Experts in Health: How to make nutritious meals on a budget – advice from a Performance Chef

Varun Shivdasani, Performance Chef at Loughborough University’s Elite Athlete Centre, discusses how he prepares nutritious meals on a budget, the importance of making cooking a family-friendly activity, and the future of precision nutrition.

Time Stamps:
00:00 – 03:53 – Introduction to guest, the topic and background
03:54 – 05:56 – An average week as a performance chef
05:57 – 10:09 – Performance and nutrition
10:10 – 11:52 – Setting the menu
11:53 – 16:53 – Do you need a large budget for a balanced meal?
16:54 – 26:29 – Tips for eating well
26:30 – 30:56 – Precision nutrition
30:57 – 34:05 – What’s next in the world of food prep?
34:07 – 36.54 – Outro

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It’s quite easy to make a muffin filled with lard that costs nothing or vegetable fats that cost nothing but then how do you make commercially viable healthy muffin that tastes good and meets nutrition spec and makes the population healthier that’s that’s that’s the challenge everything I cooked

For them was using A5 P budget and then they they could visually see like oh whoa okay I can do this most of the things that are going to be going now out of date will be reduced drastically you can pick up some really good stuff and improve that quality of meal you

Have to make it fun and you have to make it a lifestyle and if those two things happen and the whole family Embraces it then prep day can be a family event hello and welcome to the experts in health podcast brought to you by lufra University this podcast aims to

Highlight the latest research and Trends in health as we welcome a variety of guests from a host of different disci disciplines I’m Dr Chris McLoud an academic in the school of sports exercise and Health Sciences with an expertise in behavioral nutrition and public health and today I’m delighted

That we’re joined by Varon shiv danani who is the head performance chef at the elite athlete Center on the lufer University East Midlands campus Baron welcome to experts in health thanks for joining us thanks for having me well for those who are listening to this on audio

You won’t see that Varon is in an excellent chef uniform today which is nice to have someone in their actual uniform of of work um but just to give listeners and viewers a little bit more can you tell us a little bit about yourself that’d be really good I’ve been

Championing healthy eating for 23 almost 24 years um I started as a chef uh culinary school uh then got my degree in nutrition but specialized uh for chefs so essentially an RD uh fouryear dietetic program squeezed in two years and over and above normal Labs like like microbiology biochemistry all the boring

Stuff we had exciting Labs uh Chef base such as Cuisine to improve athletic performance light and healthy desserts vegan Cuisine all that kind of stuff so um finished that and spent the rest of my life till today that making me sound like I’m 90 uh has spent the last 23

Years working predominantly with Elite Sport so Premier League football with the NFL IP IPL Cricket and now here at the EAC we got are all the NGB team GB Olympic par Olympic teams England cricket which you saw lunch today um and England rugby and we also get

International so we look look at FIFA teams every April May there’s a tournament um with Spain France uh Sweden England like a mini tournament that happen so all manner of sport really here so it’s it’s quite exciting yeah yeah it sounds it and how long have

You been in your current role four years nice yeah I’m sure you see all the different types of athletes all the different sports very exciting sounds it from my perspective anyway it is because I mean most of my past has been with single spores um or with like wellness

Resorts it’s all been a single property sort of thing uh so now here every day is different like you got uh different teams in different people over course of four years I’ve been able to build relationships with most of the team so it’s nice to see familiar faces a lot of

Them come and say oh it’s nice to feel like we’re back home which is is always the kind of environment we’re trying to create especially for training camps stuff like that so yeah it’s great that you said you know you’ve been Champion championing healthy eating for 25 years

Or or whatever but you know before we get into that the mixture between healthy eating and Elite Sport can you just give us like a brief opening statement wet people’s appetite to say why what we’re going to talk about today is so important to you and you know

Should be to our listeners and viewers I mean for a long time and till today people equate healthy eating with like eating shoe leather or something unappetizing today hopefully we’ll change people’s perspective of course everyone’s invited to come and have a have some food at the EAC um but

