Appleaday

06/01/2026

I’m starting my year with a journey - of course 🤣 - but hoping to take you with me, woohoo!
It’s a heart health trip 😬
(awwww sorry, no, not Australia or Kef).
With parents & grandparents who’ve mainly died of cardiovascular events, I’ve definitely inherited some heart-related genetic glitches, SNPS…. which means I have to work harder at keeping my heart healthy.
Each week I’ll be highlighting a food and briefly chatting about why it’s a heart health star.
As always I’ll also share a few unrelated-to-food photos to give a sense of time and geography to my chat x
This week it’s OATS.
Or more accurately, beta-glucan in oats, which is a soluble fibre that forms a gel in our gut. Here it traps cholesterol-rich bile acids and gets rid of them.
This may be as clear as mud, with you wondering how removing these cholesterol-rich bile acids in our gut can help lower the cholesterol that’s swimming in our blood!
For this, some brief background info may help:
We need bile acids to digest fats, & our liver makes these bile acids from cholesterol (one of many reasons why cholesterol is important)
Hence, if we’re eliminating this oat-bile acid gluggy concoction, instead of reabsorbing and reusing these acids as we normally would, then our liver has to make MORE bile acids (which needs more cholesterol) in order for us to continue to digest fats with ease.
To do this, the liver pulls cholesterol from our blood stream, thus lowering levels, whilst also making new bile acids, voila!

This cholesterol-binding talent is one of a many reasons why I have great respect for oats. I hope you do too x

An aside: if you don’t feel well eating oats, even gf oats, you may have an intolerance and should steer away from them. There are loads of other effective cholesterol-lowering foods that I’ll be mentioning on this voyage.
Some photos of Dorset at the moment. We’re all kitted out in ski gear ‘coz it’s cccccold in U.K. but the gorse is showing its resilience and already starting to pop, and bushes are packed with haws and sloes. I’m hoping this means birds are having a feast!

30/12/2025

Who knew?!

So, the next time you see someone drilling a finger into their ear you’ll know they’re actually investigating their metabolic health status 😉😬

Earwax can contain valuable indicators to a person's health. Now scientists are analysing its chemistry in the hope of finding new ways of diagnosing diseases.

23/12/2025

Lots of merries to you all!

05/12/2025

In my most recent newsletter, which I optimistically called ‘late autumn news’ (that’s when I began writing it!), I discuss magnesium benefits and some excellent health reads, a podcast discussing extroverts and introverts and also my brain health workshops.
I’ll be running these next spring and now have NEW timings & pricings (above bio link is up to date), since being asked by a company and clients if I can offer an hour’s brain health talk on its own to fit in with their work and lives. So that’s happening too, some private workshops, exciting!
Take a look at dates and see if you can come along to the ones I’ll be running in my home clinic. Whether we are 30 or 80, there’s so much we can do with food and lifestyle to support our focus and memory and those neuronal connections zapping in our heads.
Here is the link to my updated 'autumn' newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/8fd6f89d8db0/autumn-wellbeing-10148722
The second and third photos above are a delicious warm spiced apple-cranberry compote because, yes, it IS winter, and fresh cranberries have suddenly appeared in stores.
I combined 2 chopped apples with a full cup of cranberries (frozen works), one tsp cinnamon, and a generous tsp grated fresh ginger. Splash of maple syrup and water. That’s it. Combine the lot & simmer 15 mins until the fruit have softened. I’m eating it on porridge or yoghurt, delicous.
Sky photos abound because they have really been so extraordinary, plus last night’s super moon was already shining brightly at 4pm.
Did you see it too?

