Want to know Carole Caplin’s favourite food products? She’s told us her most nutritious ingredients and products to help you feel fantastic from the inside out.
Want to know Carole Caplin’s favourite food products? She’s told us the most nutritious ingredients and products to help you feel fantastic from the inside out.
Viridian Nutrition : Cheryl Thallon who set up Viridian Nutrition in 1999 had two fundamental principles; to develop a range of nutritional supplements that had the highest and most ethical standards possible and to generate sufficient funds for children’s and environmental charities. So far she has donated £145,000 to charities including Friends of the Earth, NSPCC, Woodland Trust, UNICEF, The Princes Trust, Comic Relief, RSPB, Terrence Higgins Trust, Shelter, the Woodland Trust, Save the Children and more. For Cheryl’s ground breaking formulas visit viridian-nutrition.com
Pukka Herbs: Tim Westwell and Sebastian Pole founded Pukka in 2001, and are now the largest supplier of ayurvedic herbs in the UK.
Seb was a herbalist , Tim had commercial experience and they wanted to set up a business that had purpose and value and where they could give something back. They are both passionate about herbs and concentrated firstly on the values and qualities they wanted for their customers and staff. The journey started with a simple cup of tea in Tim’s bedroom, they borrowed £4,000 on a credit card, they bought some herbs and the rest is history. They have gone from 2 people to 62 people and manufacture 99 percent of the product in the UK, are 40 percent fair trade and 100 percent organic, so much so that even the strings to the teabags are organic. They have raised over £100,000 for WWF and fair trade projects. pukkaherbs.com
Hale n Hearty: Behind this company is a husband and wife team, Catarina & Christian Konig. Christian, who in his youth was the assistant to then Evening Standard restaurant guide, was diagnosed with coeliac disease, depressing him no end, as being a foody he hated every gluten free product on the market. He lost 7 stone. Their daughter was born with a wheat and dairy intolerance and that’s when they decided to do a gourmet, great tasting, gluten, wheat and dairy-free range.
They came up with the concept in January 2009. By November 2009 Waitrose snapped up their products, they launched at Planet Organic and Whole Foods and are also in Sainsbury’s. Try their delicious new brownie mix; their legendary stuffing and crumble mixes really are to die for. halenhearty.co.uk/
Little Big Shot: The guys at Little Big Shot led by its visionary creator Bert Jukes are set to launch an amazing range of Omega 3 products especially for babies and children. The range packed with vitamins and minerals will include yoghurts, drinks and gummy bears. These are made with seaweed not gelatine and the ingredients consist of 24 percent fruit, deep ocean minerals and spring water from the Alps! They even did taste profiles with food on a spatula for babies to make sure they enjoyed it. littlebigshot.com
Bodytox: Finally you must give Bodytox Goodness Gracious Greens mix a try. A delicious, refreshing raw food drink complex that ensures the highest bio-availability of nutrients in their natural food state. A mix of all key nutrients, antioxidants, superfoods, probiotics and vitamins in one scoop, it’s designed to strengthen the body’s inner nature. Available in three different flavours mint, berry and citrus flavours.
New kids on the block
Sukrin Bread Mix: My top food choice. I am forever on a quest to find my clients the tastiest, most healthy, low calorie, free-from food stuffs. For the first time I have actually found a bread mix that can be used for bread, rolls, tortilla wraps and scones that tasted like really naughty bread.
Two nutritionists met at university in Oslo in 2003. They discovered Erythritol, which is a natural sweetener, with zero carbs and calories. They added to their range with almond flour for baking, and later added other flours (sesame, peanut and coconut,) all of which were high in fibre or protein and low in carbohydrates. All the flours have been fat-reduced within an inch of their lives by being cold-pressed and extracting the oil. They then developed the bread which uses natural raw flours, based on nuts and seeds, hence the high fibre and low-carb content, only 1g per slice.
You don’t need a bread maker to make Sukrin bread, you simply add water, no kneading or proving required – and the bread tastes unbelievable. It was a finalist in the ´Best New Product´ category in the Natural Product Awards, see naturalproducts.co.uk/natural-organic-awards/.
Sukrin Gold: This is the first alternative to brown sugar. It is 98 percent less calories than sugar. Studies have shown that Sukrin Gold has no effect on blood sugar or insulin levels and is perfectly safe for diabetics. It has 97 percent less available carbohydrates than sugar and less than 1 GI (xylitol has 13). It has 8 calories per hundred grams whereas xylitol has 250 calories per 100 grams. The taste is exactly like brown sugar and has no after taste like that of other alternative sugar replacements. Other products include Sukrin icing sugar, Sukrin granulated and Sukrin plus (which is twice as sweet as sugar). sukrin.co.uk
Punku Quinoa Foods: If you’re a fan of Quinoa try Punku Quinoa Foods. Made in Bolivia, Punku has launched two products in a new range of foods containing Royal Quinoa.
Quinoa is a complete protein containing all essential amino acids and it’s a good source of manganese, magnesium, iron, copper and phosphorus.
