For our fourth Good Food Fortnight Feature we caught up with Alex Hurd from Blue Skies Health and Wellbeing who are cooking up a free health-boosting lunch on Saturday 11th October at Fontwell Community Centre, 31 Fontwell Meadows, Walberton, BN18 0YF.
I am hosting a community lunch offering people a simple 2 course meal to showcase how nutritious food can be affordable and is accessible to everyone.
I think the Good Food Fortnight is so important and I am so excited to be a part of it. I believe passionately that local food is essential and something we should be investing more time and money in. As a Naturopathic Nutritionist local, homegrown and seasonal food is the most nutrient dense food we can eat and essential for our health supporting all aspects of our body from our gut health to our immune system.
Growing food collectively and eating together creates a community and social connections that are vital to our mental and physical wellbeing and I want to be a part of this movement to remind people that eating together, around a table and talking is essential for our digestive health but also our mental health. We need to make food, and meal times, important in people’s lives again.
For me, food is medicine and something that all people can make their own choices about. Programmes and activities around food remind people of the importance of what we eat and were it comes from and how it affects our health and wellbeing. It brings together a community of producers, sellers and consumers shining a light on the importance of food.
I hope to meet some wonderful people from my local community and create a discussion around nutrition. There is a perception that “good” food is expensive and I want to show that you can create homemade food for all the family without spending a fortune or it taking hours to prepare.
As part of Blue Skies Health and Wellbeing I offer 1-1 nutritional health consultations. My partner, a holistic GP, and I also organise workshops and events offering a range of wellbeing activities, such as our recent De-stress and Reset workshop. Our aim is to allow all people, whatever their social circumstances, the chance to experience all the things they can do themselves to improve their health and wellbeing whether that is eating nutrient dense whole foods or incorporating breathing techniques to reduce their stress. There will also be workshops looking at how food can address specific health issues such as weight, diabetes or heart disease.
My dream would be for people to take care about the food they are eating and where they are buying it from. I would like to make local produce more accessible either in supermarkets or enabling farm shops to be more competitively priced so that everyone can shop there for food. Food is the most important thing we can do for our health and yet people eat fast food on the run, not appreciating or being grateful for where it came from, the cost on the land or the environment and this needs to change. This is damaging their health. If we appreciate the benefit nutritious, local food can have for us we will stop wasting and start valuing it.
As people’s attitude to food changes, the supermarkets will change their stock and local food, sustainably sourced will become more and more affordable, allowing more people the opportunity to enjoy it.
Essentially my goal through Blue Skies is to teach everyone the importance of whole foods, ideally locally sourced, and making it accessible and affordable for them all.
