Zest Nutrition Consulting

19/03/2026

14/03/2026

The ‘Simple Healthy Salad’

I often hear the phrase: 'Just make a simple healthy salad.' It’s also something I’ve likely said myself at different times in my life.

One thing I’ve learned is that this kind of thinking can be unhelpful at best and harmful at worst. When we know better, we can do better. I’m working on doing better, and I welcome you to join me.

Suggesting a salad is usually intended as practical, well-meaning advice. Yet it very much depends on who you are offering that advice to. 'Healthy eating' is a phrase used often, and many people believe it to be straightforward. A salad can indeed be a cheap and easy meal. But the idea that is true for all, and that people simply need to recognise this and make better choices, ignores a range of 'hidden ingredients' required to make that salad possible.

The long list of invisible ingredients sits alongside a checklist of capacity and is something we may have all, some or few of these at different times in our lives. We simply cannot always see or know someone else’s capacity.

Consider things like:

having enough income to buy food
time and capacity to shop and prepare meals
a kitchen, a fridge, electricity and clean water
a body able to shop, cook, chew and digest food
the mental space to plan and prepare meals
These are not universally available resources, skills or capabilities. Nor are they necessarily reliable for any of us throughout life.

For example: financial capacity is one factor increasingly affecting many people especially with the increasing cost of living, food is often sacrificed. I’ve experienced financial distress and poverty myself. And just the other day I had a fall and sprained my right wrist quite badly. I will recover, but right now I can’t even use a knife to cut butter.

If you’ve ever been poor, injured, exhausted or overwhelmed, you would remember at least one time in your life when you were simply too tired to think about preparing food. Even if all the ingredients were there, you just couldn’t force yourself make a thing.

Now imagine needing to push through multiple barriers just to make a 'simple salad'.

As a dietitian I see first-hand how these hidden ingredients shape what people are actually able to make and eat versus what they might want to make or eat. For some, the choice is not really theirs to make. Life has already made it for them. For others, insufficient income becomes the biggest barrier and if a significant one that over time compounds and reduces capacity in other ways.

The recipe I shared is my way of using satire to explore this idea. It looks like a familiar recipe format, but the ingredient list aims to expand awareness beyond nutrients and willpower. Capacity itself is a hidden ingredient in life, and especially when it comes to food access.

As a society we need to widen the lens. When we do, we begin to see that health is shaped by much more than what’s on the plate or written in a recipe and the way we help becomes more targeted and actually helpful.

Eating and especially eating well, depends on a great deal of capacity. Without that capacity, expectations around 'healthy eating' quickly become unrealistic and, quite literally, a privilege.

Perhaps instead of assuming simplicity around, we instead let go of judgements like that. When people say they can’t, we can then trust that they know their own circumstances best. And maybe then we will ask better questions such as:

What would be most helpful for you right now?

This is one of the ideas I explore in my talks and workshops. If this piece resonated with you, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thank you for reading and supporting the work I share here.

— Kerry
CARE Nutrition & Counselling
Understanding the science of nutrition AND the realities people live with.

25/02/2026

05/02/2026

Informed consent” is not “I inform and you consent.”

Consent isn’t a box we tick once we’ve explained something clearly enough. It’s not a speech we deliver, a form we sign, or a moment we move past. It’s a process; relational, ongoing, and deeply human.

Thoughtful consent means pacing. It means noticing when someone is overwhelmed, shut-down, anxious, or simply trying to be a “good client.” It means understanding that even the most beautifully explained rationale doesn’t automatically translate to genuine choice.

Because information given with someone present ≠ consent. Just because someone has heard it doesn't mean they agree with it.

We can explain what we’re recommending, why we think it’s helpful, and how it might work — and still miss whether the person in front of us actually feels able to say yes, no, or not yet.

High-consent practice asks us to slow down, to check in more than once, to invite questions and hesitation. It means normalising uncertainty and ambivalence and to explicitly say: “You don’t have to decide now,” and really mean it.

It also means remembering that consent can change over timr. A yes last week doesn’t guarantee a yes today. A yes to part of something doesn’t mean a yes to all of it. And silence, compliance, or lack of resistance is never the same as consent.

In therapeutic and healthcare spaces especially, power matters. Expertise, authority, systems, time pressure; all of these can make it harder for people to feel they can disagree or opt out. That’s not a personal failing. It’s the context. And it’s on us to account for it.

Real informed consent is collaborative. It’s iterative. It’s responsive. It’s less about getting agreement and more about supporting agency.

02/02/2026

There's a man I met 6 years ago.
I thought that we might be the same age.
I often drive past his shop and I would see him outside on his phone.
Two years ago I stopped seeing him.

Until I realised the old man sitting there was him.

His hair had turned completely white.

He's Pa|estinian.

I just walked past him today on my way from the dentist and stopped for a chat.

Me: Marhaba.
Him: Marhaba. How are you my friend?
Me: 🤷🏼‍♀️
How about you?
Him: Alive.
Me: This is very good news.
I'm also alive.
Him: You know, we come from the hottest place in the world. We are so lucky to not be there. And to be alive.
Me: I'm so sorry.
Him: Yes I know.
Me: Is your family in G♡za?
Him: No Nablus.
Me: Tell me...how long have your family been in Nablus?
Him: How long??
Me: Yes. I'm writing something about the olive trees in Pa|estine.
Him: Oh. I can't even count how many generations. More than 2000 years.
But now...now it's being taken away. The Israe|i government is pushing us to Jordan. 2000 years...and now...
(His words evaporate)
Me: It's still your land. The empire will fall.
Him: You think?
Me: Yes. It will go down.
(He says an Arabic saying about everything that goes up has to come down)
Him: The mountains go up...but they then go down.
Me: YES!
Him: Even a bird has to land.
Me: Exactly.
Him: Like the gold. It was up and now it's down.
Me: Gold?
Him: Yes. It was $5600 per ounce. Now it's $4700. We lost 7.6 trillion dollars.
Me: Trillion?
Him: Gone. Because of Trump. It lasted 48 hours at the top. Then went down.
Me: Everything will go down.
Him: Yes.
Me: In our lifetime we will see a free
Pa|estine.
Him: Maybe you. I'm too old. I have not slept a full night for more than two years.
Me: It's so hard.
Him: Too hard.
Me: We need to stay strong and speak up.
Him: I'm tired.
Me: I'll speak for you.
Him: Who will listen?
Me: People are listening.
(I show him my post from last week that has 1.4 million views on instagram)
Him: Wow!! They are listening to you.
Me: Yes.
Him: Please don't stop. Please keep telling people about Pa|estine.
Me: I won't stop.
Him: Thank you my sister.

27/01/2026

16/01/2026

Love this Move to Live - Exercise Physiology

10/01/2026

If you often become emotionally dysregulated (anxiety, depression, etc), it is highly likely that you were not attuned to by your primary caregivers. The way your brain develops the neural structures for affect regulation is by being attuned to when you are young. This is why healing requires that you begin to attune to your own internal emotional experience.

24/12/2025

May you be well. May you treat yourself and others with grace, compassion and kindness.

22/12/2025

New from Ronni Salt: https://theshot.net.au/uncategorized/dont-look-back-in-anger/