Hopefully today will change them people’s minds and at least get them to be a bit more receptive towards healthy eating and understand that healthy eating need not necessarily be boring and Bland and shoe leather yeah I like that way of conceptualizing it so I mean you’ve said

Who comes here types of teams that you get but in terms of your everyday work or every week work what does a week look like for you as the head performance chef at the elite athlet Center I mean well it is in preparation I mean as soon

As one Olympic Cycle’s over the next one started so it’s every all the camps have already been put into calendars so it’s literally and and between Tokyo and Paris next year it’s only been three years because of covid so uh we we’re getting camps through all the time the

Only thing that changes is the kind of team that comes in but every week is we we run off at 8 Day menu so we can’t it’s really difficult to sit there and go over exactly what each team or each Athletes Training loads are what their program is we can’t physically ask that

Question so we have a menu that goes out to the teams in advance and they know on Monday and so maybe or maybe not if they choose to use that to uh structure their training program for the camp um then it’s it’s up to them but that’s just a

Small part of part of it so at least they know what they’re going to be getting send us in response to that any dietary requirement saying oh well okay that’s great there’s fish on this but none of our guys like fish or um that sort of thing but every week is in terms

Of production is the same but for me it changes I mean things like this the podcast uh we do a lot of Education stuff we do workshops um with the teams it’s not like the Premier League or where people have a lot of disposable income and they can hire chefs to do to

Take out part of stress away from them uh dealing with athletes who are probably on 253 Grand a year so we do a lot of workshops to say okay this is how you can cook at home that helps your performance uh and also again uh gives you tasty food yeah definitely and I’m

Interested when you get you know these Elite athletes coming in how how much are you focused when you’re putting together your menus in terms of the nutrient composition and everything how much are you thinking about we just want these athletes to deliver whether it’s

You know on a pitch or on a track or wherever it is it’s just the performance that we’re angled to versus overall health of of a diet and what they’re eating I mean both are important I mean getting sufficient calories of course is going to help in terms of disease

Prevention falling ill and missing out training days because you’re ill um uh but in terms of performance again um we hope I mean not all teams B depending on their budget uh will have a nutritionist and we have a part-time nutritionist some not a nutritionist at all uh but we

Would hope part of their education at some point in their Journey has been okay this is what a fueling plate looks like for you this is what a recovery plate looks like for you if you have a heavy training load day this is how your plate should look and then based on that

Our menus are predominantly pure carbohydrate and pure protein options so it makes it that much easier in terms of macronutrient distribution or modulation to to visualize what their plate should look like and and and then support their performance needs yeah that’s really interesting you said that you don’t

Tailor to specific athletes but is there how which athletes have you had in that have asked for something particular and you’ve been able to somehow help them in in really thinking about their their health and overall you know what they’re eating when they’re in and around your

Your restaurant I guess well again it it’s very athlete Centric so some athletes who are intrinsically well interested in their performance will will automatically ask the questions I mean we’re an open kitchen so it makes conversation quite easy um so we had the NFL uh International player pathway in most of the athletes

Are literally on the doorstep of playing the NFL and there was a couple of wide receivers that I had engaged a lot of conversation with and they said well what do you think I should do this is what I just did so there will be those conversations but when if you think I

Mean that at that point I only had like maybe 40 people in for dinner so it’s you’re able to have that if I’ve got 150 200 athletes you cannot possibly have that conversation you would hope I mean if they’ve asked the question it could be a quick thing okay well this is this

Is what I think your plate should look like we serve them and then you know it’s as simple as that but having that tailor made stuff is in this sort of facility is would be virtually impossible what we do actually is um so when all our menus there’s a certain

Spec we adhere to so we I would say nothing should be over five gram of fat in a portion uh and then we try and develop the recipes to that spec uh we also analyze all our recipes on nutritics so recipes that that whole database is available for team

