Eating from Our Roots: 80+ Healthy Home-Cooked Favorites from Cultures Around the World: A Cookbook

by Maya Feller MS, RD,CDN

Overview

A love letter to the amazing diversity of the nourishing, flavorful heritage dishes in the United States and around the world, featuring 80+ delicious, heathy recipes—from a registered dietitian and nutritionist
 
“I intend for this book to be your first step of many in decolonizing your plate, exploring your own cultural roots around food, welcoming heritage and traditional ways of eating into your home, and discovering the amazing flavors from cultures around the world.”—Maya Feller, from the Introduction
 
The typical American diet is heavy in added sugars, salts, and synthetic fats, but one-size-fits-all nutrition plans often leave us uninspired. There’s a more delicious way to eat sustainably and healthfully: by getting back to flavorful traditional cooking methods from cultures around the world, including the Caribbean, South America, Africa, the Mediterranean, and Asia. 
 
Registered dietitian and nutritionist Maya Feller is known for her approachable, real-food-based solutions to making informed food choices that support health and longevity. In this deeply personal cookbook inspired by Maya’s childhood visits to her grandparents in Trinidad and Tobago and her family’s annual trips to the Caribbean and western Africa, she highlights nourishing dishes from around the world with a focus on whole and minimally processed ingredients. Maya shares realistic ways to think about how we relate to food, along with nutrition tips, plant-based substitutions, and meals that can be made in thirty minutes or less. She makes it easy to enjoy the vibrant flavors of your favorite cuisine with over eighty recipes for any meal of the day, including:
 
• Sweet Potato and Leek Soup with Crispy Potato Skins from West Africa
• Salted Cod from Trinidad & Tobago
• Mezze: Cucumber Za’atar Salad, Olive Oil Labneh, and Olives from Lebanon
• Pad See Ew with Chicken from Thailand
• Cajun Gumbo from the American South
• Pao de Queijo (Brazilian Cheese Bread) from Brazil
 
Featuring mouthwatering photography and insightful reflections on the evolution of global cuisines, Eating from Our Roots offers an inclusive and diverse way to think about healthy eating and celebrates nourishing, flavorful dishes and the cultures they come from.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593235089
Publisher:	Harmony/Rodale
Publication date:	01/24/2023
Series:	Goop Press
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	672,881
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Maya Feller, MS, RD, CDN, of Brooklyn-based Maya Feller Nutrition is a nationally recognized registered dietitian nutritionist. She received her master's of science in clinical nutrition at New York University. Maya shares her approachable, real-food-based solutions through regular speaking engagements, writing in local and national publications, and as a nutrition expert on Good Morning America.

Read an Excerpt

“Maya Feller is one of the most brilliant registered dietitians ever. She combines a vast and nuanced understanding of nutrition and health with a culturally inclusive and joyful approach to cooking and eating. Eating from Our Roots will be a forever classic—we’ll make these recipes for years and years to come.”—Gwyneth Paltrow, founder and CEO of goop

“This beautiful cookbook will invite you to experience flavors from around the world in your own kitchen. I especially love the vegan recipes like Ital Stew from Jamaica and Quinoa Chaffado from Peru, which showcase the vibrant plant-based traditions of so many cultures.”—Jenné Claiborne, author of Sweet Potato Soul

Editorial Reviews

01/02/2023

“Disentangling ourselves from restrictive eating patterns and focusing on sustainable and enjoyable nourishment is liberating,” declares dietitian Feller (Southern Comfort Food Diabetes Cookbook) in this wide-ranging exploration of healthy eating. Her intention to decolonize accepted notions of mindful eating is clear from the start, and she includes dishes and practices from the African diaspora and other non-Western cuisines to spotlight the foods that “have often been left out of health and culinary conversations.” Feller enlists the help of seven expert chefs, offering creative dishes like savory French toast imbued with Indian spice and stuffed with cashew cream, or watermelon “steaks” treated to a marinade of beets, tamarind, and hibiscus leaves to intensify their color and add tart flavor notes. Her own Caribbean heritage is celebrated in several ways, including a coconut quick bread from Trinidad and Tobago and the vegetarian diet of Jamaica’s Rastafarians, whose Ital stew contains pumpkin, plantains, okra, split peas, corn, and habanero pepper. Sprinkled throughout are essays that explore histories of global cuisines and track the ways ingredients spread through trade and enslavement. A helpful chart of plant-based substitutions for meat and dairy ingredients adds to the richness of this well-researched guide. Those seeking healthy recipes and culturally diverse fare will be pleased. Agent: Josanne Lopez, Lopez Talent Management. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Feller’s far-ranging recipes are uncomplicated and transportive; they bring so much joy and flavor to the kitchen!”—Forbes

“Maya Feller is one of the most brilliant registered dietitians ever. She combines a vast and nuanced understanding of nutrition and health with a culturally inclusive and joyful approach to cooking and eating. Eating from Our Roots will be a forever classic—we’ll make these recipes for years and years to come.”—Gwyneth Paltrow, founder and CEO of goop
 
“Her approach to cooking looks far, far beyond prescribed fad diets, which never work equally for those who try them. Here are dishes for all types of eaters, culled from diverse regions across the globe. I love the breadth of ideas here.”—Vice

“In Eating from Our Roots, dietitian Maya Feller gives us a multi-cultural road map to healthier eating. While most dietitian-driven cookbooks are full of ‘No!’ . . . this one delights with ‘Yes!’ and makes the reader want to head for the kitchen.”—Jessica B. Harris, PhD, author of High on the Hog

“Feller’s recipes are approachable and founded in nutrition and flavor. . . . This book is a great buy for a nutrition-conscious cook who won’t sacrifice flavor.”—SF Gate

“This beautiful cookbook will invite you to experience flavors from around the world in your own kitchen.”—Jenné Claiborne, author of Sweet Potato Soul

“By exploring the ways people eat sustainably around the world, Maya shows us that a health-supporting lifestyle doesn’t have to be about restriction. In her hands, health means more variety, more creativity, and more flavor.”—Dr. Will Cole, leading functional medicine expert and New York Times bestselling author of Intuitive Fasting and Gut Feelings
 
“Eating from our Roots takes us on a culinary journey around the world honoring the flavors and traditions of homeland dishes while offering simple and healthy ways to bring them to your own kitchen.”—Camila Alves McConaughey, New York Times bestselling author and founder of Women of Today
 
“A treasure trove of new ideas beyond the same old ‘healthy’ recipes, this book will introduce you to new cuisines—and teach you how to recreate your favorite flavors in your home kitchen!”—Jason Wachob, founder and co-CEO of MindBodyGreen
 
“In this beautiful cookbook, Maya reclaims the healthy foods that nourished diverse people for generations and shows everyone the way to a more delicious way to eat healthfully.”—Marisa Moore, MBA, RDN, LD

“Eating from Our Roots is a uniquely inclusive approach to health via crave-worthy recipes from around the world. In this transformative and above all delicious cookbook, she points us toward a more sustainable way of eating and living.”—Jessica Jones, MS, RD, CDCES, and Wendy Lopez, MS, RD, CDCES, co-founders of Food Heaven

From the Publisher