Lorraine Pascale - Eating Well Made Easy

To my mum. Thank you for inspiring me to always believe that I can do whatever I put my mind to ... Love and God bless.

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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

FIRST EDITION

Text Lorraine Pascale 2015
Photography Myles New 2015

Food styling: Marina Filippelli
Props styling: Liz Belton

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Cover layout design HarperCollinsPullishers Ltd 2015
Cover photographs Myles New

Lorraine Pascale asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780007489701
Ebook Edition AUGUST 2015 ISBN: 9780007489718
Version: 2015-08-05

Contents

Eating Well Made Easy

The essence of this book is tasty food. Tasty family food that is quietly healthy. By quietly healthy I mean still your favourite recipes, which you love and enjoy, but with bits of the recipe adjusted here and there, be it by cooking method or by ingredients, to make the recipes better for you.

There are lots of fabulous recipe books out there, many extolling the virtues of goji berries, chia seeds and other mystical ingredients, but if you are a busy mum/girlfriend/student/(insert other here ) like me, when you come in from work you just want dishes that are fast, easy, accessible and tasty. As this book was originally due to come out in the winter, I also wanted to make sure it had a warm and cosy feel. There are salads and lighter foods in here, of course, which are great for things like lunches and snacks, but healthy comfort food was my goal. Food that still wraps you up from the inside out and makes everything feel like home. Or at least your imagined idyll of what home should taste like. Those of you who know a bit about me will know that I like to learn a lot, to study a lot and to always find ways of improving myself. Whether those goals are ever reached in a way that will allow me to slow down a bit is still an unanswered question ...

But I do love at least to try seeking out new information to enhance whatever I am doing. Recently I started to get into fitness, health, exercise and things of that nature. I fell in love with it all and really wanted to find a way to mix it up with what I was doing and known for (mainly making cakes!).

At the start of my real enjoyment of fitness I had a cake shop in Covent Garden, but the lease had just come up for renewal and the rent had increased three-fold. I loved the girls who worked in there, I loved the location of the shop, I loved the memories of what it took to get it up and running and, of course, I loved the cakes. However, the new rent would be crippling. On top of this was the knowledge of the new path I wished to take health and fitness and how I wanted to make people feel better about themselves. Of course, I still eat, cook and write recipes for cake, but it felt like the road of the cupcake business had come to an end for me and we made the sad decision to close the shop down.

I then began Instagramming healthy recipes like mad developing them, cooking them, eating them and writing about them and although the memory of my cupcake shop is often on my mind, I know I made the right decision to close it down. But still to this day, several months on, I have not visited Covent Garden again I am not quite ready yet.

This may feel like a digression from the point of why I am writing this book, but it was important for me to tell you how I made the jump from cakes to healthy comfort food. I am now halfway through a nutritional diploma from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I had started doing a masters degree in nutrition, but after starting lessons I realised it wasnt quite for me. So I began researching courses that really got my heart racing, that were steeped in new findings and confronted head-on the multifaceted and often confusing world of nutrition. And Im loving the studying I have been doing.

There are so many diet books on the market, which means, of course, so many diet-book authors! Yes, I am tall and yes, I appear slim, but I have also had my struggles with diet. During my pregnancy with my daughter I piled on 4 stone, and while modelling I became bulimic for a few months. Whether you are a size 6 or a size 16, if your clothes start to become too tight and uncomfortable and you are having to buy bigger sizes due to your style of eating, the discomfort and inner feelings of shame, guilt, disappointment and despair are present in many of us. I found that when I started thinking about my food as a way of life rather than a way to get thin, a safety valve inside me was released and I relaxed into enjoying food more. Of course, there have been times when there is a beach holiday coming up or a special occasion when I have upped my vegetables and perhaps eaten more lean chicken and fish. However, for the day to day, just having some simple guidelines to follow has made my relationship with food a more pleasurable one.

I am asked so often about healthy eating, how people can lose weight and what is the best thing for them to do for X, Y and Z with their food. Each diet has its place and I would not speak out of turn to judge them in any way; however, I struggle with the idea that one diet can suit all. We all like and dislike different things, our genes dictate so much and our bodies react differently to everything, so a one-size-fits-all diet is a tough ask. Thats why I have created a book that contains recipes for everyone. Whether you want to go dairy-free, gluten-free, meat-free or raw, you will find recipes here to suit your needs. I can only tell you what I have been learning and what I do in my life, and hopefully something will resonate with you that makes sense and makes you think you might choose to do it too.

Here are a few of the healthy guidelines that I am following, which have helped me feel healthier and happier:

I have discovered the benefits of eating SIRTfoods

I have been working with nutritionists Glen Matten and Aidan Goggins, and they introduced me to the study of SIRTfood. SIRTfoods are a selection of everyday foods that are naturally high in chemicals that activate powerful enzymes in the body, which are vital for many important biological processes. These foods are known as sirtuin activators. The study of SIRTfoods is still very new, but it is now thought that the chemicals in some foods activate the sirtuin enzymes to contribute to a wide range of health benefits including burning fat, reducing appetite, building muscle and improving the memory. In other words, they are amazing!