Nutritionist ornc coaches to look at if they if they want to access that information it is sometimes sent so rugby will sometimes ask for that information so the menu and the accompanying nutrition information is already sent to them but yeah it’s it it is still it’s still a quite a cookie

Cutter approach it’s not as individual as you would like because you’re trying to improve a sprinter’s Time by a tenth of a second you know you’re not which needs that individual individualization um I I just did a study on salt um perception the relationship between salt perception and

Sweat salt in excreted in Elite boxers and it defies anything that uh conventional studies done on amateur recreational athletes so again that’s tells you that at an elite level individualization is necessary now how much of that is being done by the team nutritionist does is does the team have

Enough of a budget to afford a nutritionist for the next Olympic cycle I mean all depends on how they did in the previous Olympics so it’s it it can be quite tricky yeah I can see that as a difficulty with the role as you said the difficulty to actually really tailor it

To each person from your end what other difficulties do you find when you’re you know when you’re doing your job I mean I’ve had for for a good 20 years two couple of decades I had the luxury of you know working at Wellness Resorts that were super luxury like

$15,000 a night type places so where budget was never never an issue Premier League budget’s never an issue um IPL these you know these are big big finance places and I could if I wanted vanilla I could fly it in from Madagascar um use fil it steak and Curry

Not saying I or did that but it would be really bad merchandising but um the one big thing I found here which has been massive learning for me obviously is I am on a budget here there is a food cost and and then how do you still make food

Exciting while trying to meet the budget I will admit that I very rarely do I actually meet the budget Target uh but it’s hard to do when you know if you’re if you’re catering to swimmers i’ I’ve got swimmers here who will come and eat four chicken breasts and three pieces of fish

And you know just throw the budget out the water and but that’s what their needs are I mean I’ve got I’ve got a Belgian swimmer here who’s going to Paris and he he’s also a student at lra um but the Belgian swimming team pay for

His meal so he decides to come here to eat every day um and he eats a lot so if he you know he’s he’s paying 8 quid but eating about 50 Quid or other food how do you so yeah that the challenge would be but the other Big Challenge be

Budgets yeah so do you need a large budget to make a balanced healthy meal on on the regular would you say you know you’ve had the budgets now you have so yeah like you have now and you’ve had no budgets what do you think do you need the budget

Um are you talking for your average jmo you talking about I talk about you to begin with let’s say in your job I would love not to have a budget yeah of course that’s a that’s a dream obviously but um K say what do you do then seeing as you

Have got limitations in your job what do you do to make it healthy and tasty but have to limit on you know the types of foods you get in um we still try and I mean not we do everything we do is fresh made you know made from scratch

Um and that’s our that’s our principle I don’t think you can ever change your principles because then you’re doing stuff that you don’t really stand for but what we do is a lot of cross utilization so it’s it’s it’s being smart in developing your menu so if I

Order let’s say for example 10 kilos of minced beef then I make one batch of chili and I use half the chili to maybe make enchiladas for the next day or the day after and then Chile so I’ve used one set of electricity bills to

Cook one batch of food but I was trying to kill two birds with one stone all the time so you may not be able to have much control over food cost but you can then cut back on in in the food business your main costs are food cost

Labor cost and then utilities so you try and you know the fluct I mean with the with the energy bill crisis and brexit and everything else and the cost of food going up everything seems to be doing going in this going this way so it’s just about where can

You control minimize wastage use what’s left over to kind of create something new so you’ve got you have to be creative and I think that’s what that’s been the biggest learning curve so when you when these restrictions are put on you I you could turn around and go a not

To do this or you could say well this is a want to learn a bit and because there there are going to be challenges I mean there’s there’s a whole con you know school of thought talking about food scarcity and the population control and the fact that there may be a point where

We run out of food I mean bees and pollination and cross pollination and all that so there’s so many so many moving parts and so many things that could affect the food chain um so learning this now I’m I’m ready for the apocalypse I think sounds

