The Kitchen Prescription: THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER: 101 delicious everyday recipes to revolutionise your gut health

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She’s seen people whose autoimmune health conditions have reversed because of what they perceive as changes in their food levels. Eating well doesn’t need to be dull food and deprivation – it should be eating a wonderfully varied, vibrant and exciting range of foods. In The Kitchen Prescription, gastroenterologist Dr Saliha Mahmood Ahmed draws on her love of good food and her expertise in gut health to create 101 recipes that are easy to make, incredibly delicious to eat and will effortlessly keep your gut and digestion in tip-top condition.

The Kitchen Prescription: Revolutionize your gut health…

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I’m not a vegetarian,” she says. “I eat a small amount of meat, but the majority of food I eat is fruit and veg, nuts and seeds, legumes and pulses and spices, all from scratch. The more we can do that, and the less we have sweet, sugary beverages and ultra-processed foods, the better it is for our long-term health.” They’re also cheap and convenient. “Refined wheat, sugar and vegetable oil are the cheapest foods,” says Dimbleby. “A lot of these foods are things mixed in different configurations with a little bit of flavour added.”

The Kitchen Prescription by Saliha Mahmood Ahmed - Waterstones

To celebrate the publication of The Kitchen Prescription, we are gifting someone a virtual fridge exploration with Saliha, and a goody hamper full of gut health-friendly items. During the 45 minute session with Saliha, you will take her through your fridge and she will suggest ways to improve what is in there for optimum gut health. Our bodies were created for periods of hunger and starvation. They’re made for processing plants and natural foods,” she says of the mismatch between our biology and SAD foods.

A diet of highly refined, high-sugar, high-fat and highly processed foods has proven toxic for humans; highly addictive but one that our bodies have not evolved to process. The UK’s situation has been further exacerbated by our special relationship with America, both glorifying its consumer culture and its free market, which has allowed companies to make money at the expense of our health.

The Kitchen Prescription By Saliha Mahmood Ahmed | Used The Kitchen Prescription By Saliha Mahmood Ahmed | Used

First off, it stands as just a darn good cookbook, with a Middle East flavor profile. That alone is enough. There are many fabulous recipes here. The reasons the UK has led the way in adopting the SAD diet are two-fold, according to Henry Dimbleby, cofounder of the Leon restaurant chain and author of the National Food Strategy. These foods have led to the disease of civilisation we see today: heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure, obesity, cholesterol problems and, it’s thought, certain cancers. Although the burger and chips give an immediate sense of comfort, Mahmood-Ahmed tries to tell her patients that they actually do very little for long-term sustenance. We’ve embraced the SAD diet in the UK faster than anywhere else in Europe, with the exception of Malta (an island with which the UK has long had a close alliance).If you’re attempting to make a change in your own eating patterns, Mahmood-Ahmed cautions taking up a restrictive diet, in favour of eating a lot of whole foods. But, compiling my shopping list, there were quite a few ingredients that aren’t available via my usual online shop. Where I live, there is no Waitrose and no speciality Asian shops. So I’m going to have to improvise. You’re getting an insulin spike and you’re not getting the beautiful phytonutrients that you get in food: the vitamins, the minerals and the polyphenolic compounds. All the fantastic things you get when you’re eating a rainbow.” We need to stop bombarding children 24/7 with food adverts. Also, culturally, in schools and hospitals and at home, we need to start cooking better.”

Saliha Mahmood Ahmed Collection 3 Books Set (The Kitchen

While change is possible, it’s also important not to blame people if they struggle to break free of their dependency on SAD foods, both from an economic and mental-health perspective. As an NHS gastroenterologist, Dr Saliha Mahmood-Ahmed has spent her career working against the standard American diet and trying to educate patients about how to eat healthily.Already, a first generation of weight-loss drugs promises to change our appetites. Although Dimbleby fears problems down the line. “We’ve seen with the Covid vaccine that side-effects for a few people lead to a negative reputation, which means people who really need them don’t take them.” Second, there have been few books that focus gut health and how to steer your food to help your biome. Dr Ahmed writes as a doctor but also as an experienced and talented chef. This is the kind of food I want to eat, if it helps my health that’s an added bonus. In this country, 85 per cent of the portfolios of the processed food companies are products that the World Health Organisation says are too unhealthy to market to children,” says Dimbleby.