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Battling Fatigue Sophie Michell's Healthy Eating Philosophy is Inspired By Her Experience of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - and Her Love of Food, Finds Ann Donald

Posted on: Sunday, 13 March 2005, 12:00 CST

SOPHIE Michell has packed more into her 23 years than most TV chefs. Since donning whites at the age of 15, she has appeared as resident chef on Channel 4's Fit Farm, cooked for Madonna and been personal nutritionist and chef to Claudia Schiffer. She has also spent time in top London kitchens including the Lanesborough, Le Gavroche and Zilli Fish Too, and represented Britain at the 2000 Culinary Olympics.

All that has culminated in her debut book, Irresistible: Beautiful Body, Beautiful Food.

It reveals that, despite her high-octane career, Sophie has fought a personal battle with chronic fatigue syndrome and is hypoglycaemic. She was inspired to write the book because she believes changing your eating habits can have a big impact on your life.

Fast-talking and upfront, the young chef is adamant that Irresistible is not a diet book and is not about food deprivation.

"You will not lose loads of weight with my book, but you will eat better, fresher and more colourful food and consequently look healthier, " she says.

The recipes may sound exotic, influenced as they are by Sophie's travels in Italy, Greece, Indonesia and Australia, but you can knock them out in half an hour and remain smug in the knowledge that they will impress on all counts. Grilled lobster with brandy and herbs, ostrich steaks with cassis and blueberry sauce, and thai papaya salad endow nature's superfoods with a new glamour.

The self-confessed former sugar-addict isalso partial to sweet treats such as west country cider brandy syllabub or lemon pudding with blueberry clotted cream. But indulgent as the dessert section appears, it still adheres to Sophie's strict philosophy.

"The first thing is to work out the good carbs, such as those in fruit, vegetables, wholemeal pasta, brown and wild rice and granary breads, which all release energy slowly into your bloodstream, " she says.

"The bad carbs are the white rice, pasta, bread and refined sugars that give you a quick energy rush but leave you feeling hungry and tired a few hours later."

Her second rule is never to mix proteins and carbohydrates at one sitting because this leads to problems with digestion. The third is to avoid all processed and low-fat desserts or what she calls "shop- bought pap". The presence of sugars, stabilisers and unknown chemicals are perilous to our health, she believes. "After all, " she says, "you would never pick up a tablet from the floor and pop it in your mouth, so why eat a dish made from unknown chemicals?"

Sophie attributes her chronic fatigue syndrome to an early teenage illness.

"When I was 13 I had glandular fever, which lowered my immune system immensely, " she explains. In fact, she was so ill that she fell behind in schoolwork and left as early as possible, starting work at a pub restaurant kitchen at just 15.

Her interest in cooking, however, is in the genes. Her great- grandmother was a professional cook in the 1920s and reputedly catered for the Queen Mother in a freezing Scottish hunting lodge. Sophie's mother raised her on a strict wholefood diet. Her interest in food was sparked by a six-month family trip to Indonesia and Australia when she was 12. She recalls with glee the sheer range of foods on offer.

"I loved the whole Australian attitude to food and making your plate as colourful as possible, " she says.

But a childhood of healthy eating soon gave way to a diet of rich foods. As Sophie worked and studied to be a chef, she held by the false premise that one should never trust a skinny chef. The overeating reached a climax when she was working as a pastry chef in her late teens. "Food was my life and my job but I just remember feeling tired enough to drop on the floor and sleep, " she says. She sought medical opinion and was told that she had to eliminate wheat, sugar and coffee from her diet.

Dr Sarah Myhill, an NHS and private doctor and medical adviser to Action for ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis), agrees that food allergy - especially to wheat, dairy, coffee and sugar - can cause fatigue, along with high carbohydrate intake, gut dysbiosis and chemical overload.

"Carbohydrates tend to cause fatigue, even in normal people, " she explains. "We should be eating protein and fat in the day and saving carbohydrate until the evening when it helps sleep. At present the British diet is completely upside down because we eat cereals and toast at breakfast, sandwiches at lunch and meat in the evening.

"Gut dysbiosis, where food is fermented instead of digested, can also present with fatigue, " she continues. "Finally, chemicals in the diet inhibit enzyme systems and slow metabolism - this applies to drugs as well as food additives and pesticide residues. Everyone should try to avoid additives, colourings and flavourings and switch to organic foods wherever possible."

However, not everyone agrees with Sophie's philosophy. According to health and nutrition expert Professor Michael Lean at the University of Glasgow, her book should be treated with caution. "I find this quasi-nutritional type of book very annoying, " he says. "I don't believe something such as chronic fatigue syndrome, which is essentially a form of depression, can be solved by giving people certain foods.

"As for hypoglycaemia, that term is overused by people when they're feeling tired or hungry. In fact, only those who are taking diabetic insulin can be really hypoglycaemic." Sophie's avoidance of coffee, sugar and wheat provokes further criticism.

"I see no reason for avoiding your morning latte, because coffee contains caffeine and a bit is good for perking you up in the morning, " he says. "As for wheat, the only reason to avoid that is if you suffer from coeliac disease and it makes you very ill.

Finally, sugar is in almost everything we eat so it is hard to avoid completely."

While the medical and nutritional fraternity may frown at Sophie's advice, she is just gearing up for the main course of her career. The twenty-something has already taken on Gordon Ramsay in a TV audition and won the verbal honours, out-swearing the volatile Scot. Now she's on the look-out for her next challenge.

*Irresistible by Sophie Michell is published by Cassell, priced pounds-20.

Source: Herald, The; Glasgow (UK)

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