Gizzi Erskine: A healthy attitude towards food at Cheltenham Literature Festival

'Clean eating' can sod off. 

After attending two fantastic events last week at The Cheltenham Literature Festival, I'm both inspired and full of preachy rage about this stupid buzz-phrase. Sure, I'm not adverse to healthy eating, eating well, and trying to lower my calorie intake - I've gone on juice cleanses (see my post on The Core Chelt), I own a NutriBullet, and I've eaten spiralised 'courgetti' just as much as the next person has - but I'm sick of the frankly quite bullying promotion of #cleaneating.

Food events at the lit fest are always my priority (you can read my previous #cheltlitfest experiences here), and with the likes of Cornish king Rick Stein, wine buff Oz Clarke, and London heroes Honey & Co and Spuntino making an appearance, there was so much to choose from. I would've sold an arm and a leg to be able to get tickets to all of them (it gets expensive business), but with two of my all time fave ladies in the world of food, it was easy to make my decision. And happy-frickin'-days, both Gizzi Erskine's and Nigella's new books speak the truth about all this obsessive attitude over 'clean' foods.

I've owned Gizzi's latest book 'Gizzi's Healthy Appetite' since the day it came out, and FYI it's still a purse friendly £7.99 on Amazon. I went mad over the recipes in 'Skinny Weeks and Weekend Feasts' - the Pork Bun Xao is a firm staple in our house and I've wowed people dishing up the Braised Veal Shin Bourguignon for Sunday lunch - but her new book is something I'm completely obsessed with. Not a week goes by where I haven't made at least one thing from it. Just look at some of my efforts...

'Healthy Appetite' is a clever double entendre; she's really interested in health foods and food that will keep you in shape - note the superfood salad and smoothie recipes - but it also describes her indulgent side - the best ever Black Velvet Cake, truffle pappardelle using leftover hollandaise and her famous Korean fried chicken. In her discussion with Red Magazine's Pip McCormac, she proudly outed herself as being a little piglet that could easily take anyone down when it comes to how much she can eat. I salute that! Though anyone who follows her on Instagram would already know this; if it's not photos of her cute kitties - Kimchi and Ponzu - it's all the mega food she likes to cook and all the shit-hot places she likes to eat out at. I'm pretty much green with envy and constantly craving London; arghh.

"Having a healthy appetite means having a healthy lust for life," she says. If you're beating yourself up over having a slice of bloody cake at the weekend, then get a grip. Gizzi believes that all these new diets and the rise of 'clean eating' is putting too much blame on food. We know that things like alcohol and refined sugar are bad for us - fine - but to exclude whole food groups to eat saintly raw meals is a little extreme. I've lost count of the amount of people I know who have gone dairy-free, gluten-free, wheat-free, blah blah blah, and whilst I can totally understand if these people have an actual problem, just to cut them out believing it makes you 'healthier' is pretty misguided. Luckily, Gizzi is here to help, and from what I gathered from the event, her new book is just the start of her food education revolution.

Not naming any names, she discussed the problems with the popularity of health food bloggers on social media; the dishes tagged with #cleaneating or #fitfood might look delicious, and no doubt they are, but "spiralised courgette with pesto made from whizzed-up avocado is not dinner. It's a salad." Her idea of nourishing the body is about understanding balance and why we break up our plate into proteins, carbs, vegetables, fats, and the right volumes of these things. She's made friends with new techniques such as spiralizing veg and making rice out of cauliflower, but feels that it's very much misrepresented by those who aren't trained in the world of food and nutrition.

As we tucked into her dishes cooked by the Relish Events team at the Literature Fest (Ox Cheek Goulash with Spatzle followed by Maple Syrup, Orange & Rosemary Tart), it was evident that it's time to start loving our food again. Gizzi, along with others like Jamie Oliver and his latest food programme and indeed Nigella, are bringing back the emphasis of cooking fresh food from scratch and giving people a different attitude to healthy eating.

If you just do one thing this week, buy 'Gizzi's Healthy Appetite'. Oh, and "do cover your vegetables in butter; it's actually good for you!"... It tastes pretty damn good too.

**Keep your eyes peeled for my round up of Nigella's 'Simply Nigella' discussion with Jay Rayner.**