Good and look what you were saying to takes me back to a lot of rationing days when they used to roast then have it cold and then stew it on sort of like Sunday Monday Tuesday and it’s the same sort of thing you know using that one

Time to cook but then do it in different ways exactly I mean not so long ago uh people were raising pigs and chickens and they would use every part of the animal um and we’ve come into a world where I could have strawberries in Winter because they’ve been flown in

From you know a you talk about sustainability being a massive concept now in all things and um that’s just not normal you know and clearly that’s going to affect the nutrient content in the food you know you’re picking a story that was Green in South America or

Somewhere and then flying it across and pumping gas and to ripen it you know where where and then genetically modifying I mean thank God Europe has these uh bands on GMOs and stuff but in America I spend almost nine or 10 years there and there’s no labeling there so you could be eating

And they’re doing some cool stuff there was a guy called Sid wayer and he uh he was creating mushrooms and he had spliced that with the lobster Jean so you had mushrooms that were bright orange and tasted like lobster so you think about vegetarians and vegans people have converted to that and they

Going oh that’s so cool but hold on a second you’re messing you’re like messing with nature and I mean what’s what are the repercussions and I I genuinely think like never used to have hay fever right and I genuinely think um after living in the states my body started rejecting things

That would you know as foreign bodies that never used to be rejected and I think it’s a big part of his genetic modification so interesting that way we’ve G gone off on a t no it’s great there’s so what it sort of boils down to for me is there’s a lot of complexities

That come into play as to why people choose to eat the foods that they eat because there’s a lot about you know what is um systemically provided for you based on whether you’re allowed to do genetically modified foods you know what is presented in your local supermarket

For you to be able to buy and all of that so you know you talked about putting a healthy budget a healthy diet together on a budget for you what tips can you give people at home listening to this you know from your expertise that they can do to put together healthy diet

On a budget I mean this is quite a contemporary subject because people are struggling a time so maybe it is buy the whole chicken at the supermarket you know instead of buying just the chicken breast it’s going to be cheaper to buy and then break it down at home use the

Bones to make a soup one night you know with with noodles it it’s again it’s it’s things that I face start becoming creative look at um I mean eating eating whole unprocessed food is s is really healthy anyway so I think we need to go back to that um there’s allotments I

Mean friends of mine have allotments grow your own food I mean if if you don’t have an allotment you can in your in pots you can grow so many things you can grow tomatoes you can grow chilies you can grow um strawberries um and if you’re growing them indoors then

Probably year round because it’s climate controlled you’re going to have the heat on anyway so it’s not going to be freezing cold outside in Winter um why not start start growing things a they’re going to taste better they’re probably going to be organic hopefully uh you’re not going to be them with

Pesticides but start being creative and in terms of cooking itself um things like marinating you know um we marinate our meats here 24 hours so they’ve had time to Tender eyes absorb all the flavor and when you’re dealing with lean cuts of meat um the the only way to get flavor into

Them is is through herbs and spices and marinades and that’s what you know and if you if you’re crunch for time I mean I come across several athletes who go I’m training all the time I don’t have time on your day off on your cheap day

On your day off or day you’re not training that’s the day you do your prep and then you freeze so you prep for the week and you freeze and then you come back and you go and you know PE people when you go out and eat you don’t really

Go out and say oh yeah I really fancy Cod you say oh I fancy Chinese or I fancy Italian or I fancy Thai so make yourself marinades or dry rubs uh to put on meats that are in those flavor so make a Thai uh marinade make a a Southern Louisiana style barbecue rub

That you can put on steak and make all those rubs and you can make them in big batches big jars and either freeze them if it’s a marinade or you can put it because it’s basically spice blend put it on your shelf for the last month and

Then just rub your Meats Chuck them in the freezer or the fridge and then you prep’s done for the week and then all you have to do is come back from work stick in the oven do do your whatever carb you want and you know Bobs your uncle yeah so I

Mean it’s I know it’s the sort of thing I do prep a lot of my food on a Sunday so that all my lunches are ready and it really just so that I can in the morning quickly get out of the fridge and not have to think about it but I think what

