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26th June 2015
04:42pm BST
Photo: Candida Boddington[/caption]
Having corrected her own diet, Amelia spent four years studying at the Institute for Optimum Nutrition and set out to help others do the same, with impressive success; her book Eat. Nourish. Glow. was a number one bestseller.
Here's what she wants us to know:
"The one thing I'd like to change is the idea that people don't have time to eat well. It's a case of priorities and really it's all about planning ahead. As I always say, cook once, eat as many times as you can. Try and get as many meals as possible from that one effort. For instance, I do a Sunday cook-off, making a soup and roasting maybe a whole chicken and shredding it. That meat can be kept in the fridge to be added to salads and sandwiches. Mix up a bowl of fresh salsa, make some fresh pesto and some harissa, then you have those ready to go in the fridge for putting together a meal in minutes.
If I had to recommend just three foods to add to your diet, I'd start with good fats like almonds, avocado and oily fish, like mackerel. People are fat phobic these days, but dietary fat is essential for neurological health, metabolism, joint health and skin. After that it would be vegetables, the majority of what we eat should be plant-based, and then of course there's proteins, the building blocks of the body. Every meal should contain them.
Before processed foods, we were a lot healthier. There are real benefits to be found in eating foods in their natural form. There's a great Michael Pollen quote, 'Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.' If you only make your food from scratch, you're much less likely to have, say, French fries every week.
Preparation is key. Prep your kitchen and make sure you have the right stuff. The Vitamix is a great piece of kit. You can use it to make your own nut milks and sauces as well as fresh soups and purées and it always gets the texture of a smoothie just right, Pop some frozen banana in a blender for a natural ice cream or fruit for a sorbet and you don't need to rely on processed treats.
When it comes to feeding children, we tend to dumb kids down. We have grown so accustomed to seeing milk in a baby bottle that anything else but white liquid doesn't look quite right. Just recently I visited a friend whose baby was happily drinking a green smoothie from his cup, I thought that was great to see. The food we offer children tends to be restricted and very heavy on carbohydrates when given the opportunity, they might eat more protein.
My treat is a nice glass of red wine. I always try to find the best quality I can. If you stick to whole foods 90 per cent of the time, it's nice to indulge in a quality treat.
Amelia was at Brown Thomas to demonstrate the new Vitamix S30 personal blender. A selection of Amelia's most popular recipes is available here.
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