Celebrity Health - Bernadette Bohan
'Raw Power'
Bernadette Bohan is a survivor – she has beaten serious disease twice by following a nutrient-dense, primarily plant-based diet and believes in the power of living enzyme-rich foods as a form of medicine. She appears frequently on Irish television and is a popular lecturer on health and lifestyle issues. Her books The Choice, The Programme, The Survivor’s Mindset and Eat Yourself Well are well known. Bernadette’s new book Raw, Recipes for Radiant Living is all about how to cook and eat raw foods that provide optimum nutrition.
What sort of exercise do you do to keep in shape?
"I like to go out walking, and lift a few weights at home. I try to do something as often as I can and am generally very active. My baby granddaughter is keeping me busy too. This morning I got up at 5.30am and my daughter and I went to Morning Gloryville in a club called The Hangar in St Andrew's Lane in Dublin. You do yoga, have massages and dance for four hours! There’s a superfood smoothie bar and wake-up massage station. We loved it."
What sort of foods do you eat to stay healthy?
"I like to use sprouts such as alfalfa and radishes because they are super foods packed with nutrients. I am a vegetarian and eat mostly raw foods – I buy some ingredients in health stores and visit an organic market in town every Saturday to buy my fresh veggies. I love to cook food like the raw lasagne recipe in my book. When I started eating raw food my arthritis disappeared, I gave up wearing reading glasses, and my spare tyre melted away."
Do you take any natural supplements?
"Yes – I take quite a lot of enzymes, vitamin D, CoQ10, and turmeric capsules every day. Turmeric is powerful at preventing inflammation and you wouldn’t eat enough curry or hot food to get what you need."
Do you ever worry about your health?
"Not really. When you learn the formula and stick to it fairly diligently hopefully you don’t have too much to worry about. Of course there are no guarantees with anything, but you just get up and do the best you can."
What work do you do?
"I am writing books on healthy lifestyles and eating, giving seminars and running beginners and advanced courses in learning how to prepare raw food. I find that people need to see raw food prepared and taste it to fully understand how easy it is to do. I also run a helpline on 01 8452957, 9.30-5pm. People phone me about weight problems, Crohn's disease, cancer and heart disease. I hope I can advise them on the road to better health."
How do you relax when you're not in the public eye?
"I read a lot. I love to spend time with my family – and my new baby granddaughter is great. I was very busy finishing the book so I took a break over New Year."
Do you have any healthy tips for Rude Health readers?
- First thing in the morning drink two glasses of water with lemon.
- Every day make a juice – green preferably, and have a salad – this will bring a huge improvement to your health.
- Take a few minutes for yourself, even if it’s just having a cuppa
- Salad dressings can be unhealthy so for mine I use olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and herbs and whizz it up. You could include Udo’s oil in a dressing because it has omegas 3 and 6 and is made from sunflower, sesame and flax seeds.
Raw, Recipes for Radiant Living is published by Gill and Macmillan
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