That we like to ask tougher questions on on the podcast when we can and I think that sort of goes into one where it might be possible to put together a healthy diet on a budget but healthy eating is more than just what food you

Buy it’s how you make them and there’s a difficulty for people I come from you know position as a behavioral nutritionist where I know how to prep food on a Sunday and know how to put things together but I’m in a very unique position in that way same with you but

Other people might not know how to make a marinade or make a dry rub or you know put together something that can be roasted and then it can be boiled and it can be stewed and made into a soup and it might not be normal in their culture

Either to think about that when chicken nug chip chicken nuggets and chips are the option so how do we get over those barriers to engaging people in a healthy diet I mean I think I think with with the internet and like the Food Channel I mean cooking is becoming well not

Becoming it is quite fashionable you know and it’s about um I remember when I worked at football once we um I instead of getting just a footballers I’d get the whole family in and we’ do cooking classes with the whole family so then the whole family Embraces it

And they and we did it so it became fun and and kids kids are fussy eaters and if a lot of kids will try new things if they have actually participated in it because they they feel like even if it’s as simple as kneading the dough or um chopping the

Chicken or no sharp knives uh or shredding the chicken yeah um if they participate and I actually learned this years and years ago there was there’s a school in London and it’s a school for autistic children and there were lots of kids who were struggling they were some

Would only eat white food some would only eat yellow food and in speaking to the parents uh they said they said oh yeah but you know when so and so when their child helps make the toast they’ll eat the toast and I said hold on a second why

Don’t we try that so then we did cooking classes with the kids I’ve had eggs thrown at me I had my oh i’ had it was uh it was fun uh but there was actually and at the end of that program the program the cooking program actually won

An award uh from the mayor Luan uh and at the end of that program 90% of the children who were cooking their food even had there was there was one girl who would only eat yellow food so she would only eat sweet corn and like uh it

Was it was crazy and she was eating all all kinds of food as long as she had participated in it so yes I I hear what you’re saying but there are you know there are ways around it you have to you have to make it a lifestyle you have to make

It fun and you have to make it a lifestyle and if those two things happen uh and the whole family Embraces it then prep day can be a family event you know save some money on soft play areas and say come into the kitchen instead soft play with a bunch of dough

Or um and you have to again you have to be creative and it’s not for everyone but it helps with with the amount of resources are you’re saying there’s people who may not know how to make a marinade but you putting marinade in a Google I can guarantee you’ll have 5,000

Hits on like marinade recipes or so is that resource is available and even more so today so dry rub all for the small price of $99.99 you could subscribe to my YouTube I’m just joking um no PR I don’t have a YouTube channel uh but but the resources are out there I mean

You can again you talk about a budget um when I was a football a lot of the academy uh players were living in Diggs and I had to you know they the landlords land ladies got uh whatever it is6 700 pound per player per week or I forget

What it was but I basically put it to them I said okay how much are you spend and the only meal they had to K for was dinner so I said to them okay how much are you spending on dinner and some said £3 some said7 so I said okay that gives

Us an average of5 I took 5 and I went to because everyone shops a different supermarkets I went to Aldi I went to sainsbury I went to waos I doubt any of them were going to waos I didn’t get a whole lot for My5 pounds in waitr

Uh but I went to anesos and I saw what I can get with5 and then I invited the landlords and land ladies back for a meal and everything I cooked for them was using A5 pound budget and then they they could visually see like oh who okay

I can do this but it’s it’s what you’re doing and every supermarket has a section with the this is the other thing we live in a time where every Apple’s got to look perfect every pairs on otherwise Supermarket rejected I’m not saying do the American thing of what

They call it dumpster diveing there’s people who go and rumage through the skips where the supermark the back of the supermarket because it’s gone past the best before date I mean I just saying best before doesn’t mean it’s bad it isn’t a Ed by date so go to the

