Nadia Sawalha’s tips on healthy eating

Hi, I'm [inaudible], I'm a TV presenter, stroke actress, and a real foodie. I love my food, but I also love feeling really healthy and vital and energized. So I try and make sure that I have a healthy diet. That doesn't mean that I never have any cakes or biscuits or anything naughty cause I do. But my tip with that is to just have them occasionally and that way, um, they feel like a real treat. My other tip is to use lots of herbs and spices. Everyone knows that we need to cut down on fat. The thing is with fat, butter, oil all that sort of stuff and salt is that they're all very tasty. So if we take them out of our food, we've gotta find some way to put some of the tastes back. And I do that using fresh or dried herbs, lots of spices. Spices don't have to be hot and chilli like, you know, spices can just add a great aroma and a great punch to dishes. My other top tip is really, really to try and stay away from things that are white, white bread, white rice, white pasta, because the problem with eating them though, they taste nice enough is that they burn very quickly in the body. So quite soon afterwards, you're hungry. Whereas if you eat brown rice, brown, pasta, brown bread, it just basically keeps you fuller for longer. And actually really does taste great. A lot of people, are a bit funnier brown, brown rice, they think it's a bit like hippie and a bit sticky and a bit like glue. That's what people say to me. So my tip on that is to use basmati brown rice. And I also add a little stock to it, a little stock cube, maybe, chicken stock or vegetable stock, if you're vegetarian. And that really adds extra flavour. My other tip is eat loads and loads of vegetables, you know, and the thing is lots of people think they don't like vegetables cause they caught them very well. Don't ever boil them, steam them add a little drizzle of olive oil, maybe a zest of lemon, a little fried garlic. I never have broccoli without a bit fried garlic and a drizzle of oil. And after years of hating broccoli, I now love it. So keep things brown, lots of fruits and vegetables and keep your treats as treats. Not an everyday thing.