Food & recipes

In The Kitchen With Natasha Corrett

We chat to the Honestly Healthy founder

In many ways it was natural for me to become interested in food and nutrition. My mother has always been into fitness and health so I have been surrounded by it for many years and my godmother is Vicki Edgson – one of the best nutritional therapists of our time and who I wrote my first two books with.

I try to live my life with a sense of balance and my attitude to food can be summed up by my 70:30 concept. It’s pretty simple really – I think you should follow a healthy plant-based diet while trying to reduce sugar and refined foods 70 percent of the time, and the remaining 30 percent of the time do what you like! That way, healthy eating becomes a lifestyle rather than a diet, as you are never telling yourself you can’t have something.

Since falling pregnant, I have had to listen to my body even more. It really is a crazy trip and every day is very different. I think you just try to get through the first three months and that means eating anything that doesn’t make you feel sick. During this trimester I made sure that I always had a green juice or smoothie so that it balanced out the amount of bread I ate.

At the beginning it was hard – I just craved carbs and citrus – and now I get pretty tired and just want chocolate. I try to eat healthy sweet alternatives and I love Manuka Health’s honey on toast or crackers, but sometimes you just need a slab of chocolate or a piping hot chocolate! I don’t think I have missed anything in particular, as I haven’t had to cut anything out that I eat a lot of – I don’t consume meat, for example, so not being able to eat rare steak doesn’t affect me, and I don’t drink coffee either. This means my diet has been the same apart from the fact that I have started adding some fish in occasionally. I’ve also been eating smaller meals more frequently – I have two breakfasts as when I wake at 6am I have to eat straight away and then by 9am I am hungry again!

If you’re pregnant and trying to cut down on your caffeine, I’d suggest swapping coffee for a matcha latte or hot chocolate with almond milk. Mashed banana on toast was also my morning sickness saviour! Unfortunately, I can’t eat avocado anymore as it gives me acid reflux, so instead I love mashed roasted sweet potato and feta on crackers.

As your immune system is also weakened when you’re pregnant, it’s good to have some health-boosting tonics to hand. My flu fix is hot water, lemon, fresh turmeric, star anise and Manuka Health’s honey.