Do you know what a pegan is, cookbook guru Annabel Langbein asks.
Then she laughs, before answering her own question.
"A pegan is a paleo vegan."
She laughs again.
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• Recipes: Sweet treats from Annabel Langbein's new book
"It's like, 'Oh really, why do you have to make it so hard?' You know, eat fresh food. Just don't eat barcodes, don't eat industrial food, don't eat processed food.
"We all grew up with these lovely tins full of home-made things and we ran around and we didn't have issues."
Whipping ingredients — fresh produce as much as possible — into easy-to-make meals to be shared with family and friends has been the formula to global success for Langbein in the 20 years since she launched best-seller The Best of Annabel Langbein: Great Food for Busy Lives.
Langbein isn't really one to cut out whole food groups. The demonised sugar might be persona non grata for some, but it's still got a place in Langbein's kitchen.
Essential Volume Two: Sweet Treats for Every Occasion, a companion to her bestselling book of savoury recipes Essential Volume One: Best-Ever Meals for Busy Lives, launches tomorrow.
Langbein, who also hosts award-winning cooking show Annabel Langbein: The Free Range Cook from her Wanaka home, said the two volumes were "kind of like everything I know".
They could even be her last cookbooks — maybe.
"I don't actually know if I'll write another big book again, not about my own recipes. I might be interested in other cultures. I've written more than 10,000 recipes —it's a lot." She conceded she could just be tired after completing her 26th cookbook.
"It's like having a baby ... you think 'I'm never doing that again' and suddenly this little idea comes into your head'."
Things change, Langbein might not go for guilt and deprivation around food — hence the bewilderment over some restrictive diets — but she's adapted to the needs of others, including her vegetarian daughter, newly celiac disease-diagnosed son and "my body is a temple mode" husband.
That meant including recipes suitable for different dietary needs, including vegan, vegetarian, and food free of gluten, dairy or refined sugar.
She's also reworked quite a lot of recipes to cut back on sugar.
For Langbein the problem with sugar isn't the ingredient itself, but how people are consuming it.
"A lot of the war on sugar has come from the fact that, as a generalisation, we have such a lot of industrial food in our diet and so many empty calories ... such as fizzy drinks. The balance is all gone ... our mothers baked and it was all treats, they weren't the mainstay of our diet.
"If you're going to live on a sugar diet then your body will start craving it because it's like jet fuel. But if you have a little treat now and then it makes life sweet."
A sugar tax was "probably quite a good idea", Langbein said.
"It's worked with smoking."
Her tip for those wanting a more healthy diet was to stick to the outer aisles of the supermarket "where all the fresh stuff is", check the trolley at the end for too much stuff in "packets with barcodes" and, if there are, make sure they're ones with the highest fibre and the lowest sugar and fat.
Some things were harder to control, such as the cost of some veges.
Prices of green vegetables have soared after crops were hit hard by high humidity — cauliflower prices alone have reached $10 a head.
"It's kind of worrying with climate change, you're going to have cauliflowers that are more expensive than meat."
Most of all Langbein hoped people would stop being afraid of food.
"There's quite a lot of dysfunctionality around people's relationship with food. "Let's get back to being sociable with the pleasure. That's what I love about the idea of baking. If you make a cake it just says celebration — straightaway people feel welcome and invited. I like that."