Churchill - The Healthy Cook: Essential Great Tasting Recipes for a Healthy Lifestyle

DEDICATION TO MY FAMILY OF THE PAST 6 MONTHS, WITHOUT YOU I WOULD NOT HAVE LEARNT OR EXPERIENCED ANYWHERE NEAR THE CUISINE I COULD HAVE IMAGINED TODAY. SO I THANK YOU AS IT IS BECAUSE OF YOU THAT I AM ABLE TO CREATE THESE DISHES. DAN, XAVIER, MICHAEL, CLARISSA, ANDREW, NICKY, FAIZA, TOTEM, LILYANA, PIP, JULES, NEHA, VERN, NOELENE, KELTY, LUCY, CHRISTINA, RISHI, SAMIRA, LYNTON, EMMA ... TO GARY, MATT & GEORGE, THANK YOU FOR PROVIDING THE INSPIRATION, GUIDANCE AND WORDS OF ALL DEMEANORS. WITHOUT YOU I WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ABLE TO PUSH MYSELF AS MUCH AS I DO... HAPPINESS. HAPPINESS.

How often do you find yourself grumpy or angry because you are starving? How much do you love going out to dinner, lunch or breakfast? How good is the feeling when your big plate of food arrives in front of you with the smell going straight into your nostrils? Sound familiar? It is through this passion and love for food that we get a true rush of happiness thanks to the relationship with our hormones. By eating, you create a sense of enjoyment and this is well supported by the release of endorphins and serotonin from your glands. In my opinion some of the best times of the day revolve around our food. By sitting down to eat you are encouraged to create conversation. It is through this that better relationships are formed and you get to find out what your friends and family were involved in throughout their day. In a way family relationships can be enhanced based on meal times as they are a part of the day when everyone shuts off from work and other distractions and just listens to one another.

In a time where life is so busy and family can often be neglected, it is so important to just slow down and enjoy great company from those who mean the most to you. Thank God for food. Click on the icon to unlock more tips and insights into food and nutrition

When asked how I began my cooking journey many are surprised to hear that I wasnt heavily taught by either of my parents. This is not to say they did not have a major influence in my cooking direction. When I was about 12 years old my family and I would love to sit down to watch Jamie Oliver do his thing on TV. It was one of our favourite times of the week as we watched in anticipation at the way he made meals easy.

Through this, dad developed a pretty cool system. On a Sunday he would bring out the pen and paper and mark up the Churchill Family Cooking Roster. We would literally shotgun a night during the week that suited us to prepare and cook dinner for the rest of the family. The early days were pretty interesting. I remember watching the rest of the family try and swallow and pretend to enjoy some of the dishes that I had attempted to put together. But as the roster continued to be a ritual my skills grew.

I began to challenge myself with more technical dishes and my determination to perform was always at the forefront of my mind. Growing up with a family of two brothers, sport was always a major point of conversation over dinner. Every weekend mum and dad would work out car pools to get us around to rugby matches and make sure their weekend wasnt much more than a taxi service. But it was this sibling rivalry that generated a love for health and fitness. I remember when Brendan said I wouldnt be able to do a 10 minute plank and so naturally I went out and did it. I guess it just shows our familys competitiveness.

It wasnt until my early 20s that I fully grasped how much I had learnt about food by just cooking from week to week. With my mates learning of my passion it wasnt too long before they were asking for advice on how to cook to impress a special girl. It was from these scenarios that I ended up self publishing my first cookbook DudeFood Volume 1. This was just the beginning. I completed a Master in Exercise Science, ran my own health coach and fitness business and wanted to educate more people to achieve long lasting, sustainable and healthy lifestyles. I found too many people considered healthy living unachievable and I wanted to demonstrate this is not the case.

All you need is a little push and some helpful direction and this is the reason I came up with The Healthy Cook.

The Healthy Cook is set to revolutionise the way you look at healthy cooking, being one of the first cookbooks to provide the macronutrient (Protein, Fats and Carbohydrates) information for each meal, all in a simple table. Readers will learn about what they are actually digesting just from a quick glance. An efficient and easy way to understand how balanced your meals really are. The Healthy Cook also incorporates the use of an easy to read slide bar including the aspects of time, skill and health. Rather than looking though the ingredients to determine if the recipe is right for tonights dinner, within seconds you will be able to make a decision on what to cook based on your skill set, how healthy you want your dish to be and how much time you have.

A simple tool which is going to reshape how you look at a cookbook. No more flicking aimlessly through recipes waisting time trying to get the perfect dish for the occasion, you can make that decision within seconds. The Healthy Cook is truly ahead of its time. In order to really engage the audience readers are also given the opportunity to cook with me in your own home. Simply click on the tablet icon featured on some of the recipes and gain a virtual insight into cooking methods and techniques. You will also unlock more tips and insights into food and nutrition.

At this point, I would like to formally thank you for inviting me into your kitchen and I look forward to hearing about your cooking journey. Let your new experience on healthy cooking begin.

The nutrition tables used throughout the book should be referred to as a guide. Given the variance in produce they have been calculated off their normative values and therefore would not be consistently accurate once the dish is replicated. BEING HEALTHY IS A LIFESTYLE CHOICE, AND IT DOESNT MEAN YOU HAVE TO SACRIFICE GREAT TASTE. Every individual is different and because of this our intakes vary. Every individual is different and because of this our intakes vary.

As a result there is no set figure for you to try to achieve when reading the nutritional tables. Instead they are there to educate you on what you are putting into your body. Its not there to live your life by, I never want you to have the added stress of working with figures to enjoy your meals. If you do need a bit of guidance work off ratios. For me, my macronutrients consist of 40% Protein, 30% Fat, 30% Carbohydrates. Again, this is not something I worked out, I simply look at my plate and have a general understanding.