Who we are & what is it that we do

We are residing in one of the unhealthiest parts of western Europe. We can not for one moment dodge the wild accusations of the media that we are a nation of smoking, binge drinking, fast food eating slobs, apparently. You just have to goggle unhealthy Britain for hundreds of pages of facts about what we are doing to ourselves & what our future holds http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21667065

I set about opening up a Health Food shop in Newcastle city centre with a big difference, healthy food, fast. I wanted a multitude of natural colours to overwhelm you with every portion of Soup,Salad & Smoothie being served up. I was inspired by the likes of the Jamie Oliver food revolution but shocked to see the levels of low education on real food, on cooking, on the ingredients....and their provenance.


Here I wanted every minority to feel like a majority.
The mega healthy to be able to eat everything .
The dairy free to be able to get an unbuttered / no mayo sandwich.
The gluten free to have a wrap a soup and even a cake.
The vegetarians to not just be offered cheese options.
The vegans to get choices & cakes.
The weigh lifters wont have to spend time preparing their own eggs chicken and spinach.
The dieters to get their calorie controlled meals made for them.

Don't think I wasn't discouraged, how many times I heard ' really a healthy place in Newcastle? do you really think there is a market for this up here?' Well yes of course I do I know there are healthy eaters all over Newcastle, the job on my hands is to find them. If we cant find them we educate them. We help them. We mentor them and before you know it we will have a healthy Newcastle again. I am hopeful of this.

A little about me. I grew up in Africa & France and settled in Newcastle, where my father is from. Ive eaten foods from supermarkets, markets & my grandmothers own garden in the Pyrenees. Ive learned to cook from my parents & grandparents, then from my own experiments. A child of a catering family also does plenty of eating.... So as a teen & young adult I then had to go on to do plenty of diets & fads. I have been a veggy, a vegan, ive been dairy free, gluten free. All the free from episodes you can name. People assume 'must be hard you mustn't be able to eat anything'.... Its the complete opposite. When you remove sugar, salt, dairy, gluten from your diet you basically start to really learn to cook. You really cant walk into a supermarket anymore as those cheaper ingredients are in everything! Bulking out everything. It just opens your eyes to what you can eat. The multitude of ingredients out there. Its huge and it actually widens any choices you ever had before. So this is what I know about food and what I am passionate about. I hope you love my shop and visit us soon in the amazing Grainger Market. Healthy food, fast.