29/11/2025

A new recipe link is in my Insta bio, and on my website, for a lentil bolognese.
Ive tasted many ho-hum versions over the years, but simmer your sauce longer, add more tomato paste, herbs & veg to the recipe, a dollop of miso paste or Dorsetshire sauce (vegan version of Worcestershire) and the result is a rich warming dish.
Ive even tossed in cranberries for a Christmas vibe, but then I’m a fan of the sour-fruitiness red pop of cranberries (not everyone is!)
In the linked recipe I mention FODMAP foods because lentils, like most pulses, are considered a high FODMAP.
This is because they contain oligosaccharides, specifically galacto-oligosaccharides (a mouthful of a word), which is the ‘O’ in FODMAP.
These ‘O’s are a type of carb that can cause bloating & gas for some people. However, if you soak the lentils (or any pulse) in water overnight - discarding the water before cooking - both the process of soaking and cooking reduces this hard-to-digest ‘O’.
Btw canned pulses might have lower FODMAP content because it leaches into the canned liquid. This is good reason for those suffering IBS-type symptoms to be wary of Aquafaba, the vegan egg substitute liquid in canned legumes/pulses.
A low FODMAP diet can help you manage IBS symptoms. But it’s meant as a short term diet!
The idea of this diet is to exclude high FODMAP foods for a couple of weeks then s-l-o-w-l-y reintroduce the excluded foods to see which one might be a symptom trigger for you.
Enough acronyms! It’s a grey, drizzly Saturday in our Dorset corner so I’m off to restore order (or maybe the previous disorder) to our freshly painted room. 👍🤦🏻‍♀️
I hope you find sunshine this weekend x

18/11/2025

A strange time, these past days away. A flight to Stuttgart, then early the following day, trains to Speyer where an old friend is in hospital. Two quiet days together. When she needed rests ‘n tests, physio and more, I walked into the old town which is in the throes of transformation. From beautiful medieval and Romanesque to gaudy Christmas market. Trucks and vans in front of historic buildings. Workmen putting up wooden huts & carousels, plastic signs & angels with flowing blonde hair. Not many people about just this flurry of Christmas action.

Back to Stuttgart for a very brief but welcome sense of ‘holiday’. A day wander through town and being taken to the Stuttgart food market hall, always a treat.
There I saw a display of allsorts of stuffed dates, piles of them, which prompted me to make some when I got home, so easy. Here’s the recipe!
12 pitted Medjool dates. Cut a split in the centre, fill with a pistachio paste (40g shelled pistachios blitzed with a tbsp of a neutral oil. Avo oil worked for me). Then 1/2 walnut pushed into each one, the paste hugs it. I dipped their bottoms into melted dark chocolate. Delicious, but very filling so you only need one. Something perhaps for Christmas?

04/11/2025

I’ve just been researching and writing about the impact our community and social connectedness has on our health. Not simply our mental well being but our physical health.
One hormone, in particular - also called the “love” or “trust” hormone (yes, seriously!) - can help make changes to our actual biology.
If you’d like to read more, head to my website’s recipe/blog page (or check out the link in my Instagram bio).

And this reel reflects the theme. Sending into the ether deep gratitude to family and my buddy groups- from all corners of my heart ❤️

15/09/2025

Omega-3s, especially DHA & EPA, have been known for decades to have impressive health benefits, but at the moment they seem to be shining brighter than ever.
If you’d like to discover why, I’ve just spent some weeks burning the midnight oil reading, listening and learning what recent studies show.

You can find the link to this blog in the bio above, or on my website.
What prompted this deep dive into Omega-3s was an August visit to a small town in Finland to visit a good friend.
Almost every day we’d eat either salmon or herring, both rich in omega-3 fatty acids.
Herring isn’t a fish I normally eat, but sometimes I’d have it cured, other times pickled. Always served with potatoes, boiled, or in a traditional creamy potato salad.
Surprisingly, I didn’t get tired of it as all the different spices of the herring marinades were delicious.
Also, I love seasonal eating. So special eating food that’s linked to a distinct place, to a specific time of year when there’s a glut, and we are pushed to stretch our imaginations and create different ways to store or prepare it.
Food tied to tradition and cultural legacy, that’s part of why I love travel - and eating! 🙂
Apart from salmon and herring, we also had our fill of blueberries. Every day we took my friends’s dog - a big bundle of white fur with the kindest disposition - for a morning walk through fields and along forest tracks, passing low bushes of blueberry, speculating whether we should wait another day or not to pick them.
It was a magical week, and here are some photos to share. Not all of them about omega-3 salmon or herring!

06/09/2025

This scandal in Australia about the lack of effectiveness of some sunscreens (as yet an unknown number it would seem!) should make us all check the brands we use, and also keep an eye on the ongoing testing of all global sunscreens.

