I was really excited to talk to Nour Maurice from one of the best vegan spots in London, Wild Food Cafe about food and nutrition. Nour is a chef and head teacher at their training school and she is passionate about eating for health. We talked about lots of things from food and immunity to food and good mood. Naturally I was particularly interested in the relationship between food and anxiety, we talked about the fallacy of comfort food: how when we feel sad, low or anxious we crave the high fat and high sugar hit that gives us a brief serotonin kick followed by a crash. This crash not only escalates feelings of anxiety as we berate ourselves for being out of control, it also stresses an already strung out system and a study conducted in 2017 has clearly shown the link between sugar consumption and depression. Nour gave some great advice, which is that any comfort food can be recreated in a healthy way. For instance, if you want pasta and cream sauce you can replace the white pasta with wholewheat or spelt or any number of whole grains, or even better, with courgetti which is now widely available pre-spiralised in supermarkets. The cream sauce can be made with soaked and blended cashews for a rich, satisfying, decadence that is much higher in micronutrients and heart healthy unsaturated fats. This kind of replacement is a smart technique that is not only healthy for the body, but also for the mind.