IBF features vegan cake baking chef and celebrity nutritionist to help you stay fit
Author-chef innovates baking for healthy living while celebrity nutritionist says stomach is your biggest diet guru
5 Dariya News
Sharjah 08-Nov-2015
Healthy diets were on the menu at the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) yesterday (Saturday) as visitors were taught to whip up healthy desserts by UK chef Zoe Berkeley and educated on being healthy by Indian nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar. The 11-day event, taking place at Expo Centre until November 14, features a host of cooking activities, book launches, author interactions and panel discussions.Berkeley, the author of "Bake-a-Boo Bakery Cookbook" and founder of a London bakery of the same name was at Cookery Corner demonstrating a gluten and sugar-free vanilla fudge cake suitable for small parties. Berkeley said that it is amazing that so many people wanted to learn baking healthy cakes and learn her recipes.
She said, "There is so much of variety in Middle Eastern cuisine, particularly desserts. I would like to explore more on ingredients used in these and try innovating gluten and sugar-free, but tasty versions. I was able to exchange a lot of ideas with the people here." Being allergic to wheat and dairy products, Zoe decided to devise cake recipes for the growing number of people wanting food that matched their taste and health requirements, and so set up a bakery specialising in gluten, egg, sugar, and wheat free cakes. She is also working on her second book and hopes to feature some Middle Eastern dessert recipes in it. Meanwhile, the author of "Don't Lose Out, Work Out!", a celebrity nutritionist from India, Rujuta Diwekar’s best diet tip was, listen to your granny. She said, “Often our grandmothers know much more about what will suit us in terms of our food than any dietician. You should also listen to your own stomach as it the best diet guru you can have, and eat more local food.”
An energetic chef, Diwekar said, "More than going by organic labels you should make food decisions based on whether the food is locally grown, available in the right season and fresh and not on the how much calories, fat or sugar it contains. We are always comparing ourselves to models on TV but beauty is not looking like a size zero model, it is looking like yourself and being healthy. Beauty in you is when you look in the mirror and say to yourself, there is no one in the world that looks like me." Diwekar says the UAE is a land of opportunities, and the more people race for financial stability, the more chances are that they will get a disease she terms “Diabesity” which is a combination of diabetes and obesity, and is common lifestyle disease. "Making conscious choices to move physically while you are at work or at home and planning five or six right meals a day can help you escape Diabesity. Also, remember low fat alternatives are not a solution, always eat food in its natural form," she says.
Rujuta's advice for a healthy life was to stick to a health plan and eat all you want, provided it is fresh and homemade. Rujuta wrote her first book, "Don't Lose Your Mind, Lose Your Weight" detailing her experience with Bollywood star Kareena Kapoor in 2009 and a second book titled "Women and The Weight Loss Tamasha" in 2010. One of India's best-loved fitness professionals, Rujuta has worked with Bollywood celebrities and industrialists including Kareena Kapoor Khan, Preity Zinta, Karisma Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, Konkona Sen Sharma and Anil Ambani.