Eat your way to better health

A FORMER Hills dietitian has released a cookbook encouraging people to eat their way to good health.

Sue Radd has released her first cookbook called Food As Medicine. Picture: Dominique Cherry

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A FORMER Hills dietitian has released a cookbook encouraging people to eat their way to good health.

Sue Radd, who runs the Nutrition and Wellbeing Clinic in Castle Hill, has released her first cookbook, ‘Food As Medicine’.

The coffee table-worthy book includes 150 easy-to-make, plant-based recipes for families.

“I’ve been a healthcare professional for about 30 years now and really the cookbook is a culmination of all my clinical knowledge as well as the latest evidence based science and really expressing that in the form of what to eat for dinner,” Mrs Radd said.

Dietician Sue Radd's new cookbook includes 150 easy-to-make healthy plant-based recipes.

Mrs Radd is currently doing her PhD at the University of Sydney, studying how the Mediterranean diet can be used as ‘culinary medicine’ to slow progression of mild cognitive impairment, a pre-clinical stage of dementia.

“I’ve always had an interest in food and nutrition even at an early age… and then I became interested in medicine when I was at university and that brought those two interests together,” she said.

Mrs Radd, who has moved to Willoughby to be closer to her university, said ‘Food As Medicine’ was designed to help people with medical conditions improve their health, as well as for those without any issues who want to continue their good health.

“What I’ve seen over my career is the increasing evidence based to show that food is so much more powerful than what we used to think,” she said.

“And these changes - either the harm or the healing that happens after every meal or snack - these changes happen very rapidly inside the body, but they are silent so we can’t see them or feel them but they’re nevertheless happening.

“So every mouthful counts.”

The recipes, developed over the past four years, were inspired by cultures from around the world and tested in Mrs Radd’s cooking workshops that have been running at her clinic since 2009.

“I’ve taken ideas from many many different countries … and I’ve developed those ideas into recipes but that are suitable for cooking in Australia, in Sydney, in your home cooking,” Mrs Radd said.

“I think there is a lot to be learnt from these traditional ways because we know they live longer and they had far far lower rates of these chronic diseases which are plaguing western countries like Australia.”

Mrs Radd said she had seen the benefits of diet on chronic health conditions first hand with patients in her Cecil Ave clinic, including a type 2 diabetic who reduced her blood sugar level by one point without any medication and a young woman who was able to come off her medication for reflux.

Mrs Radd said while a 100 percent plant-based diet was not for everyone, “everyone could benefit from eating more plant-based foods”.

The book was released last week and can be purchased at Sue Radd’s Nutrition And Wellbeing Clinic on Cecil Ave, Castle Hill, or from book stores or online.