchbox ideas and recipes for on-thego gut health.
● Gut-healing recipes for children: childfriendly meals that have been fool-proofed with the author’s children.
● Simple fermenting/culturing recipes. ● A selection of recipes from The Good Gut, and a few of the author’s favourites from Wellness (Warehouse) Café, Spirit Café and Marrow for gut-healthy food choices on the go.
latoya.newman@inl.co.za