Amelia Freer - The Organised Cook: The perfect Christmas gift for every healthy home cook

AMELIA FREER is one of the UKs most respected Nutritional Therapists and healthy eating experts. With a hugely engaged presence on both social and mainstream media, she has four best-selling books to her name and has helped thousands to adopt a happier, healthier life. She takes a scientific, holistic and compassionate approach to health and nutrition and is recognised for her calm, kind and considered approach. Amelia is a regular contributor to mainstream media and has extended her reach with regular appearances at public events, on podcasts and through her website, newsletter and social media channels. She also hosts sell-out workshops, cooking demonstrations and residential retreats. This is her fifth book.

First published in the UK by Lagom

An imprint of Bonnier Books UK

4th Floor, Victoria House,

Bloomsbury Square,

London, WC1B 4DA

Owned by Bonnier Books

Sveavgen 56, Stockholm, Sweden

Hardback 9781788707077

Ebook 9781788707084

All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or circulated in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing of the publisher.

A CIP catalogue of this book is available from the British Library.

Designed and typeset by Envy Design Ltd

Illustration by Envy Design Ltd

Printed and bound in China.

Photography: Clare Winfield

Food Styling: Troy Willis

Prop and Set Styling: Emma La Haye

Hair: Philippe Tholimet

Make Up: Sjaniel Turrell

Editorial Director: Michelle Signore

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Copyright Amelia Freer, 2022

Amelia Freer has asserted her moral right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders of material reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them.

Lagom is an imprint of Bonnier Books UK

www.bonnierbooks.co.uk

CONTENTS

Have you ever started a new year, new week, or new day with the best of intentions to eat healthily, only for real life to get in the way and knock you off course? Do you find it impossible to resist the lure of the biscuit tin each time you make a cup of tea, or go to the supermarket for a few basics and end up with a trolley full of unplanned, not-so-healthy bargains? Are you concerned about the effect that nutritional inconsistency is having on your energy, health and vibrancy? And do you worry about the impact of your food shopping, both on your weekly budget and on the environment?

Would you prefer to feel calm, organised and on top of things in the kitchen?

If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, then this is the book for you. If youre feeling a bit frazzled and frustrated when it comes to healthy cooking and eating youre absolutely not alone. Everyone struggles to eat healthily, consistently.

In this book you will find masses of practical tips, hacks, ideas and recipes to help you move from feeling overwhelmed to organised in your kitchen. These strategies will help to make your life easier and healthier and hopefully a bit more fun, too! Theres something so satisfying and soothing about a fridge filled with deliciously prepared food, ready to nourish our bodies whatever the week might throw at us.

Over the past 15 years as a Nutritional Therapist and writer, I have worked with thousands of people who have asked for my guidance on finding the best diet. But I have come to realise that knowing what to eat for optimal health is just a small albeit important part of the puzzle. Up until now, this is where almost all the focus, writing and information on healthy eating has been, even in my own work.

What really trips up my clients, readers (and myself) has not been a lack of knowledge about what constitutes a healthy diet; it has been how to actually ensure we put that knowledge into practice in the midst of our hectic lives. We know we need to eat multiple times every day and its important for our health that we make our meals as nourishing as possible which inevitably means shopping, preparing and cooking whole food ingredients from scratch every day.

I totally understand how much of a challenge this might seem. As a nutrition professional, you probably think I should find it easy but I dont! The isolating period of the pandemic has only made this process harder, too, as it meant there was no respite from the need to provide all meals at home every single day. Over the past few years, Ive found myself on a mission, trying to find ways to make the task of healthy eating easier and more efficient (and enjoyable). Ways to join the dots between wanting to eat well, and the everyday reality of putting that into practice. Importantly, I didnt want to focus on the food itself (or our willpower which I think is in short supply for many of us right now).

Instead, I found myself focusing on a handful of practical but surprisingly influential things, such as: how our kitchen is equipped and arranged, and whether that supports or hinders cooking from scratch; how simple meal planning has the power to reduce the stress and mental load around choosing what to eat, not to mention food waste; how to navigate cost-effective food shopping when a giant industry of merchandising and marketing is specifically trying to tempt us away from whole food choices; and even how the way we eat can influence our digestive health and appetite. The list goes on!

Before we dive too deep into these topics, though, let me reassure you that this book is absolutely not about holding ourselves to some sort of organisational ideal where everything is always tidy, and the fridge is always arranged like a rainbow! This simply creates unnecessary pressure and makes us even more likely to fall off the bandwagon. Instead, Id urge you to take from this book what resonates most perhaps just one or two ideas at a time and work with those until they come naturally. Then maybe take on board another couple of ideas. We dont have to do it all for big transformations to happen consistency, not perfection, is what gets the best results.

What was perhaps most surprising about writing The Organised Cook is that, though I didnt realise this when I started, these steps are the same ones that I have been implementing with my clients for years! Almost all of my greatest success stories have begun with me turning up in a clients kitchen armed with containers, recipes and ready to use a bit of elbow grease. Within a couple of days, wed have the kitchen sparkling and ship-shape, a fridge and freezer filled with portions of home-cooked meals, a clear menu plan and shopping list in place (wed even go shopping together so I could teach them my healthy supermarket strategies and how to read food labels), alongside a load of back-up ideas for when life gets hectic and cooking becomes impossible. This process formed the solid foundation upon which a sustainable, healthy diet could be built. So I know that it really works, not just for me, but for anyone who wants to eat well, whatever kind of a kitchen you have.