The final message in the article about applying sunscreen liberally, and repeatedly, as well as covering up, is about the only safety net those of us will have for now. Until more testing of all brands is carried out, and the results published.

If you're in the sun, hat on, and cover up!

It has shaken consumer trust and raised questions about global sunscreen regulation.

11/07/2025

Here’s a super quick & delicious chilled cucumber soup recipe to keep you cool if you’re feeling the heat. Link’s in my Insta bio above, or you can find it on my website. .
I’m running a workshop on brain health in the autumn but wanted to share this easy step now, which Dr Bredesen talks about in his book, The Ageless Brain. We know how important it is for our brain’s neuronal connections to try new activities, whether learning a new language or instrument or new sport, but an easy first step is to simply swap daily routines. Where your desk is when you work or the route you always take to work, the cafe you always go to for your daily caffeine hit, the way you always cook your veg. We get into stale patterns and interrupting these can be daily effective brain challenges that create new neuronal pathways and improve neuroplasticity.
As always some photos of what I’ve been up to. Visiting the beautiful , blueberry picking now in full flow, and, with brain healthy omega 3 DHA on my mind, baking wild salmon (baking whole cumin-chili oil cauli too as it’s so delicious cooked this way, wrapped in paper). And the month of May in Kefalonia, my new fave salad (recipe next time), and a platter of fruit for Elke and Didi, another visit to the stunning San Gerasimo monastery with visitors, and fun girl chat and gardens at the must-see - still can’t understand how it’s taken so long to find out about this gem!

25/06/2025

Learning from these axolotls.

They're a type of salamander but remain in water, not on land. Such amazing creatures they can rebuild body parts -and also accept transplants of body parts from other axolotls.
I found so many cute photos of these little creatures although after reading they can grow up to a foot, wimp-me wouldn't be happy meeting one whilst swimming (highly unlikely as I'm not in a lake or canal in Mexico).
Nearly extinct in the wild, and with so much to teach us, I hope science learns fast!

"Axolotls can rebuild entire limbs and brain parts.....Scientists are taking what they have learnt about the regenerative powers of these and other animals and applying that knowledge to human cells, thanks to advances in genomics, proteomics and imaging at the level of the single cell' (Nature, 20 June 2025)

19/05/2025

It doesn’t surprise me that some years ago a NY Times food article wrote that Munich’s Viktualien markt (food market) alone was worth a trip to Germany. The article was actually about the local bratwurst there - grilled sausage- but these days it could’ve been waxing lyrical about most of the amazing produce and stalls.
Bratwurst is as typical to Bavaria, to Munich, as the lederhosen and dirndels (which surprisingly are in most stores, worn far more frequently than I remembered).
So here we were, a couple of weeks ago, on our multiple train journeys towards Greece, stopping here in Munich because Mr C had never been and I’d not been back since uni days. The Viktualien market, our first stop early morn, has expanded and changed since its birth in 1807 but its’s still smack in the middle of the stunning old town, open every day except Sundays and hols, and offering just about every little thing your heart and tum could want, from traditional to exotic.
I oggled shelves of diverse misos and pumpkin seed/flower sourdoughs, rows of jarred pickles and fab fresh veg stalls. The beer garden at 10am was packed, with mainly locals sat at long tables beneath the white flowering horse chestnuts, downing large beer steins or glasses of wine and eating bratwurst or weisswirst with sweet mustard. It was much the same as my memories of Munich decades ago, a friendly, hard-drinking, bratwursting, bizarre lederhosen folk!
At bakery I found delicous dark seeded bread, tempting quark cheesecakes & apple strudel with barely-there light pastry full of apple, hard to resist!
Munich’s old town is such a beauty, from the neo-gothic Marienplatz to Baroque, Renaissance and Rococo buildings. Long day wanders along cobblestone lanes with lessons in architecture. A visit to the Contemporary and Urban art museum only to find the very Banksy that caused such a hooha at the art auction when it shredded (or half-shredded!) upon purchase. A long morning wander in the English & Residenz gardens - until rained upon - rounded off a perfect few days.