Lindsay Maitland Hunt On The Importance of Gut Health and Her Newest Book ‘Help Yourself’
What if you could help heal your body and prevent a myriad of illnesses by maintaining your gut health? The science is revealing this more and more so I couldn’t be more excited to talk with Lindsay Maitland Hunt—who penned the best-selling book Healthyish:A Cookbook with Seriously Satisfying, Truly Simple, Good-For-You (but not too Good-For-You) Recipes for Real Life—about her newest book, Help Yourself: A Guide to Gut Health For People Who Love Delicious Food. Lindsay opens up about her own health journey and how she was forced to take matters into her own hands when doctors couldn’t find ‘the cure’; the fundamentals of good gut health; how to let beneficial bacteria thrive and how to stock your pantry to ensure that it in fact does. Read on to see how she transformed her health, plus she so kindly shared her recipe for Seeded Chocolate-Tahini Bark here.
Interview and Food photography by Alison Engstrom
Portrait of Lindsay courtesy of Linda Pugliese
First before we begin, how are you doing and feeling during this time period? Have you been really inspired and in the kitchen or kind of riding the wave?
That’s a really great question, I am glad we are talking five months in. At the beginning, I was really strict about following the Help Yourself way of eating, I lived by the book to an extreme degree, which I don’t really advocate, but I was really worried about getting the virus or if I had the virus, because the gut and immune system are so intertwined. I didn’t eat any sugar; I didn’t drink alcohol, but then I slid right in to the old coronavirus sugar addiction. It was intense. When everything was happening with the Black Lives Matter Movement and racial justice in general becoming more at the forefront, I felt like that was my priority. I have been working this whole time and I got completely off track and now since July, I have been doing Peloton everyday and eating by the book because of my mental health and the connection between the gut and the brain.
Your healthy journey I feel is going to relate with so many people. You talk about “feeling lost in your body.” I can related to that for sure having an autoimmune disease. Can you share what you mean by that and did you ever feel vulnerable sharing your journey?
It’s always really great to connect with someone who has a similar experience. I feel for you. It’s funny, I didn’t feel vulnerable at all writing it because my experience of writing this book was the most transformative experience of my life. To be honest, I didn’t even think about it being in people’s hands—I think that is a great thing for writing, to not think too much about the end product, but rather the process. I am glad I said it so truthfully because the reality is, so many people are having these experiences with different symptoms that have an underlying cause, whether it’s turned into a diagnosed autoimmune issue. This is definitely the most public version of sharing all of this truth but if it ends up helping someone, you know what? It was worth it.
One interesting thing is how you saw doctors who had so many different views on what you should do including very restrictive diets and medicine. It’s so interesting to me how doctors don’t prescribe food as medicine, rather they give you medicine. But you decided to take your health matters into your own hands. Can you share what you did?
I might have to start back at the beginning; I was having all of these different symptoms like migraines, joint pain, anxiety, depression, itching, heart burn, and weight gain—every doctor I went to was treating me for that thing. I knew these things were connected because I knew my body before and I knew my body then. I would say, do you think there is any reason why my joint pain and my heart burn were connected? They would say, no. I am very heartened that a lot of this is starting to become mainstream. I really hope with this book there are medical practitioners who look at the book—I don’t claim to be a doctor or a nutritionist—I am just one person who was desperate to find answers. After hitting rock bottom, I was so sick and so depressed, I didn’t even know myself. I went back to Wyoming and when I was here, I saw a functional medicine doctor, who was also an MD. His takeaway was first of all very enlightening, especially to be told, you are normal and we can fix this. That made me feel good because I had thought I was crazy and not taken seriously, which is even more so for people of color. The doctor recommended that I go on a super restrictive diet cutting out gluten, dairy and eggs. I did that and I didn’t feel better and that’s when I decided to take matters into my own hands. I was always intimidated by science and I didn’t think I was a person who could understand about the microbiota. But I had a certain level of desperation.