Supermarket most of the things that are going to be going out of date will be reduced drastically you can pick up some really good stuff and improve that quality of your meal or you know just and you notice people you go to the chick in and people go right it’s

Interesting going to the supermarket and watching People’s habits and they’ll go all the way to the back to pick the chicken with the longest date on it from the back and then that’s what go oh yeah okay that’s got a good date on it and

Put it in why just go to the section that says this is out of date tonight or tomorrow and it’s been reduced by 70% get that eight it’s forcing you to cook fresh right which is supposed going against everything we’re saying about prepping but if you are in a position

To cook fresh then that’s what those are the things you should be looking for because you could eat really really well you could probably spend let’s say a Fiverr you could probably get in the bargain section A three course meal yeah I mean it’s a challenge I challenge

Everyone to do that I think but one thing that you said about bringing you know the kids with you or starting this education young is really important and just getting them to be involved with foods and you know hopefully foods like vegetables and fruit roots and seeing how they’re prepared where they’re grown

From all of those sorts of things is really important helps with sort of healthy eating behaviors all the way through the life um and that’s sort of quite a we can put at a population level you can give that as a message to people to say this is the broad overview of how

Healthy eating might be formed and what it looks like but the opposite side of that we see now is instead of it being population level quite generic healthy information we’ve got personalized nutrition where can be unique for you which almost goes against really generic advice because it’s not for everyone

It’s for you based on your body your physiology what are your thoughts about Precision Nutrition I mean I’m at this level at Elite level I’m all for it I mean like again goes back to if I’m trying to improve Adam P’s Time by a tenth of a

Second you can’t you have you need Precision Nutrition you need to know exactly what’s happening happening you need to because it’s about those marginal gains right it’s it’s all that it’s all those 1% that then add up but if you’re looking at we’re talking about okay we’re talking about generic cooking

But in terms of personal again it’s so accessible now to have personaliz and and you know people are spending hundreds on Botox and and weekly and I couldn’t believe what I mean it’s like I have regular friends who who are getting boto at200 a fortnite or something ridiculous

Why are you not spending that investing in your health proper Health not outwardly you know superficial Health um because 200 will get you a decent consultation with a decent nutritionist who will outline exactly what you need to reach again but then that’s that’s goal setting and I think that’s a very

Small percentage of the population if you’re if you’re a single mom with three kids uh working part-time and you you want to eat healthy your your agenda and your goal is not to uh look like an Olympic Athlete it’s it’s how can I get the best

Food in my kids keep their tummies full that sort of thing so the first part of the conversation that we had earlier is probably about being creative making those correct decisions in the supermarket shopping intelligently all of those things now if that same mom is trying to compete in a a bodybuilding or

A figure competition then you know she is going to need to have to any good nutritionist it would be a onetime thing put them on their path and then let them follow it and that’s it you know um but I am all for Precision Nutrition at the elite athlete level

100% conceptually And then just practically it’s difficult to to do at the moment for you you know if you could do it it’d be great but right now tough to do yeah with SH with a sheer number of athletes that come through and again it’s it’s it was it was one of my

Interview questions I mean how how when before I got this job and we got all kinds of athletes how would you and my simple thing was we just keep everything KS kiss isn’t it keep it simple stupid right so keep it simple everything is either pure carb or pure protein and the

Athlete should be educated I mean if I’m an athlete and I want to win gold at the Olympics I am going to want to improve my education anyway so um whether the team is providing me with nutritionist or resources I’m going to go and seek

That because my goal is to get gold so hopefully the athlete is in control and is disciplined enough to to to pursue that path and then knows exactly what their plate should look like uh before they come even to the Cy so yeah well that’s a future then personalized

Precision Nutrition at the mass catering level we’ll park that one but what else do you think needs to be explored in in your area what’s the next Frontier um I think there’s a lot especially in in in in America it’s changing the the the the degree I did has has taken off

