In the two-week window leading up to the end of the 2020 school year, I noticed a frightening phenomenon in my seven-year-old son’s school bag. He had amassed a small mountain of junk food.From play dates and birthday parties, to after-school-care and team sport, it seemed everyone and anyone had deemed it a special occasion to be celebrated with gifts of cookies, chocolate, chips, and candy.I haven’t always been the kind of person who pays close attention to junk food. Six years ago, when I was writing my first book, which is about my efforts to live well, despite being... Read full article »

The class promised that it was “ideal for beginners and home cooks wanting to learn how to make hearty and filling vegan meals.”  I’m not a vegan, but having looked extensively into what diet is best for our health, I do try to eat mostly plant-based food, consisting of nutritious, real ingredients. I’m also a terrible cook who aspires to improve, which is how I came to find myself in an inner-city cafe, feeling very off-trend in my jeans and jumper amidst the hippies and the hipsters.I’d always assumed that because vegan cuisine involves not cooking with animal products, by... Read full article »

Recently my house was overrun by an unruly group of four-year-olds and their associated parents and siblings. The event was to celebrate the coming together of my mother’s group in our shared experience of taking custody of our respective squawking, drooling, begrimed bundles of joy four years earlier. Between the bangs of balloons, an all-in buffet, and the “astonishing” appearance of Superman, I paused for a moment to take in the glorious, wondrous, chaos of the day. About a month before the event I had set myself a challenge. I wanted it to be junk food free. It was a... Read full article »

When I was first diagnosed with an autoimmune disease for which doctors could offer no cure, naturally the first thing I looked at was my diet. Rightly so.  Diet has well and truly been established as being among the most important influences on our health. Having a bad diet is among the leading causes of premature death and chronic disease. Having a good diet on the other hand is associated with increased life expectancy, dramatic reduction in lifetime risk of all chronic disease, and even improving gene expression.  And while it’s all very well for experts to tell us to... Read full article »

Since I released my film in October 2014, I’ve had the privilege of attending countless screenings and speaking to people afterwards. After each screening people inevitably have questions. How has the medical community responded to the film? How do I learn to meditate? When will it all start working for me?   I am also asked at every screening what diet I follow and why. This has been the one topic that I have been reluctant to speak about. The reason is that diet is such a touchy topic. There’s a reason why the mainstream media refers to it as... Read full article »