Welcome to month 2 of the Balanced Belly Book Club. Each month, I take on one book that’s dedicated to gut health and wellness. Last month, I reviewed Liz Earle’s Good Gut Guide (read the full review here) and today I’ll be reviewing The Gut Makeover by Jeannette Hyde
What Is It?
The Gut Makeover is a comprehensive guide to good gut health written by experienced Nutritional Therapist Jeannette Hyde. Jeannette is highly experienced and versed in all things gut health so aims to firstly provide an overview of the key things we need to know, then lead us through a 4-week program. Her second book- The Gut Makeover Recipe Book– provides lots of recipes based on the principles of the first book.
What I Liked About It
I think the thing I liked the most was Jeannette sharing her personal journey with learning about food and her gut. She also acknowledges very early on in the book that we are all different and that her book is therefore all about informing rather than leading you down a prescriptive one size fits all approach (can I get an amen!). If you’re a beginner to learning all about things gut health, then this is perfect for you, since Jeannette talks us through how our digestive system works, leaky gut, whether we should give up gluten and provides lots of real life case studies. The 4-week plan provides lots of information on what foods to eat with a wealth of recipes and tips (such as how to make kefir and bone broth). The recipe book offers a wide range of yummy sounding recipes.
What I Didn’t Like About It.
The only thing I found missing from this book was images. This is perhaps more significant for the recipe book that the makeover guide. As a food blogger, I suppose images help me figure out if a recipe is something I’d like to try or if it’s suitable. The recipes were interesting and different but some were based around insoluble fibre vegetables so it would be nice to see different suggestions for those of us who struggle to digest large quantities of fibre (although presumably, the idea would be that the gut plan may make this easier for our bodies to handle)
Overall Verdict
If you’re looking for an introductory guide to gut health with lots of inspiration to get you started then The Gut Makeover is a great place to start. If you are already well versed on all things digestion, then the recipe book may be a better fit as some of the explanations in the first book may seem a little simplistic
The gap –> a niche for you Jenna! 😉