And it’s been 22 23 years since since I graduated and till date it’s the only program of its kind in the world essentially teaching chefs the nutrition language and nutritionists the chef language because currently you’ve got a situation in almost every Club where you’ve got a team nutritionist and you

Got the chef and then the nutritionist goes and does stuff with the players and says oh well this is what you should but having been there what makes sense is hold on a second I’m if I’m a football player I’m going why is he coming talking to me when I

Eat 75% of my meals at the training ground go talk to the chef on and work with the chef on developing on all the research and development work that can be done making muffin that’s a you know 70210 breakdown of of macros uh make um a recovery um flapjack that’s you know

These are the kind of things and and so I think um there’s definitely scope for that similar program to be in Europe so I mean you’ve got chefs here you’ve got performing chefs who will have done a course in nutrition or something like so there there is the awareness of nutrition is growing

I think there is a real how successful that program has been all my classmates now look after top teams like Green Bay Packers and like you know just top teams and and the the athletes are loving their life because you’ve got a you’ve got a chef who’s given you food that

Tastes good and meets this nutrition spec that is supposed to for performance so you’ve got one Chief speaking both speaking both languages so if you ask me what in this field I think there’s definitely scope for having a program of that sort uh in Europe um maybe um an

A bridged version a condensed version of it maybe just do the shf labs but having shfs learn about nutritics how to analyze and what do you do with the analysis um at the end of it and how can you change a recipe and all the whole research and development process because

Currently development chefs their only job is to develop a recipe that is commercially so they’re looking at the financials there’s commercial V viable when they upscale production nobody’s looking at uh the nutrition side of it so when you when you talk about development Chef for me a development

Chef a complete development Chef is someone who can do that the commercial side but also do the nutritional side of it so because it’s quite easy to make a muffin fill with lard that costs nothing or vegetable fat that cost nothing uh but then how do you make commercially

Viable healthy muffin that tastes good and meets nutrition spec and makes the population healthier that’s that’s that’s the challenge yeah it sounds like a good one it makes seems to make sense for me and I know you know you like to push push the boundaries like bringing

Those things together and you’ve done TV stuff in the in the past as well so where can people find out more about what you’re doing and what you’re going to do in the future you got any places where people can go to um I’m I’m I’m

Not super active and I and my brother’s constantly kicking me all the time going all this information need to be giving it to people he’s constantly kicking me and I need to get better at it but I’ve literally just finished my masters and I’m a single father and and I work

Full-time so social media is is is not high on the priority list but uh nutrition Chef foren is my handle on Instagram um I I will I should try and get more active on it um people can contact you at that there though yes yeah which is

Helpful and the standard sort of outro we like to do is if you could sell your area of expertise or interest to the next generation of curious minds what would you say to entice them towards what what you do and what you’ve done be passionate I think I mean this is

Something that that pretty much anybody who um enjoys what they do will say I suppose is be passionate because food is not a lucrative industry you have to be passionate about it um because of how many people are graduating from culinary school or I guess nvqs here or whatever and how many

Nutritionists are being churned out or almost nutritionists are being churned out you have to find a niche market so find one thing specialize in it and um and just be passionate about it and because if you if you’re not having fun doing it then you’re not going to be successful doing it you’re

Going to hate what you’re doing and you’re going to give up and I mean when I when I started my masters that’s pretty much what a couple of the lecturers said to me at least 20% of your classmates will drop out because this is not exactly what they want to do

They’ve just chosen to do it sort of thing so I mean passion is there’s no replacement for regardless of Industry you have to love what you’re doing which you seem to enjoy what you’re doing yeah I love what I do nice well it’s been wonderful to have you on the show thanks

Very much for coming on oh thank you been really interesting and thank you very much for tuning in if you’ve liked today’s episode feel free to like or subscribe to the podcast and you can also check out our other podcast experts in sport and you can find a link to that

In the show notes so that just leaves me to say thank you very much again for tuning in and we look forward to welcoming you back to another health related podcast in a future episode bye-bye for now