People would look at me and say, you look good; but to be honest, it wasn’t a question of external views of my body, it’s not recognizing myself. I bought everything on the market that was about this; I came across cookbooks that were advocating really restrictive diets that were not based in the science of the microbiota and making a bunch of claims. There are a lot of MD’s who have made causal statements, so I started reading what the actual gut microbiota experts were saying. There is a great book called The Good Gut Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Longterm Health by Justin and Erica Sonnenburg, who are researchers out of Stanford. Then I bought books by Rob Knight who is one of the most famous researchers—I was just going down the line.
What I came to understand was that it’s not about cutting these things out; there are a lot of things in the media about gluten, dairy and eggs being inflammatory and I want to say that it is possible when someone has a gut dysbiosis—whether that is leaky gut or not—your body can start to change how it recognizes some of these ingredients. However, this concept that those are inherently pro-inflammatory is not just limiting, but gets into a very dangerous area of judgment and moralization. I realized it’s not about cutting these things out and listening to what the lay media was saying; it’s about looking to the science of how these microbes actually function. What do health promoting microbes love to eat? Well, they love to eat dietary fiber from plants and the best way to get the most amount of those types of substances into your gut is by eating then in a whole foods source because the less broken down those complex chains of carbohydrates are, the more likely they are going to make it to all of those health promoting microbes that live, for the most part, inside of your large intestine.
Fascinating, when did you start all of this research?
This was three and half year ago before Healthyish, my first cookbook had even come out. I joke that I did a full four year undergraduate degree by writing this book. I didn’t want to sell it before really doing all of the research. I needed this book; if there had been a book like this back then, I would have just paid for it, done it and been happy.
When did you first find out about gut health and can you talk more about microbiota science for those who are unfamiliar?
We are covered inside and out with microbes and they live in these communities called microbiota. You might hear the term ‘microbiome’ a lot, but I like to be really strict about the scientific difference for those. The microbiome is the genes of those microbes. In the microbiota, there are all types of things; there’s viruses, bacteria, protozoa, funghi and they form these little communities that float around together. When we refer to the gut microbiota generally, and when people colloquially refer to it as microbiome, they are referring to the trillions of microbes that exist in the large intestine. In this symbiotic relationship, we house them and in return, they digest particles of food that escape the human digestive enzymes that are in the stomach and in the small intestine. The microbes that live there get to work on starting to break down these things. It’s important to think what those health microbes like to eat and how does this interaction work. What’s been spoken about the most is good bacteria; they love to eat complex carbohydrates, dietary fiber and you might also see the word, prebiotics, which are not just limited to vegetables, but also breast milk. When a prebiotic is digested by a microbe, it confers a health benefit on the host, which is the human. One of the most known and studied in this evolving science, but one of the chemicals that these microbes produce are called metabolites—like butyrate, acetate and propionate. We know that these have health benefits—they can leave the gut and transmit throughout our body. They can go to the vagus nerve, the super highway that connects the gut and the brain. The vagus nerve is amazing because it’s stimulated by breath.
I didn’t realize that the vagus nerve is related to the gut.
That’s the thing, when things are talked about in such siloed ways, it’s really difficult to realize that the enteric nervous system is whole and often referred to as the second brain. Here is the thing, neurotransmitters like serotonin, are literally imbedded into our gut wall. One of the ways that serotonin gets released is through exercise, when it creates peristalsis, which is a contraction of the gut wall.
What are some key pillars to cultivate good gut health in what you eat?
From what I have read and all of the experts that I have spoken to is that we do know that eating a variety of whole plant foods, correlates with good health; it’s mediated at least in part by health promoting microbes in the gut. Some people might think they are eating a whole foods diet but all they are eating is kale, quinoa, almonds or smoothies. I don’t want to say that’s bad but if you are just eating those things, certain microbes are going to start dying out. It’s about balance, it’s about practicalness and sustainability in your daily life. Whole foods are like a whole head of broccoli, butter—even though it’s is beneficially processed, something that Nutritionism author Gyorgy Scrinis wrote—and fermented foods like kimchi. A whole food is something you can recognize in its original form. An egg is a perfect food, that is Kristen Lawless’ thing—she wrote Formerly Known As Food: How the Industrial Food System Is Changing Our Minds, Bodies, and Culture.
