On reflection, my entire life has been a journey of understanding wellness, on every level; mind, body and spirit, and especially the importance of nourishing our bodies with food that is fresh and loaded with goodness.

Both my parents passed away from cancer, my father(53y.o.) when I was 10 years old and my mother(70y.o.) when I was thirty five. No matter how I look at their passing I still can’t help but think that both of them went way too early. There was so much more they could have experienced and done in their lives.

I was fortunate to have a childhood that included being able to roam our dairy farm, eat fresh vegetables from our garden, milk from the cows, and fruit from the nearby orchards. I always thought this was normal and didn’t really appreciate it until many years later when I was cooking for myself and using vegetables and fruit bought from the local supermarket.

It was then that I realised how different it was to eat fresh, compared to produce that had been picked, taken to market and then maybe held in cold storage in the distribution centres before being delivered to the supermarket, days or even months later. The comparison was stark in flavour, and of course freshness.

A couple of years later, I happened to be listening to an interview on the radio, with a lady called Vicki the Vego. I don’t recall anything of the interview except for this one comment, where she said “Three days after a lemon is picked there is no vitamin C left.” Whoa!! I remember thinking ‘Did I hear that right’! Of course I did, Vitamin C is water soluble and evaporates through the skin, so, depending on the density of the fruit/vegetable will determine how much vitamin C is in it by the time you get to eat it.

That was my defining moment. I decided that I was going to research food, health and our well-being as much as possible so that I had the understanding I needed to live a healthy, fulfilling life. This, together with my parents both leaving this life way too early compounded my values on health, eating nutritious food and becoming determined that I would do all in my power to live that long, healthy and fulfilling life I so desired.

My journey since then has been one of constant research and discovery of a wide range of subjects completing over 80 courses in the process. From a course on organic gardening to learning about food and our brains with Delia McCabe to becoming immersed in Ayurveda. From NLP to John De Martini’s work as well as numerous other courses. I am constantly researching and devising new recipes.

Of course during the past 33 years I have had my own health journey, to shed the weight I had put on during my last pregnancy. I lost count of the number of diets I tried. So determined to get back to my usual weight I stayed on one of the diets for 18 months and walked an hour and a half each day. At the end of that time I was still the same weight. I knew that what I ate was healthy. I have only ever eaten Maccas and KFC once in my entire life. Every meal is created from the start and without products that contain any additives.

During these frustrating years, a PT who I was working with, one day said that women who were post menopause could forget about losing weight. I was devastated! But after I settled down and being a little bit stubborn, I became even more determined to find the answer to losing the excess weight I was carrying around. I thought about it every day, with the picture and feeling of the slim me, never far away from my thoughts.

My patience paid off during a Roger Hamilton event where I heard about Ayurveda. As sometimes happens in life we need to hear something a couple of times! Two years later I heard the same woman speak again. Emily decided she would do the programme, and wow what happened was amazing! I also joined the next intake into the programme. The results? Well two years on I am 15 kg lighter, more vital and even more excited about life. I still have some more to lose, however the Qigong sessions with Michael Bromley and Ayurveda will see me do that with ease.

So this is the journey I have taken that has lead me to do what I love. My mission is to show people how to get the nourishment they need from their food as easy as falling off a log, and how much fun it can be in the process! Cooking doesn’t have to be hard, you just have to know what to do!

I wake up every morning, thinking about food, what fun can I have with food today, what I am going to serve at dinner with 5 friends on Thursday(still in isolation!), what new recipe can I come up with, and who can I eat with today.