When I was twenty-two, I was diagnosed with the autoimmune disease Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. During the years that followed, I transformed from a vibrant, albeit naïve, young professional who ran four miles a day, into a thin-haired, sluggish insomniac who could barely make it up the subway steps. At the urging of an integrative doctor, I finally agreed to go gluten-free for a short period to see the effect. 

This was my first time eliminating a food group, and I experienced both the promise and the pain. It became clear that I had been completely subsisting on wheat—muffins for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, pasta or pizza for dinner. Once my mind got through the first few stages of grief, I opened my eyes to the transformation my body was experiencing. All my symptoms—the fatigue, skin rashes, weight fluctuations, gut problems—were dialed down to a much more manageable volume. So, I stayed off gluten and never looked back. 

Except that wasn’t the end to my carb confusion. I kept getting conflicting advice from doctors, which continued as I dealt with my next health hurdle: SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. And my community and Feed Me Phoebe blog readers were just as confused. 

My philosophy of “healthy hedonism” has long been my guiding light in and out of the kitchen. I learned the hard way through my elimination diets, autoimmune struggles, and bouts of obsession that if you’re stressing about what you’re eating all the time, no amount of kale can make you healthy. Rather, we all have to find that sweet spot where the things that nourish our body can be offset by the practices (or foods) that feed our spirit. And for some of us, french fries speak to our soul.

We are coming of age in a post–diet culture where we recognize that whole food groups, like carbs, don’t need to be demonized. That food is a product of love and something to be savored.

That’s the goal of this book: to reteach you how macronutrients work in tandem and how to adjust your habits so they do so in harmony.

And you can do all these things, believe it or not, while still eating carbs.

- Phoebe