Gill Stewart Nutrition

07/06/2025

The ultra-processed food (UPF) industry has blocked government attempts to push shops to promote deals on healthy foods. Join us in calling on the government to tell The Whole Truth about what we should be eating to protect our health. Emails obtained by the Soil Association via the Freedom of Infor...

28/11/2024

There are days you feel cold and run down and especially this time of year. Many branches of holistic health such as ayurveda tell us we need warming and earthy foods rather than a cold salad when the temperature drops. Sometimes it feels like plain old common sense. A large pan of soup can be made really quickly and provide lunch or part of dinner for several days and really cheaply.

If you are short of time and ingredients then any old root veg will do. Sweat an onion or two in butter, b**g in finely chopped veg of choice such as parsnip, orange beets and carrot and some red lentils. A little garlic really adds to the flavour. You can buy pre chopped frozen veg now if you are really short of time!

I also add a stock cube if there is no home made stock in the freezer, and whatever herbs are around. I also add a few spoons of bone broth for added minerals and gut soothing - as well as being great for skin and nails. You can buy bone broth in concentrated format that lasts several weeks in the fridge.

This soup can be stored in the fridge for up to three days meaning partners and kids have access to ready available food at any time.

I often serve with sourdough with home made garlic butter or a decent few oatcakes.

(Don’t forget that much maligned butter is great for gut health due its butyrate content and keeps you nice and full for longer, reducing cravings.)

10/02/2024

One of my new year resolutions was to get back into fermenting foods again. It is generally easy and cheap and a brilliant source of natural probiotics.

One of the easiest is kombucha, so I started there.

There is something other worldly about a kombucha scoby that creates a fizzy delightful drink whilst producing a baby scoby each time. All it needs is water, some sugar and tea (green or black tea; decaf tea also works - the scoby can do caffeine free!)

You then need around two weeks at room temperature and you have your kombucha which I keep in the fridge to drink whilst the next lot brews. You can also experiment with flavours as your brew eg ginger or (organic) lemon.

Bonus - the kids love it; you can add a little extra fizz with a sodastream maker. (Just not too much, as there is already a lot of fizz in natural kombucha and I ended up with kombucha kitchen explosion!)

It’s really easy to spend a fortune on probiotic supplements but in reality it’s not usually needed; you can make your own probiotic food and you can feed your microbiome with easy prebiotics such as plenty onion, leek and garlic.

16/01/2024

It’s always important to optimise vitamin D levels in winter - especially now! Interesting study results below.

The effect of vitamin D supplementation on depressive symptoms in adults : A systematic review and meta‐analysis of randomized controlled trials 🌞

A meta-analysis reviewing the efficacy of vitamin D in reducing depressive symptoms among adults in randomized placebo-controlled trials (RCT) discovered vitamin D supplementation ≥ 2,000 IU/day appeared to reduce symptoms of depression.

See research below ⬇️

Full article: The effect of vitamin D supplementation on depressive symptoms in adults: A systematic review and meta‐analysis of randomized controlled trials (tandfonline.com)

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