Nourish Members Evening

Claire Pearce and Sylvia May, from Nourish Food Coach, led the evening, presenting their insights into our everyday foods. It was first made clear that this is not so much a plea to help people lose weight, but simply to aid them to live a healthier lifestyle, where you have more energy, less symptoms and generally feel well, no matter what dress size you are. Claire and Sylvia are by day, Well Being Advisors, following NHS guidelines, but at night, lead these sessions. Their knowledge of the subject is vast and so for the purpose of the evening, their focus laid on sugar – how much we eat of it and how much of it is hidden in our food.

There were some scary statistics shared, mentioning the words ‘diabetes’ and ‘cancer’ but one fact that was found most shocking was that…

One of the biggest culprits of hidden sugar is our breakfast cereals. Food manufacturing companies will list the ingredients of their products in chronological order, beginning with the ingredient that holds the highest percentage with the content. Shockingly, on most cereals, sugar is listed in the top three main ingredients, often without an exact percentage next to it, so the consumer is never fully aware.

To help us reduce our sugar content at breakfast time, Sylvia and Claire demonstrated a quick and easy way to make homemade granola. Their ingredients had no specifics when it came to weights, as it is completely dependent on the audiences taste but the foods they included were….

A bag of porridge oats // un-sweetened coconut flakes // mixed nuts // linseeds or flaxseeds (ground) // pumpkin seeds // sesame seeds // cinnamon

All of this was thrown in to a large baking tray, with a few spoonful's of coconut oil and baked at a high temperature until it “began to smell delicious”. The granola will keep in an air tight container for months, although both ladies said that it never lasts that long in their households!

We hope that those who joined us found the insights helpful and will begin to adopt their ideas into their everyday cooking. For those that were unable to join us but would love to hear more about Nourish Food Coach, Sylvia and Claire will be back to join us again, so keep your eyes and ears peeled for a confirmed date.