Katie Wells - The Wellness Mama Cookbook: 200 Easy-to-prepare Recipes and Time-saving Advice for the Busy Cook

The material in this book is for informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for the advice and care of your physician. As with all new diet and fitness regimens, the nutrition and fitness program described in this book should be followed only after first consulting with your physician to make sure it is appropriate for your individual circumstances. The authors and publisher expressly disclaim responsibility for any adverse effects that may result from the use or application of the information contained in this book.

Copyright 2014, 2016 by Wellness Mama

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Harmony Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

crownpublishing.com

Harmony Books is a registered trademark, and the Circle colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

Wellness Mama and the Wellness Mama logo are trademarks/service marks of Wellnessmama.com.

A previous edition was self-published in the United States by Wellness Media, Rockfield, KY, in 2014.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Wells, Katie (Blogger), author.

Title: The Wellness Mama cookbook / Katie Wells.

Description: First edition. | New York : Harmony Books, [2016] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016016419| ISBN9780451496911 | ISBN9780451496928 (eBook)

Subjects: LCSH: Cooking (Natural foods) | Nutrition. | Health. | LCGFT: Cookbooks.

Classification: LCC TX741 .W456 2016 | DDC 641.3/02--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016016419

ISBN9780451496911

Ebook ISBN9780451496928

Photographs by Helene Dujardin

Cover design by La Tricia Watford

Cover photograph by Helene Dujardin

v4.1

prh

TO MY HUSBAND & CHILDREN

You are the reason that I write, cook, and care about the future of our world. I love you more than words can express.

TO MY PARENTS

For teaching me to forge my own path and to question everything.

TO YOU

Thank you for reading this book and caring about real food and the future we create for our children.

contents

introduction

When my oldest child was just six weeks old, I was sitting in the doctors office for a follow-up appointment and nursing him while I waited to see the doctor. His birth hadnt been what I had hoped it would be and being back at the doctors office was a vivid reminder of that. In a way, I felt like I had failed. My water broke before contractions started and I went immediately to the hospital, where I was put on the clock. After about twelve hours of natural labor, I was put on a two-hour timetable at only six centimeters dilated. The on-call doctor wanted to do a C-section at only twelve hours after my water broke even though there was no sign of infection or stress to the baby. I later found out that the on-call doctor had the highest C-section rate in our city.

I agreed to start pitocin to avoid the C-section if possible and ended up needing an epidural when the pain started causing me to black out.

In hindsight, there were so many things that I would have changed about that birth; but at the same time, I wouldnt have changed any of it for the world. I learned a lot about myself that day, I met my son, and my bond with my husband became even stronger. That day ignited an internal strength and passion that I didnt know I was capable of, and I developed what I called the mother lion instinct as soon as I saw my son.

Six weeks later in that doctors office, as I sat nursing my little guy and mindlessly flipping through a magazine, I was still reflecting on the many emotions associated with birth and learning the ropes of caring for a newborn. In that moment, my finger stopped on a page of the magazine with a picture of a cute baby (something new moms tend to do), and I read the first paragraph of that article. I came to a sentence that made me stop in my tracks: For the first time in two centuries, the current generation of children in America may have shorter life expectancies than their parents.

The article went on to explain that with rising rates of obesity and food-related illnesses, such as autoimmune disease, the problem would only get worse.

I reread that sentence and looked down at my perfect, healthy baby and the contrast hit me like a bolt of lightning. My mother lion instinct kicked in again and every cell in my body rebelled against that statement. At that moment, I decided that statistics like that werent good enough for my childor any child.

That moment ignited in me a passion for helping change those statistics and empowering other parents to do the same. I knew that if I could help parents understand that the power to make a change is in our hands, then together we could make a difference in the lives of our childrenthe lives of our entire family. After all, we are raising the future generation. We can teach them healthful habits and attitudes about food so that they arent doomed to suffer the future those statistics predict.

Also, we control about 80 percent of the food budget and can vote with our dollars to change the food industry. If we decide to make a change, we will succeed because we care more about the future generation than anyone else. They arent just statistics to us; they are our precious children.

Since that day a decade ago, Ive been on a journey to improve the health of my family and to help other moms improve their familys health as well. My journey is now shared with my husband and six kids. Along the way, Ive learned a little about parenting, a lot about cooking and cleaning, and so much about myself. I was diagnosed with Hashimotos thyroiditis, which became a tremendous catalyst for personal change, as my lack of energy and health struggles were making it difficult to take care of my family. It took years for me to get answers, but I now know that my years of eating processed foods and living a high-stress lifestyle that lacked sleep created a prefect breeding ground for this autoimmune disease. A nourishing diet, however, is helping my body reverse these problems.

Through this struggle, Ive realized how nourishing food is absolutely essential to health and how the standard diet is failing many of us! I began to research nutrition and the most healthful lifestylefrom what to eat to how to live overalland I realized that with some basic changes in my diet and lifestyle I could make a large impact on my health and the health of my family. I became my own guinea pig, experimenting with real food, supplements, and lifestyle changes to try to find my own answers. I read hundreds of books, listened to dozens of podcasts, and found hundreds of medical studies that became the basis of the changes I made.