I must have cooked this dish 100 times. Here are some simple tips for a rich, smokey chilli... — I love to cook, but catering for a family of five can be a real drag. The audience provides such meagre input that it’s hard to muster the motivation to conjure up new dishes. So I just rattle out the same meals, week in and week out. I experiment around…

Our reliance on Big Food and Big Pharma is a terrible strategy. — It’s exasperating to hear the phrase “I don’t like” before rudimentary foods such as cabbage, porridge or boiled potatoes. People hate broccoli but love kale, devour french fries but loathe mash, eat pasta but detest couscous. It’s totally irrational. I used to hate milk. I could take it in coffee…

Meaningful change is nowhere in sight despite the skyrocketing levels of metabolic illness and the mounting evidence against this policy — In the 1970s, despite having played a crucial role in the human diet for tens of thousands of years, saturated fat was singled out as the main cause of Cardio Vascular Disease (CVD) and branded unhealthy. So, following a similar move in the US, the UK government decided to issue…

Our addiction to the sugar rush of refined carbohydrates means that lentils often get neglected but in nutritional and environmental terms they’re the closest thing we’ll ever get to a free lunch. — 1. An Incredible Source of Protein Uncooked lentils contain a whopping 25% protein while a 200g portion of cooked lentils will deliver around 18g Protein, 29g Net Carbohydrates and 232 Kcal. If we pitch green lentils against white rice the comparison is stark:

Trying to make sense of weight control through reading and self-experimentation has failed. What’s the missing piece of the jigsaw? — For the past 5 years, I have been trying to figure out how to lose weight and keep it off — I just about manage but it’s a constant battle. I‘ve read all the theories and while a lot have merit none seem to offer a complete solution. Sure you…

Yup, not even Christmas dinner can escape the ravages of modern tastes as we seek stronger flavours, blander textures and even more sugar. — Christmas used to be an actual feast. This relative extravagance and gluttony only came around once a year so people quite rightly got excited about it. Now, many of us are fortunate enough to have access to energy-dense food whenever we want it so when Christmas comes around we feel…

Low ingredient cost, minimum effort and a heartwarming result make baked spuds an absolute winner. But baking a solitary spud in a hot oven no longer seems very efficient. What should we do? — For years I’ve followed the method outlined in Nigel Slater’s awesome cookery book Real Food. It introduced me to the idea that you don’t have to cover your potato in oil to get a crispy skin. So I generally proceed as follows:

By starting with the basics you’ll have an enviable repertoire of tasty dishes in no time. — The notion of perfection is so exasperating. We spend hours feasting on mouth-watering images where everything’s labelled The Best, The Healthiest, The Tastiest so when it’s our turn to cook we’re left paralysed with fear. As if learning to cook isn’t daunting enough, a Google search for something as simple…

We know that diets high in refined carbohydrates are wreaking havoc on global health but a current shift in emphasis from too many carbs to not enough protein is interesting. It may seem like two sides of the same coin but it’s not. — The Protein Leverage Hypothesis is gaining some traction. This theory claims that instead of trying to balance energy in with energy out, the human body actually prioritises protein. What this implies is that we will remain hungry until we have satisfied our protein target regardless of energy consumption.