The Art of Eating Well chefs share expert advice on all things healthy...
Hemsley + Hemsley are foodie blogging sisters Jasmine Hemsley and Melissa Hemsley. Their cookbook - ‘The Art of Eating Well’ - is a bible for the healthy and fit, focussing on mindful eating and nutritious, home-cooked food.
They’re currently collaborating with fashion consultant Yasmin Sewell and meditation teacher Gary Gorrow on a series of video seminars, Mind Body Reset. Set for a spring 2015 launch, the series is focused on wellness with healthy eating advice and recipes from Hemsley + Hemsley as well as meditation videos from Gary Gorrow and talks from Yasmin Sewell on how she balances three businesses and motherhood, while also finding time to meditate daily and prepare fresh, feel good food for her family.
We caught up with the sisters to talk healthy eating, fitness tips and of course spiralizers…
How did the ‘Mind, Body, Reset’ collaboration come about? The Hemsley +Hemsley team were all lucky enough to learn Vedic meditation with Gary Gorrow in Sydney 5 years ago. Gary in turn put us in touch with fellow meditator and all round superstar Yasmin Sewell and we have all been firm friends ever since. Since first meeting it had always been a shared dream of ours to work together on a wonderful project where we could share our collective knowledge and life skills and in doing so create something incredible and powerful. We all love the benefits of city living so wanted to provide an urban retreat in the city that would allow you to decompress and provide you with the tools to not just deal with the demand of city living but thrive! We put our heads and our hearts together and created our urban sanctuary - The Mind Body Reset.
What will people gain from the videos? The experience aims to help you to achieve complete happiness and balanced health. Gary Gorrow’s teachings in Vedic Meditation focus on mindfulness practices that promote higher consciousness in daily life; knowledge and insights coupled with our back-to-basics approach to everyday eating will empower people to re-engineer their lives. This holistic retreat provides a rare opportunity to learn how to better understand your body, nourish the mind and soul, connect with your inner self, gain the tools to manage and eliminate work and relationship stresses, and find great health and fitness through a mindful approach to food.
So what changes can be made after watching Mind, Body, Reset? Small changes such as taking time to focus on the mind and savouring delicious, nutrient-dense food will allow you to feel instantly better.
Little changes in your lifestyle can have dramatic impacts. Taking the time to nourish your mind and body is the most important thing you can do for yourself and others. Understanding the impact that the mind and the body have on one another and nurturing that connection is really important and The Mind Body Reset allows us to make time to take time!
Do you have any tips on how to improve our nutrition and cooking at home? We make clever use of whole foods to reinvent classics - our fudgy brownies are made from black beans, spaghetti from courgette (courgetti) and we have pizza bases made from either cauliflower or chickpeas. Lower starch vegetables like cauliflower replace the mash on our shepherd’s pie and we use more nutrient-dense foods like butter and ground almonds (instead of refined flours and vegetable oil) in our cakes and cookies. Not only can you then enjoy a dose of nutrition with every bite but these great-tasting dishes made with whole foods will ensure you feel satisfied without having to eat as much.
If people were to make one change a day to their diet, what should it be? To cut out processed, pre packaged food and meals. A homemade meal doesn’t have to be a work of art or take hours to prepare. Small changes have big impacts. Our book ‘The Art of Eating Well’ includes a list of ‘10 Things to do Today’ to promote a healthier lifestyle. Small steps such as stocking up on wholesome, cupboard essentials will allow you to pave a path to healthier eating and lifestyle.
What are your top tips for a healthy diet and lifestyle? 1. Meditate. We live in a digital world, saturated with information and stimulus. If we’re not reading emails on our laptops, we’re Instagramming, on social media or distracted by another digital medium. We meditate to dump the day and to create clarity and to calm the mind. 2. Take yourself outside every day for fresh air, a sense of vitality and all important Vitamin D. Daylight also helps to reset your internal body clock - also known as the circadian rhythm leading to better sleep and allowing your body to tune into what it needs. 3. Your fridge and freezer are your best friends - we love cooking but we also love not having to cook from scratch every day! Cooking in batches allows you to have nourishing meals on the ready. Cooking with leftovers also makes you think creatively about the ingredients you use! 4. Sleep!- it’s free, it’s easy, it feels amazing, nothing resets you like a nourishing sleep and for some reason we all avoid it. 5. Understand fats- natural fats are good for you - both saturated and unsaturated. Know which natural fats are stable enough to heat and which are best enjoyed raw.
What are your top tips for being healthier at work: 1. Take a packed lunch. We make extra portions of our suppers and freeze or refrigerate them for nutritious food on the go. Invest in a thermos and bring in hot, comforting and nourishing soups and stews. Our Kelp Pot Noodle can be easily transported in a jar and topped with hot water in the office. You’ll save money too! 2. Drink lots of water and stay hydrated. Air conditioning, heating, sugary drinks and coffee do nothing to support our immune system, skin or brain! Try flavouring water to add interest with lemon, orange, cucumber slices and fresh mint. Our ‘Pep up Tea’ provides a great mid-morning or afternoon boost in place of coffee or a trip to the vending machine. It went down a treat at the retreat! The punchy blend of ginger, turmeric, cayenne and lemon is energising and immune boosting and isn’t superseded by an energy crash. 3. Take a break from your desk and get some fresh air. Keep moving as your body was designed to. It’s too easy to sit and stare at a screen all day. We’re trained to be constantly ‘on’ and communicating every moment of the day. Make time in your day to get some fresh air and you’ll be all the more productive. Finding the time to meditate morning or night will also help to clear the mind. Decision making will become easier and creativity will flow.
Aside from healthy eating, how do you stay in shape? For a quick burst of exercise and to invigorate we’re fans of barefoot running - we pop on our Vivo’s, do a few special moves to make sure that our spines are aligned after sitting at the desk or standing around all day and then dart off. We don’t do it for long - 5-10 mins we find is great for getting everything moving and toning the whole body (no sit ups needed!). Day to day yoga fits the bill - on YouTube you can find a class for every occasion - a super chilled 45 mins to a 7 min ‘go-on you’ll be glad you squeezed it’ in video. Other than that we like to walk where possible, Mel loves beyonce Dance Classes at Frame and Jasmine loves a bit of Voga for a good laugh and some 80’s dance classics.
Have you always been healthy? And if not, how did you get into it? We were lucky enough to grow up in a household of homecooking - where family time was centred around meals and we learnt to develop a taste for savouring food and enjoying vegetables as well as enjoying fats and meats. Years after leaving home we realised that we perhaps weren’t providing our bodies with as much nourishment as we should be and didn’t make us feel our best. Through personal research Jasmine developed a philosophy that not only suited digestion and energy but became the basis for the knowledge we share today. She began helping many friends and colleagues with their approach to eating. Before long Melissa joined her and they became an underground A-team without a name! Nick was back of house and we took it on as a passion project while juggling other interests. Before long we decided to create a blog to share our recipes and information that we were teaching our clients so that friends and family could join in too. The demand was overwhelming and never ceased!
And finally, what’s next for Hemsley + Hemsley in 2015? We’re thrilled to have launched our book in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Europe as well as the UK and are looking forward to travelling to these countries to share our philosophy with others in making food and lifestyle decisions that best suit them. After all, the stomach is the way to the heart!
We’re also currently working on our own line of products - first up is the HEMSLEY+HEMSLEY SPIRALIZER available for purchase on www.hemsleyandhemsley.com in January.