Christine is the owner of The Casual Foodie.
From the store in Birkenhead they sell fresh and frozen meals, desserts, preserves, spice pastes, dressings, slices and cookies. Every day she’s up early prepping in the kitchen. By 9am all the soups, salads, wraps and sandwiches are made, before she sits down at her desk to do a bit of admin and marketing work. After a full day of being around food, it takes a good hour or so before the taste buds kick back into action and she tries to be enthusiastic about making dinner for the family (including a fussy teenager). Would she describe her diet as typical of others in her profession?
"The food/hospo industry has a reputation for not eating very well because of the long tiring hours and the fact we are around food all the time and eat on the run. However I think my diet is pretty healthy which I think is a reflection of my age (a grand old 56) rather than my profession!"
7am Plain porridge with half a sliced apple and lite-blue top milk. Black coffee and water.
9am Half a cheese scone. We are baking them for customers and we had to try them first!
1.15pm Vegetable and chickpea curry and rice, about a cup of each. Busy in kitchen and this was being cooked for our freezers today.
Afternoon As I was in the kitchen all day I "tasted'' various meals — all part of the job, never more than a small teaspoon per taste.
7pm Dinner at Sam Woo in Otahuhu—we had to go to airport to pick up a family member, and I've always wanted to go there. Lemongrass chicken, raw beef salad and garlic prawns. Simple and tasty. Ate too much. One glass of wine. No pud!
Nadia Lim’s nutrition quick fix
Porridge is still one of the best breakfasts you can have — oats are high in soluble fibre which is good for the bowels and may even help lower cholesterol levels. Chickpeas are also high in fibre, vitamins and minerals and are an excellent lunch choice: when you combine legumes (e.g. chickpeas, beans, lentils, peas) with a grain such as rice, the two foods together form a complete protein (whereas by themselves they are limited by not having the full 20 amino acids).
Overall you appear to make very good food choices, even when eating out the choices you made sound like lower fat, healthier options. Well done on not over-eating in a job where you are around food all the time!
