Just an hour from London on the sunny Brighton coast, natural nutritionists Kirsten Chick and Nicki Edgell are running inspirational cookery workshops.

Here, your patients can learn how easy it is to cook delicious food using healthier ingredients. It's the perfect aftercare to your nutritional consultation: we help them put your advice into practice, so that they can get the best out of seeing you. We are also offering you a 10% Practitioner Referral Fee for every patient who completes the workshop (see below for more details).

The next Good Food Cookery workshop is on Saturday 14th May 2011 at Hove Park School in their well equipped cookery lab, where participants will get to cook a selection of delicious dishes in the morning to then eat for lunch, and some mouthwatering snacks and treats in the afternoon that they'll get the chance to taste too. There will be short talks on seasonal and healthy eating, and all recipes are gluten-free and sugar-free, with vegetarian and vegan options. Ingredients are supplied - your patients just have to turn up and take part.

Here's some feedback from previous Good Food workshops:

"Really useful, fun and practical. Gave me the basics, plus some creative ideas and confidence to try more recipes"
"Wonderful, thank you so much - I now know what to do with all the ingredients in my cupboards!"
"Loved the fact that the recipes are so versatile and can be adapted in so many ways"
"Great cookery course - very inspiring, and quick, healthy, easy to make recipes"
"Thank you very much!! I'm now in the mood for a healthy dinner party! Feeling inspired! Great day!"
"I really enjoyed the workshops. They were well organised and full of useful info and great recipe suggestions.

So what's it all about? We asked some questions...

Q: Why did you decide to start running the Good Food Cookery Workshops?
Kirsten: Working with people on a nutritional level has really confirmed what we had noticed among our own peer group and families: that there is a whole generation of people who lack the skills and confidence to cook wholesome food.
Nicki: Yes, it was in the 1980s, wasn’t it, that convenience food and microwave meals really took hold, and by the 90s this had really hit the teenagers. Then many schools stopped teaching cookery until quite recently.
Kirsten: It really shows up in consultations when asking people about their diets. When we then go on to recommend new foods and different ways of approaching mealtimes, many people need support in learning how to do this.

Q: How are the workshops useful for other nutritional practitioners?
Nicki: The majority of our students so far have been nutrition patients who need help learning to prepare the foods they have been recommended, either by ourselves or by other professionals.
Kirsten: We can also help your patients. They may struggle with the new foods and diets you are suggesting as they have never cooked with them before, or they may lack general confidence or inspiration in the kitchen, or even basic cookery skills.
So many people turn away from good, sound advice because they find their new diets restrictive, boring or too difficult to prepare. We’re here to open up new possibilities for them, and help them to enjoy putting your advice into practice.
Nicki: As a thank you, we are offering a 10% Practitioner Referral Fee for each new student you send our way. On their completion of the workshop and payment in full, we will send you 10% of what they paid for the day.
All we need is your full name and address together with details of the patients you have referred so that we can verify your referral. (Not applicable if the workshop is cancelled by any party for any reason).
To apply, e-mail us at: info@naturalrecipes.co.uk

Q: So do the recipes you teach cater for special diets?
Nicki:Yes, they do, but they’re not exclusive to people on special diets. They are all simple, delicious recipes that encourage people to experiment with a broader variety of seasonal ingredients.
Kirsten: So the recipes are all gluten-free and sugar-free, working with more gentle grains and sweeteners instead. In the workshops all the food is vegetarian, but we discuss how you can adapt recipes using meat and fish, or to be completely vegan. Most recipes are dairy-free – we sometimes explore using butter, ghee and fermented dairy (such as yoghurt), but there will also be dairy-free options. The focus is on enjoying the process and enjoying the food.
Nicki:We want to show people how easy it is to follow your advice while exploring their own creativity. We can inspire them to make the changes that you have recommended, so they can see true results.

Q: What makes Good Food different to other workshops?
Kirsten: It’s not just cookery skills we’ve lost, many of us have also lost the knowledge of how to prepare and put food together in a way that will make the nutrients more absorbable. What foods go together, why and when to soak foods, what times of day or of the year are best for some kinds of foods, how to source good ingredients... these are the kinds of things that we teach on the workshops as well.
Nicki: Healthy eating is a major agenda at the moment, and there are some good initiatives out there. Many of these are chef driven, which is great; whereas we are bringing our love of cooking and eating together with our nutritional training. That training draws on the wisdom of many ancient cultures and traditions as well as more recent research. So it’s a very wholistic approach to preparing and eating our food, but at the same time a very simple and enjoyable one.
Kirsten: As you know, good nutrition from diet depends on many factors, such as quality of soil, how something is grown, harvested and stored, how it is then prepared and cooked or served. Then it depends on how well that person is able to absorb those particular nutrients, then transport them in the body and then utilise them.
As practitioners, you can offer individually tailored advice around diet and supplements. Part of that advice can be a recommendation to come and learn how to really integrate their dietary programme into their lives. With the Good Food Cookery Workshops we can reskill your patients and make that transition easier.

Q: How long have the Good Food workshops been running?
Nicki: We did our first summer workshop in July 2008, and then did our first autumn/winter workshop that October. They were really successful: well attended, with great feedback and they have been a joy to teach.
Kirsten: Then we moved venues for the last one in October 2009 to a school cookery lab, so that everyone can get hands on making their own food. Before we could only really do that with the raw aspects of the day. The new venue and format worked fantastically, so we are there again in May.

Q: So who would benefit from your workshops?
Kirsten:Anyone who isn’t confident in their cooking skills,
or who needs some fresh inspiration in the kitchen,
or wants to work with new ingredients, or is on a special diet,
or perhaps they think they don’t have time or energy to cook healthy meals.
Nicki: And don’t forget the 10% Practitioner Referral Fee (see above) for each new student you send our way. We can provide the kind of aftercare that lets you get on and do what you do best. So that when they come back to you, they’ll have had more of an opportunity to see great results from your nutritional advice.

Come and cook
GOOD FOOD
with natural nutritionists Nicki Edgell & Kirsten Chick at their
GOOD FOOD COOKERY WORKSHOPS
teaching you how to cook simple and utterly delicious healthy food

Next workshop:
Saturday 15th October 2011
at Hove Park School

£45 for morning or afternoon only,
or £80 for all day (includes tasters and lunch)
£40/£75 early bird discount

Morning Workshop (Part 1)
10am-1pm
SAVOURY
~ MEALTIMES ~
The morning will focus on tasty seasonal breakfasts, lunches and evening meals.
You will cook some simple, delicious dishes to eat for lunch, showing that healthy eating can be easy and enjoyable for all the family.

Afternoon Workshop (Part 2)
1.30pm-4.30pm
SWEET
~ SNACKS & TREATS ~
We'll show you how you can still enjoy seasonal sweet foods whilst eating healthily.
You will be making and eating some yummy snacks and seasonal desserts and treats that you will find hard to believe are good for you.

All recipes are gluten free and sugar free, with vegetarian and vegan options.

Book now:
Kirsten: 07968 137246 or info@naturalrecipes.co.uk
Nicki: 07786 405366 or nicki@nutritionandhealing.co.uk