Jennifer Babich
Jennifer Babich believes we have lost touch with how to eat, and she's done something about it.
The Rototuna resident has published How To Use Your Pie-hole, a book which takes the food industry to task and urges readers to take control.
"The food industry is deeply warped. The level of confusion over what to eat and what not to eat is escalating at the same rate toxic 'foods' and 'beverages' invade the system. With the towering level of confusion comes an ever-increasing level of disease, medical bills and dependence on medications.
"We need to become nutritionally literate before our state of health deteriorates further. No more yo-yoing and fad diets, no more frustration and confusion."
She believes the nutrient value of food has become less important and people now eat what is marketed best - with devastating results to health.
"In the book I talk about how I have lost many people to disease, resulting from poor lifestyle habits. I lost both my parents, my grandparents, my aunt and my step-mother before my 21st birthday. A long time ago I decided I wanted to do something about the number of unnecessary deaths and people suffering with a poor quality of life. This was my way of reaching out, a way to save more lives."
The book is dedicated to her mother, Betty, who died in 2001.
The book took just under three years to write and was far more challenging than she had imagined.
"It started off as 'I'm going to cross something off my bucket list' and escalated. I wrote from home in Rototuna, sometimes at a caf, sometimes in a park. I don't like to sit still so that was the hardest part for me."
Contributors were worked with via email and skype - they were in three different countries. Friends with various useful degrees assisted with editing and graphics and the book reached a new level when American cardiologist Dr Jeffrey Rosenblatt came on board.
"I had worked with him back in 2003/2004 at a cardiology office in Portland, Maine. He was always on the same path as me in terms of wanting to help people live longer, healthier lives, so I approached him about contributing once I had most of it written. Then things began to snowball."
Jennifer says she eats real food at home, "meaning unprocessed, mostly organic whole foods. I grow a lot from my own garden and make most everything from scratch. If it has a nutrition label or a marketing team behind it, I try to avoid it.
"One of my favourite quotes is from Jamie Oliver, 'real food shouldn't have ingredients, real food IS an ingredient'."
She says the best advice she can give people is to eduate themselves.
"I list a whole lot of references at the end of the book, websites, other books, documentaries etc that will help. However, you need to make sure you're educating yourself with resources that have your health in their best interest first and foremost, not their pockets. And you'd be shocked at who doesn't fall into that category - which is divulged in the book."
It has a 'mature language' rating, she says. "So expect to learn about nutrition and laugh your a** off at the same time."
A recipe book will soon supplement the book, she says. "But I'm going to relax a bit first " hopefully on a beach somewhere."
The book is available online at www.amazon.com - search 'How To Use Your Pie-hole'.