Are celebrity chefs a good or a bad thing?

There are many ways in modern society to get rich and famous with what seems like relatively little effort – join a band, become a model, TV presenter, or… a celebrity chef! Just recently, there seems to have been a huge spate of kitchen-lovers on the TV, not least due to the vogue for old-fashioned British cuisine.

Mary Berry, Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson and Gordon Ramsay are all good examples of chefs riding this trend.

On the one hand, they may inspire people to cook different foods or motivate them to be healthier. People can be exposed to different cultural foods through cooking programmes or cook books, and try something they never would have discovered on their own, like Moroccan food.

Some people might not have been brought up to enjoy cooking, because they may have had parents who were too busy to cook, preferred not to or didn’t know how. Celebrity chefs may provide a much-needed role model to get people to think that, they, too, can do it.

Jamie Oliver spearheaded a health campaign in the UK, promoted in his television show Jamie's School Dinners with the aim of improving school dinners for schoolchildren. A particularly infamous aspect was his call to ban the turkey twizzler. This campaign permanently changed food standard requirements across the UK, influencing government policy, and the show crossed the Atlantic to the to try to improve American eating habits.

On the other hand, overly complicated recipes and exotic ingredients may put off the average person. Too many kitchen appliances, unpronounceable dishes or five-hour long recipes. Watching cooking shows on TV is not quite the same as doing it yourself, and the irony is consuming a greasy take-away whilst sat in front of Ready, Stead, Cook. Trying to copy a celebrity chef can end up in a bit of a mess, too.

Equally, the cult of celebrity means that some people may become celebrity chefs without actually possessing a passion for cooking – or love being famous even more than food. Chefs have been accused of promoting ‘money-saving’ techniques, which come across as hopelessly middle-class and miss their target audience.

It can become a race to be the next big thing, and obscure the fact that the origins of the joy of food comes from eating a delicious, well-prepared meal  - with people you love. Contrary to popular opinion, it is not that expensive to cook with basic, fresh ingredients. A single onion shouldn’t set you back more than 10 pence from the grocer, or a 1k bag of pasta can be less than £1 from big supermarkets.

Be your own celebrity chef, and develop a cooking style all your own.

By Catherine Heath

FunMeFit: Community Health

Based in Sheffield, FunMeFit combines health and fitness with playing together as a family as a way to achieve overall wellbeing. Founded by Kate Hill, mother of two, the organisation has been going for two years. It is fervently devoted to the idea that playing together strengthens families and is a fun way to get fit. Sheffield is full of green spaces, parks and woodland, so a website like this has been a long time coming.

There are many resources across the internet providing access to an array of activities, health and volunteering events, but FunMeFit brings all of these together under one roof. Targeted health and fitness resources mean that members can easily find what they’re looking for, including businesses that can help organise events and provide materials. FunMeFit is personable, easy to use and great for your health.

As they put it themselves: "FunMeFit is a community that brings people together from all over the community, whether a business, an individual, a charity or a group for the purpose of promoting healthy living, community work and physical activity.” FunMeFit is open to all. Not just limited to Sheffield, members are mainly from the UK but FunMeFit also has strong links with New York.

This innovative business can be broken down into two parts:

The Directory – a large database of services, businesses and organisations relevant to the health and fitness community. Join here.

The Community – Where members can freely create a profile for themselves and join an active network of health and fitness organisations and individuals. Join here.

Far too often we are bombarded with bad news and frightening stories, such as rising obesity levels and increased health problems from childhood, without focusing on ways to improve. FunMeFit, much like The Mini Cooking Club, responds to the need for positive health solutions. They do this by providing access to a network for health and fitness stakeholders, ranging from zumba teachers, to toddler climbing clubs, to play groups. Messy Mangoes is Kate’s own toddler group which encourages fun, interactive and creative play time.

FunMeFit’s primary aims are to:

1.    Encourage people to become more active

2.    Assist people in improving their wellbeing, developing skills and networking with other members of the community

3.    Get people to promote physical activity within the community and/or deliver such activities

We here at the Mini Cooking Club wholeheartedly support these goals. An added benefit of the website is helping young people and job-seekers discover opportunities to use their own skills as well as providing CV development, and enabling them to connect with important individuals, groups and businesses in the health community.

Join FunMeFit today and benefit from a whole host of services, most of them for free (upgrade to a premium account if you are a larger business). Upon joining, you will be freely promoted across social media, and can be part of the regular events held for members and non-members. Let’s all get fit and healthy together! 

See what the FunMeFit community has been up to here, and contact them on this form. 

By Catherine Heath

Understanding Coeliac Disease

Gluten free snacks

Gluten is a protein composite ingredient found in wheat and other grains. One in every hundred people living in the UK is intolerant to it, and this condition is known as “coeliac disease”. The digestive system is unable to break down any amount of gluten and so consumption causes digestive issues such as nausea, diarrhoea and stomach cramps. Long-term effects of undiagnosed or untreated coeliac disease include infertility and nutrient deficiencies.

The only treatment is a completely gluten-free diet. Although very effective, it can be difficult in practice because the condition is not universally acknowledged. Unfortunately, gluten is found in common foods such as bread, pasta, cereals and cakes. Surprisingly, most brands of oven chips and sausages have added gluten, as do beer, soy sauce, ketchup and ice cream, to name a few. These foods should be avoided, or replaced with gluten-free alternatives.

In overseas markets, a gluten-free diet is catered for almost as readily as vegetarianism. In the UK, coeliac sufferers find it hard to eat out in restaurants and on-the-go, as gluten-free food is not very affordable or widely available. Many people are restricted to eating salads for lunch in the city, since most mainstream brands and companies are unaware of the demand for gluten-free products. Coeliac disease is slowly becoming more widely understood and accounted for in British culture but we are still far behind places like America and Europe. It really should be much simpler for coeliac sufferers to maintain a healthy diet.

There are already a few gluten-free alternatives to bread, pasta, cereal, biscuits and cake available in the UK, produced by brands like Dove’s Farm and Genius. There are also a few other established brands like Mrs Crimbles and Eat Natural whose recognisable logos make shopping a bit easier. Waitrose, Marks and Spencer Asda provide the biggest product ranges that are also labelled as gluten-free. South Londoners can also shop at smaller chains like Whole Market Foods in Clapham, which sells many gluten-free products, and check out Planet Organic in central London.

People with coeliac disease can also obtain gluten-free food on prescription from the NHS, available through your doctor. The foods on offer are generally dietary staples such as bread and pasta, rather than biscuits and cake items, and the list has been agreed by a body called the Advisory Committee on Borderline Substances (ACBS). Make sure you’ve approached your GP about this option if you are a sufferer.  

Widely recognised gluten free symbol

You can find many useful sources of information via the internet written by coeliacs themselves. Blogs like Gluten Free Guerrillas and Gluten Free London offer reviews and lists of coeliac-friendly restaurants, shops and recipes in an accessible format.

Please visit www.coeliac.org.uk for lots of reliable information and advice. If you think you might have undiagnosed coeliac disease, please make an appointment with your GP to confirm or rule it out as soon as possible. 

By Catherine Heath