Food For Thought

Food for Thought

30 May 2022|Health, Nutrition, Recipes, Sustainability

frowning child eating an orange

You can avoid alcohol, drugs, sugar, salt, wheat, dairy and carbohydrates your whole entire life, you can exercise, meditate and focus half your day on your health…

But if you are swallowing your dreams, your ambitions, your regrets, your fears, your desires and your bitterness on a daily basis, you will suffer my friend.

For nothing, nothing, rots the flesh more, than the negative emotions, we ram down our own throats, on a daily basis.

Food for thought.

Say your truths, live your own way, be yourself, accept who you are, accept who others are too, share your dreams, honour your desires, chase your ambitions, or don’t.

Perhaps your ambition is quite simply to be peaceful.
Whatever it is you choose to do,
give yourself peace.

It’s the most healing and rejuvenating path of them all.

Donna Ashworth

Donna is a wonderful wordsmith who just seems to ‘nail it’ so beautifully ALL the time (how does she do that?)  She’s right, of course; we can follow the tightest diet, toughest exercise regime, look amazing, but… If our mental health is not healthy, we’re often in trouble.  

That was me, in 2017, when cancer came to call; my mother had suddenly died the year before and I was trying, and failing spectacularly, to hold it together.  A NZ friend sent me a book over from nutritional therapist Laura Bond, she features on our site, here’s an article from her about Constant Pressure

Those 4 R’s…


Speaking of mental health…Mo arrived on our site with a bang a few weeks ago.  His Slow Mo podcast is outstanding and so is this interview with Dr Rangan Chatterjee on his Apple no1 podcast Feel Better Live More in which they discuss the visceral loss Mo feels following his son’s untimely death – aged just 21 and why success often does not bring happiness.  He shares his thoughts on Ukraine too – powerful.

From this phenomenally successful man, who only enjoyed his money once he’d given it away, comes the question ‘Where do you put your heartbeats?’


Brain scans

Dementia is one of the health conditions featured on our site.  With Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease increasing at terrifying speed it’s reassuring to know that research has shown there is much we can do to prevent and slow the diseases.  Here’s an article from last week’s The Times newspaper in the UK sharing information from the American Heart Association that they believe could nearly halve your risk.  Here are the steps: 

  1. Manage blood pressure
  2. Control cholesterol
  3. Reduce blood sugar
  4. Get active
  5. Better diet
  6. Lose weight

Catherine‘s new book is out on 7 June, at an absolute bargain price of $1,99 on Amazon on release day.  What if pain is actually a gift?  Our body’s best warning signal?  Our best teacher?  

I know I’ve improved my life since I experienced extreme pain associated with breast cancer treatments.  It taught me SO much: about my strength of mind and body, about my willpower, about my desire to heal.

What can your pain teach you?


Filet steak and it's plastic packaging
Plastic packaging for one steak. One steak. Really? We need to do better (and no, the steak wasn’t for me…). Unsustainable.

Chocolate cake and candles

A little vegan number I found on Chocolate Covered Katie‘s site for a friend’s 50th birthday last week.

Delicious: Dark chocolate and raspberries has to one of my favourite combos!


It still spooks me when I receive a ‘random’ sponsored ad after talking about a product with a friend.

Walls aren’t the only things that have ears – our smartphones are definitely ‘listening’.  

My friend was the second person I know extolling the values of the Oura ring he was wearing.  Both people are sporty types that love the information this ring gives them.

Try talking about something and watching it pop up on your social media feed.  This isn’t the future – it’s here…


Palm in a wicker basket, with a foot in flipflops

An accidental snap from earlier today.  Love the colours, love the fact that those wicker baskets have been in my various homes over the past 30 years.  

We bought the palm when we came to France, that was 20 years ago too.

Recycle, re-use and clean the air in your home while you go!


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By doublezero100

Denise Stevenson founded the health and wellness charity Double-zero.org in 2021 after healing from stage 3 breast cancer at (5-zero) and realising there was no one source to access the wealth of resources that had guided her back to health without the mastectomy her oncologist said was a certainty. Denise is a church founder and president, author and local councillor. She's English-born and has French nationality after living there with her husband and 3 girls for the past 20 years.

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