Eat Nourish Flourish -12 Steps to Healthier Family Food
Establishing healthy eating habits can be a challenging process, especially if the whole family are trying to make changes but perhaps doesn’t all follow the same diet.
Carey Davis-Munro, a food coach and mother of three, knows this all too well which is why she created Eat Nourish Flourish, her 12-step plan and recipe book focusing on healthy and sustainable relationships with food. It features 46 recipes that are not only delicious but easy to make, which is so important when you are trying to change eating habits amidst a busy everyday life.
At a time when our lives are not just busy, but sometimes out of our control due to worldwide issues like the coronavirus pandemic, food is one way that we can be empowered, not simply to make healthier choices but to build our immunity and resistance, both mentally and physically.
Our gut is the engine room of our bodies, messaging our brains more than vice versa, creating our immunity through a healthy and diverse biota and biome and manufacturing all those chemicals that will impact how we feel mentally too. We are seeing a surge of mental health issues now, and people can help themselves by understanding that over 90% of our serotonin is made in our gut. Therefore, feeding ourselves the right foods, now more than ever, should be our priority. Building a healthier relationship with food, understanding its protective properties, and taking steps to incorporate healthier habits will not only influence your health now but affect your longevity and help protect against other lifestyle diseases.
With a family and full-time job, herself, Carey understands that for positive change to be sustainable, gain the support of your loved ones, and have a long-lasting impact, it needs to be a process. You’ll need to bring your family along with you, throughout the education, the understanding, the planning, the cooking, and – of course – the passion.
And that’s where Eat Nourish Flourish comes in. There are many complex psychological reasons as to why we don’t invest the time, energy, and money in healthy eating, so Carey primarily focuses on changing the relationship you have with food for the better. Whether you’ve tried to make changes before or not, Carey uses a well-known, tried and tested coaching model that translates intentions into sustainable action, guiding you through the process with a structure and goals.
Alongside this 12-step guide, Carey has also created a range of flexitarian recipes that take you from breakfast-on-the-go through tasty midweek lunches to fun and family-friendly meals. The ‘How to stock your cupboards’ section is a useful guide to ingredients that will add flavour and depth to your cooking, and once you’ve built up a collection of these, it’s simple to create varied dishes without having to shop for lots of extras.
Standout dishes include Butternut Squash and Porcini Risotto, Aubergine Rogan Josh with Raita and Baked Salmon with Ginger, Lime, Chilli and Tamari. There are plenty of snacks and sweets too, such as Crispy Chickpeas and Healthy Millionaires, alongside soups, salads, sauces, and sides to ‘nourish up’ every mealtime.
But Eat Nourish Flourish is so much more than a recipe book. It’s about empowering you to make positive changes that will last and, ultimately, giving you and those around you all the tools you need to live a long and healthy life. This book supports sustainable, long-term change whether you are single, a family, a couple or living with housemates. As Carey says, “commit to making it work and there is no better gift you will ever give yourself, or others… or that I could give to you.”
Eat Nourish Flourish is a 160-page paperback and retails at £18. It will be available to purchase from Amazon, bookshops including Waterstones and online.
Poppy Watt