My Story

They say with age comes wisdom, and though I am still young at thirty-something, I can wholeheartedly agree. My twenties were a decade of discomfort and discovery. Confused by the social conditioning of what we 'should' be working with and what we 'should' be eating and how we 'should' be living I was stuck in a cycle of moving from unfulfilling jobs and unsuitable homes, and comfort eating in an attempt to find the peace and happiness that I needed.

Luckily I eventually realised that what I was doing wasn't working for me, and so in order to get to where I wanted to be I had to change something. It started with questioning what I was eating and progressed into something huge! The changes it has brought to my whole life is amazing: I now work with things I am passionate about, I have found friends that are loving and supportive, I live in my dream location, I am running my own business and am surrounded by amazing and inspiring people, I feel healthy and balanced and best of all, I eat amazingly tasty and healthy food!

I have learned many exciting and life-changing things along the way and now I want to share my knowledge and experience with you, so you too can enjoy Loving Life - Loving Food.

How it all began

I turned vegetarian at 14 for ethical reasons, and though I wasn't eating bad food compared to most other people, in my early twenties I suffered from crippling stomach aches, very unstable blood sugar levels and regular headaches, and I just didn't have the balance in my life that I now have.

I wasn't actually officially ill, because to be honest I didn't know that we can actually go through the day without the help of antacids, headache tablets, a good moan, wine and chocolate and so didn't go to the doctor or look for alternative ways to try and find ways to make myself healthier and happier. After all I was vegetarian, and was eating more fruit, veg and wholefoods than most people, and everyone else was eating unhealthy food and taking prescription drugs or self medicating with caffeine, food, alcohol, cigarettes - so how could so many people be so wrong?! Surely this is what life was about: working hard in a job you don't much care for, comfort eating your way through to your pension and then hoping that you don't break your hip too often or that the 'inevitable' arthritis and diabetes don't cause too much trouble.

Finally I had a series of minor wake-up calls that released me from my status quo and forced me to change the things in my life.

My solution? Trading in my old life for a new one by moving abroad. Pretty drastic one might think, (especially considering what I now know about the key to loving life!) but what this did was to press my re-start button and trigger a whole set of life-changing stages.

Before I left the UK to move to Sweden I had been a real foodie. I loved preparing food, and adored eating it, either with friends or just by myself with a bottle of wine and an evening of good comedy shows. Now, you may think that just because one is vegetarian that one is at optimum health. But in those days I was heavily encouraged to replace the eschewed meat with plenty of 'protein rich' cheese, eggs and dairy products. And so started an eleven year saturated fat cheese-eating frenzy. Not to mention all the yummy but rich foods that a food-lover might enjoy such as heavy luxury dairy ice-creams, rich desserts, gourmet white bread and creamy chocolates. Our popular culinary role models did not offer much in the way of life-giving foods either: how much butter, Nigella!?

So my food choices were not great. But it just didn't click. Just like something else that was detrimental to my well-being but that I wasn't aware of: my social influences.

Who we have in our life is as important as how we live and what we eat, and at that time I didn't have people in my daily life that shared and supported my quest for healthy food. When you are not supported and even actually teased, ridiculed and made to feel bad for wanting to eat healthy and cruelty-free food, it can leave you feeling 'off' both emotionally and physically. And if you feel like this then it is going to affect the choices you make: both food choices and life choices.

However, in my new life in Sweden I wasn't surrounded by the same people and influences. I had the good fortune of being supported by two very important and intelligent people who were now in my daily life: my sister and my best friend. So I suddenly had some space and love to start questioning things and thinking for myself. The first thing I addressed was the state of my tummy. It was not a happy tummy and some brief research led me to question the dairy products that I was eating. This revealed some hugely interesting facts about why we shouldn't be eating dairy (and not just for the sake of the cows - dairy farming is not the casualty free industry I had been led to believe, nor is the egg industry). So that was the first to go, and I soon cut out eggs to become vegan.

My health improved immediately, and it sparked a whole new interest in nutrition as well as prompting me to question other areas in my life. After all, if dairy products and eggs were not actually good for the body as I had been led to believe, what other things were there that could be probed and changed?

I loved gaining this new knowledge and enjoyed this new feeling of well-being. But even then, I had more to learn. Years ago, being vegan generally meant you were 'stuck' with only health food to eat, but in recent years we have been blessed/cursed with vegan versions of everything from 'meat' to cakes, ice-cream, cream, cheese, chocolate. So even though eating cruelty-free vegan convenience food was a lot healthier than the cholesterol-laden, saturated fat rich, acidifying non-vegan versions I still wasn't living it up like I am now.

By this time I was three years in to my new life and was making real breakthroughs in my personal development. I knew something else had to change in my life, so I did what knew best (move house) and went back to the UK for a while. Happiness wasn't there after all, but I did find a lot of cakes made with refined flour and sugar which played nasty tricks on my blood sugar and therefore my state of mind. And even though I was eating more and more wholefoods, it was only when I discovered raw food that things slotted into place and I could start eating 'the Miss Best way' by combining life-loving raw vegan wholefoods with some cooked foods (meat free and dairy free) together with a moderate amount of healthy - but amazingly tasty - treats!

The food I create uses beautiful, tasty and natural ingredients such as fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains, cold-pressed oils, spices, herbs, beans and pulses, raw chocolate, sea weeds and some superfoods such as goji berries, maca and spirulina.

Another important realisation I came to was that it's not enough to just eat healthy food. There are other areas of our lives that need our balanced attention. So by adding life-loving foods to my life *together with* exercise, yoga, continuous learning, self-love, relaxation, laughter and inspiring interaction with caring and fun people I finally feel that I am able to truly live! What a gift.