Simple, Healing Food: The New Gut-Health Cookbook from Quirky Cooking! (2024)

The simplest and most effective way to reclaim our health, and improve the health of our families and the world around us, is to embrace nutrient-dense whole foods; the traditional foods that have nourished humans for thousands of years.

Simple, Healing Food is an invaluable guide that will provide you with the information you need to transform the way you look at food. Packed with easy-to-follow and nutritious recipes by Jo Whitton (Quirky Cooking), with practical advice from integrative nutritionist and GAPS™practitioner Elyse Comerford, the gentle, step-by-step approach used in this book will have you cooking fresh, delicious and easily digested whole foods you and your whole family will love.

If you loved Life-Changing Food, you will love this next book in the Quirky Cooking collection!

• Over 140 gut-loving recipes that are all grain free, gluten free and refined sugar free
• Recipes suitable for a wide variety of dietary challenges including dairy free, egg free, nut free, nightshade free, GAPS™and Low FODMAPS
• Conventional methods with Thermomix® cooking notes
• Practical tips to help you discover the joy and simplicity of cooking with whole foods
• Gut health and nutrition section by Integrative Nutritionist and GAPS™Practitioner Elyse Comerford

• A beautiful, hard-cover book designed by award-winning book designer, Daniel New
• Stunning food and lifestyle photography byLuisa BrimbleandSabine Bannard
• 288 pages of recipes, photographs, health information and practical cooking tips
• Recipes developed by Jo Whittonand well-tested by her team
• Easy to follow recipe layout, with dietary categories, ingredient variations, serving suggestions and storage tips
• Ingredients that are easily accessible from the grocery store
• Tips for prepare-ahead meals, bulk food prep and healthy eating on a budget
• Ongoing recipe support from Jo and her team via Facebook (page & chat group), Telegram andInstagram

I know all too well how overwhelming it feels to have to cope with chronic health issues, day in and day out. I also know that as you begin to use traditional whole foods as nutritional medicine, you will experience the life-changing health benefits that our family experienced. In Simple, Healing Food I show how a nourishing whole-food diet can heal and transform your life, one simple and practical step at a time.

Jo Whitton

I’ve been working on this, my third cookbook, for a few years now. It is a labour of love which I have completely self-funded and self-published, which means I’ve been involved in every step along the way (with plenty of help from friends and family) – from recipe development, writing, food styling and photoshoots, to project management, layout planning, printing schedules, shipping and sales!

Many of you will be familiar with Life-Changing Food (published by Quirky Cooking in 2017), my introduction to healthy eating, in which I share along with whole-food writer and chef Fouad Kassab many gut-healing recipes. Simple, Healing Food takes a deeper dive into gut health, providing recipes, tips and information that are based on the GAPS Nutritional Protocol– the principles we found so powerful for our own healing journey.

Whether you’re interested in improving your gut health or are just looking for some fuss-free, whole-food recipes to add to your weekly menu, you’re sure to love the simplicity and wholesome deliciousness of Simple, Healing Food.

Jois the founder of Quirky Cooking – an online hub for the vibrant community she nurtures with her deliciously wholesome recipes, her down-to-earth advice on healthy living, and her contagious passion for “food as medicine”.

Jo lives in a small town in Far North Queensland, Australia, where she works mostly from home and enjoys the country life. Due to chronic health issues in her family, Jo began researching ways to improve their diet from the time her kids were very young. Her son’s struggles with OCD and anxiety led her to research the link between gut and brain health, and how healing the gut reduces inflammation and improves physical and mental health issues. She began to focus on traditional, nourishing, whole foods, using the principles of the GAPS™diet to successfully help her son and family to heal.

Her experience of working through chronic health issues in her own family resulted in her work helping families reduce physical and mental stress caused by inflammatory foods, guiding them towards simple diet and lifestyle changes that will heal and nourish the body and mind.

Jo has previously written two best-selling cookbooks – Quirky Cooking and Life-Changing Food. She has been working on Simple, Healing Food for the past three years… in between running seminars, cooking workshops, gut health retreats, online healthy cooking programs, travelling (pre-Covid), producing cooking videos, writing, podcasting and (last but not least), looking after her family!

Jo loves to keep in touch with her Quirky community and is active on Instagram and Facebook (especially on stories where she shares daily cooking videos), YouTube and Telegram, so pop by and say hi!

Elyse is an Integrative Nutritionist and Certified GAPS™ (Gut & Psychology/Physiology Syndrome) Practitioner, Holistic Health Coach, Exercise Scientist, Keynote Speaker, Mentor and, most importantly, mum to Dylan. Her primary focus has been in private practice, helping hundreds of individuals and families overcome a host of health issues through the implementation of nourishing and healing dietary principles, reducing toxic stress, and the GAPS™ Nutritional Protocol. Gut health has become Elyse’s specialty and has led her to work with clients from all over the world.

Well known for her balanced approach to gut health, Elyse implements strategies so her clients feel less stressed and overwhelmed and can achieve their ultimate aim: good health. Her own health journey has driven her passion to empower as many people as possible with the keys to their own health. Her approach is based on taking the normal ‘guilt, blame, shame and deprivation’ approach and completely turning it on its head; instead taking a balanced approach to healing by focusing on eating traditional, nourishing foods and listening to our body.

Elyse and her team at Well Belly Health Clinic support clients to improve their health through private practice, corporate packages, online programs, podcast interviews, seminars and retreats.