Eat & Flourish: How Food Supports Emotional Well-Being

by Mary Beth Albright

Overview

A lively and evidence-based argument that a whole food diet is essential for good mental health.

Food has power to nourish your mind, supporting emotional wellness through both nutrients and pleasure. In this groundbreaking book, journalist Mary Beth Albright draws on cutting-edge research to explain the food/mood connection. She redefines “emotional eating” based on the science, revealing how eating triggers biological responses that affect humans’ emotional states both immediately and long-term. Albright’s accessible voice and ability to interpret complex studies from the new field of nutritional psychology, combined with straightforward suggestions for what to eat and how to eat it, make this an indispensable guide. Readers will come away knowing how certain foods help reduce the inflammation that can harm mental health, the critical relationship between the microbiome and the brain, which vitamins help restore the body during intensely emotional times, and how to develop a healthful eating pattern for life—with 30-day kickoff plan included. Eat and Flourish is the entertaining, inspiring book for today’s world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781682689035
Publisher:	Countryman Press, The
Publication date:	07/23/2024
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	8.20(w) x 5.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Mary Beth Albright is an award-winning journalist and author focusing on the science-based connection between food and mental health. Eat and Flourish is her first book, which has been translated into several languages, including Japanese and Thai. She was a columnist for the Washington Post, has written for National Geographic, and was a restaurant critic for DC Magazine for years. Her passion for food grew from her mentor Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. After 15 years working with him on health and food issues and attending Georgetown Law School, she advised on food systems and managed a White House initiative. Albright is a frequent panel moderator, including for the US State Department and the Smithsonian, and her food-judging expertise is sought after—she once ate 2,000 foods over three days to judge the Outstanding New Product Awards. She earned a certificate from L’Academie de Cuisine and is an elected member of Les Dames d’Escoffier, an esteemed group of women in the culinary professions, which counts Julia Child among its alumnae. Albright also works with food-related organizations that seek to improve the food system and food’s impact on wellness, environmental, and social issues, while fulfilling our moral imperative to feed 8 billion people on the planet. For more information, visit www.marybethalbright.com or follow her on IG @mary.beth or X @marybeth.

Table of Contents

Foreword xi

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Emotional Eating 7

The Nervous System 9

Emotions 15

Nutritional Psychiatry 18

Chapter 2 Pleasure 25

How Brains Experience Pleasure 26

Getting Food 36

Cooking and Eating 42

Eating Together 58

Chapter 3 The Gut Microbiome 69

Gut Microbiome Basics 71

The Gut Microbiome and Emotional Well-Being 75

How the Brain and Gut Connect 79

Using Food to Support Your Gut Microbiome 83

Chapter 4 Inflammation 95

The Immune System and Emotional Well-Being 96

Emotions and Inflammation 99

The Immune System, Food, and Emotional Well-Being 112

Weight 113

Chapter 5 Nutrients 121

The Gut Sense 122

Nutrients and Emotional Well-Being 124

Processed Food 134

Nutrition Studies: It's Complicated 138

Chapter 6 How to Eat for Emotional Well-Being 145

Week 1 Microbiome 149

Week 2 Inflammation 153

Week 3 Nutrients 157

Week 4 Pleasure 163

Afterword 167

Acknowledgments 171

Notes 173

Recipe Index 189

Index 191

Editorial Reviews

"Eat & Flourish is a page-turner filled with information that you never knew you had access to or would even want. Mary Beth has brilliantly distilled this wealth of information into delicious bites of knowledge, which is power on a plate. My takeaway . . . I can eat for both pleasure and health at the same time."

Carla Hall

"I've watched Mary Beth Albright eat, and I've certainly watched her flourish in her career over the last decade. A true authority on all things food, her book is a departure from the expected and does a world of good through one of our most important places: the dinner table."

Bobby Flay

"“As a chef, nutrition and nourishment is at the forefront of what I do. Mary Beth Albright presents an impressive exploration of the interconnectivity of these elements—and beyond—in Eat & Flourish. It is an outstanding and comprehensive book for today’s food and health enthusiast."

Thomas Keller

"Food is pleasurable," writes journalist Mary Beth Albright in Eat and Flourish, a brilliant exploration of the connection between food and emotional well-being. This sets the tone for what is to come: a health book that divorces wellness and nutrition from weight-loss goals and diet culture. Instead, Albright explores how what people eat contributes to how they feel—and the key role that pleasure takes in that connection... Eat and Flourish is a compelling and practical guide to how small changes in daily diets might make someone feel their best. Among the countless books extolling the virtues of "healthy" eating, this stands apart because of Albright's focus not just on nutrients but also on the "circle of food, nutrients, pleasure, and connection." Eat and Flourish presents a more intentional way of eating that supports every aspect of how a person feels—physically, mentally and emotionally. And in a world that's rife with chaos, the privilege of being intentional about what and why we eat is not one to be taken lightly."

starred review Shelf Awareness

"Food has an incredible power to heal bodies and nourish minds, to connect and repair communities, to feed the few and the many. In Eat & Flourish, Mary Beth Albright makes the compelling case that by understanding food holistically, we can unlock its potential to improve our physical and emotional well-being."

José Andrés

Mary Beth Albright goes beyond nutrients to explore the connection between food and our emotional health. Eat & Flourish is a lively, powerful argument for what to eat and how to eat it.”

Mark Hyman

Caroline Shaffer brings the right tone and tempo to this audiobook. In a crisply delivered style that allows the author’s wit to shine, Shaffer delivers an informed and clever narrative that focuses on the relationship between food and mood. Author Albright looks at the science of how what we eat affects how we behave. A talented food writer for the WASHINGTON POST, she has a gift for simplifying the complex and gamely participates in experiments. Virtually every chapter is a learning experience. Nutritional psychiatry is explored, the mysteries of the gut microbiome are explained, and the relationship between nutrition and emotional well-being is detailed. The recipes the author provides complement her research. A fun and informative listen. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2023 - AudioFile