Is slim Nigella on a TV crusade to make us all fat?

EXPERTS reveal the calorie counts of Nigella’s food as she falls out of flavour with the sceptical British public.  

IF she's enjoying slipping effortlessly into her new skinny jeans and zipping up those little black dresses, Nigella Lawson needs to take one very important piece of advice: Stay away from your own recipes.

The 52-year-old cook, who is said to have dropped from a size 16 to a 12, puts her weight loss down to a strict regime of pilates and yoga.

But every sweaty minute of effort could be wiped out by indulging in one of her puddings.

One of the desserts featured in Nigellissima, her new BBC2 cookery show, is a chocolate hazelnut cheesecake which contains more than 7,000 calories.

Even one slice would be disastrous for a girl trying to keep her svelte new figure. And her icecream in brioche, at a mere 2,144 calories is more than the average woman needs in a day.

Viewers seem to be watching Miss Lawson unveil her calorific recipes on the show with a mix of horror and fascination.

Writing on Twitter, TV presenter Claudia Winkleman, 40, said: "Not long to go before Nigella. Tonight I will be watching with a brick of butter and a spoon."

Singer Kate Robbins, 54, added: "If I ate Nigella’s food for a week my arteries would fur up, my cholesterol would rise and my a*** would be the size of my sofa."

Another viewer declared: "Can’t believe I just watched Nigella put ice cream in a BRIOCHE (90% butter...) and eat it like a burger!"

Experts at the British Dietetic Association, which represents UK dieticians, calculated the calorie content of the puddings featured on Miss Lawson’s show.

The cheesecake she prepared in the first episode contained 7,069 calories or 583 calories per portion. It is made using 75 grams of butter, 500 grams of cream cheese and 400 grams of Nutella. A chocolate olive oil cake, made with 200 grams of caster sugar and 50 grams of cocoa powder, contained 3,456 calories.

Which begs the question: how on earth does Nigella stay so slim?

On the cover of Radio Times last month, she looked dramatically thinner, showing off a much more angular face and far fewer curves.

In fact she looked so different, there were whispers that the images had been airbrushed. However, the magazine issued a strongly worded statement denying the photo was altered in any way.

A spokesman said: "We have a policy of not manipulating images so that people look younger or thinner."

At the British Dietetic Association, spokesman Sylvia Turner was emphasising the importance of tasting rather than scoffing when trying Nigella’s recipes.

"Looking at these recipes, the first thing that jumps out is the massive amount of calories involved," she said.

"The second thing that comes to mind are some easy options to make these offerings far less calorific, such a choosing low-fat options when it comes to butter and cream cheese for example.

"Let’s be realistic here. How many of us would cook these sorts of recipes on a daily basis, let alone polish the whole thing off on our own?

"The truth is desserts such as these can be enjoyed on occasion as part of a healthy, well-balanced diet. Just to clarify, the emphasis is on the word “occasion”."

Miss Lawson’s husband Charles Saatchi, 69, lost four stones (more than 25kg) by cutting his diet to nine eggs a day for nine months in 2008.

But she is said to shun diets, preferring to cut back on wine and doing pilates and yoga.

She recently declared: "I’m always going to be someone who goes up and down."

She has attributed some of her weight loss to a bunion operation that kept her off her feet and unable to rummage in the fridge.

She explained: "You can say to someone, “Can you get me a slice of cake?” but it’s kind of embarrassing to say, “And now could you get me a second slice?”