Within those whole foods, stay plant focused, which I came up with—it’s first and foremost thinking about vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, beans, legumes and fruit. Those are all tracked in the scorecard in the back of the book. Then within staying plant focused, focus on eating a variety of at least 30 different types of plants each week. Also, reducing added sugar, but fruit and added sugar are very different. Sugar for the most part doesn’t make it to your gut microbiota. What happens to refined sugar is that they are easily digested by our human digestive enzymes. You are setting up a system that is telling your body something in opposition to what you want it to know and it is pro-inflammatory. The last thing is being mindful about the amounts of animal products, not just for the planet but because it can be a precursor to carcinogenic chemicals.
Any tips on how to achieve that number?
You wouldn't believe how much I freeze. If you have cooked quinoa, brown rice, barley and millet in your freezer you can then swap those things in and out. It can be as easy as cilantro on one meal and parsley on the next, those are two plants right there.
You also go beyond what you eat and talk about how mental health, which you MENTIONED is also related to gut health. Can you share more about that link?
We know that the gut and the brain are connected. We call it our gut instinct, you know, we feel sick to our stomach, like when you go on a date or a job interview. There is a direct nerve connection between the gut and the brain, it’s bidirectional. Along that pathway there are chemical messengers like, short-chained fatty acids we talked about earlier, which are the metabolites and the neurotransmitters which are produced in the gut that run up that highway. These chemicals stimulate the HPA access—the hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenal glands—which control the stress response. This is the most interesting thing—only 10% goes from the brain to the gut and 90% that goes from gut to brain. So when you think about that, the most viable approach to thinking about our mental health is through what we eat because it’s literally processed in our gut and then talking to the brain. Again and again what I came across in terms of my research was that stress also mediates and effects the gut. Stress is a factor in dysbiosis and leaky gut—when the gut wall becomes porous. Breath is really important; when we breath and relax, we literally enable our digestion to do what it does best. When we are in fight or flight, it freezes the digestive system or it empties it.
What does good gut-health pantry look like?
I include the refrigerator and freezer when it comes to the pantry. Having it well-stocked doesn’t mean that you have to buy a bunch each week. You can just regularly go and pick up a few fresh things so you are hitting that variety over time. I like to have a variety of whole grains; I cook my beans and legumes from scratch and when I have time, I soak and sprout all of my whole grains, beans and legumes. I added that in the book and I hope I made it easy. I also buy fermented foods and keep them in the refrigerator. One of my favorite things is to buy a lazy Susan—I call it the Fermentation Station. I have it in there and you can just twirl it for your miso, kimchi, sauerkraut and kefir. I also like to stock seeds, nuts and nut butters. It’s also really important for me to have a lot of things that add a lot of flavor, I talked about this in Healthyish— I call them flavor boosters—I always have olives, parmesan, capers, dates, curry paste and tamari. In my freezer I always have a thing of Trash or Treasure Broth (recipe is in the book)—my freezer is my best friend. I also try to store good gut-friendly food for when I really don’t feel like cooking, which is regular, I can just pull it out. Or else I would just be eating cheese and crackers (laughs). It’s not that natural for me to eat healthfully and that’s what I would really say about this book. Most health books are written by people where it comes natural for them to eat healthfully.
What you do in this book though is that all of the food just looks so vibrant and flavorful, you really want to eat it! What are some of your favorite recipes from the book?
The Seed Shaker is barely a recipe—you might think, why do I combine a bunch of seeds into a jar and then you do and oh my gosh not only do I eat seeds more but I don’t have to open all of these bags. It’s like confetti on everything you put it on. It makes healthy food just look appetizing, which is super important. The Whipped Cauliflower and Harissa Dip is another, which is insane, and it is plant-based and no one knows. I am also really proud of the desserts the Sweet Potato Pie—it is so good.
My last question for you is, food is...
life. Our lives and our food are 100% interlinked.
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This story is meant to be informational. It’s best to consult with a medical professional for direct questions pertaining to your health.