One of the first things we bonded over, when we first started dating, was our gut issues (who said romance was dead?). Both of us had tried lots of different approaches over the years – excluding food groups and buying expensive superfood powders etc. – yet things seemed to be getting worse in the long term.
Fast forward six months, two of Dr Megan’s recipe books and hundreds of plant points later, and both of us have seen a vast improvement in our gut health. Sam has managed to retrain his gut after sticking to a low-FODMAP diet for years and can now enjoy onions, garlic and a wider variety of fruit. Learning about the gut-brain axis has also been a revelation, and we both use it as a tool to boost our mental health. For me, understanding the science behind my symptoms has enabled me to feel much more control over something that I felt powerless about for years – life is much better when you are not navigating it with persistent stomach pain!
The great thing about it all is how practical and realistic the advice is for how to improve your diet: buying mixed salad leaves/legumes/seeds, sprinkling a couple of herbs on dinner or replacing pasta with red rice. None of this has meant that we spend more money, have had to learn complicated recipes or visit specialist shops – if anything it has simplified food for us and made diet less of a daily obstacle course.