They also have chia seeds and are free from gluten, wheat, dairy, nuts, eggs and cholesterol. Their chocolate chip, and orange and mango cookies are absolutely delicious when you need a tasty yet healthy snack. punkuquinoafoods.co.uk
Plenish: Kara Rosen of the juice boutique Plenish makes raw, cold pressed, juices made from organic vegetables and fruit. She transformed her health by using cold pressed juices. She just wanted to create a healthier and more delicious option to what was already out there (and it really is). Using tons of hydraulic pressure her specialist cold press machines yield the most nutrient dense juice that is pulp free, brimming with phytonutrients and you don’t have to clean the juicer!
She uses pressure instead of heat to stop microflora growth, naturally extending shelf life and most importantly this means the juices remain raw and full of goodness. plenishcleanse.com
Vital Green: This is Australia’s number one superfood . It will help kick you into touch where your so called 5 a day is concerned. Two teaspoons (10g) simply blended with water or juice once a day includes 76 natural ingredients. Perfect for vegans, vegetarians and allergy sufferers Vital Green contains probiotics to support a healthy gut flora profile, provides key nutrients used by the liver and digestive tract and greens such as broccoli to support the natural process of detoxification and elimination of waste from the body. The supplement is sweetened naturally with organic Thaumatin, a low calorie amino acid sweetener made from the West African katemfe fruit. I’m majorly squeamish about powdered green juices; just the smell alone can send me running to the nearest hills gagging. I had this with water (cold) and miraculously loved the taste – that’s a first for me. vitalhealtheurope.com
Miracle Noodles: Made with natural dietary fibre called glucomannan with no fat, sugar or starch. The fibre found in MN slows digestion and prolongs the sensation of fullness. Contains zero net carbohydrates, zero calories, no gluten and no soy. It really tastes great and we kept going back for more! There have an impressive range of products. miraclenoodle.com
Violife by Viotros: You may not be familiar with Violife but they are huge in their native Greece. Suitable for vegetarians and vegans they produce a great range of cheeses which are free from dairy, lactose, soya, palm oil and gluten! They trialled 5 delicious new flavours; my favourite were their cream cheeses. As a diary lover who adores cream cheeses in particular, but is hugely intolerant to the dairy equivalent, I was in heaven. violife.gr
Easybean: You will notice that I’ve stayed away from spelt. Feedback from both the medical and nutritional industries suggest that many people who are wheat and gluten intolerant suffer similarly when eating spelt. Crackers and biscuits therefore are a challenge.
But these crisp breads are delicious. Available in 3 flavours, they are packed with fibre and while you are at I’d recommend giving their one pot meals a try too. easybean.co.uk
Perfect for kids
Zingology: You’re sure to love Zingology. A really great new way to get kids to eat raspberries, strawberries, carrots and even beetroot. The powders can be sprinkled and stirred into your usual cooking and baking. I know how hard it can be sometimes for parents to entice their kids to have any fruit or veg. zingology.co.uk Nanny Care: It’s a wonderful feeling after two decades, two clinical trials, two submissions to EFSA and a lot of hard work, to finally achieve an amendment to the infant formula directive to include goat milk. Nanny care takes its rightful place as the UK’s first goat milk infant formula and is the only goat milk formulation worldwide to be proven by clinical trials. nanny-care.co.uk
Movers and shakers
NEWtritious Delicious: My top picks this year are health professionals – three dynamic women. One the owner of Botanical Clinic (Tunbridge Wells), one a medical herbalist, and one a nutritional therapist. They work together providing on-site courses as a way of bridging the gap between food and medicine and de-mystifying the confusion surrounding healthy eating. With combined experience of 30 years they are experts in the field of food as medicine, giving an entirely refreshing and heartening perspective on the dual purpose of food, both as a source of enjoyment and natural protection. History meets cutting edge research where they bring together nourishing, traditional food preparations and emerging science. Epigenetics, the most exciting emerging science, says that what we do, namely what we eat, influences our genes. Look out for the release of their book later in the year Their moto is: simple, powerful, affordable. See vimeopro.com/user18346037/newtritious-delicious
Tanya Mayer, Raw Food Chef: Tanya had a car crash when she was 14 which broke her back. Her body wouldn’t accept regular food and she started losing weight. She could only tolerate fresh juices which helped her get better. 10 years later she came across a book called Green for Life and had a light bulb moment, realising that the juices she’d had when she was ill had helped her heal. Tanya couldn’t resist commercial chocolate at first which did not agree with her, but as a result of getting more into raw foods her tastes changed and she began to prefer raw chocolate. She looked into origins of chocolate, travelled/researched and now runs workshops, teaching people from all over world about raw food. She runs Supper club events every month where she designs, makes and serves the food.
She’s now opening Tanya’s at My Hotel – raw food by day and superfood cocktails by night, the healthiest way to enjoy alcohol. myhotels.com
Article by
Carole Caplin
Health and Wellbeing Expert
is a leading UK health and wellbeing expert and and physical fitness coach
Discover more
Article by
Carole Caplin
Health and Wellbeing Expert
is a leading UK health and wellbeing expert and and physical fitness coach
Discover more
By Carole Caplin
By Carole Caplin 
