The Dr Louise Newson Podcast - 25 - Hormones, nutrition and metabolism in menopause

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

In this episode, Dr Louise Newson is joined by broadcaster and menopause awareness campaigner Mariella Frostrup and chef Belles Berry, who is the daughter of renowned cook Mary Berry. They recently co-authored Menolicious, a cookbook designed to provide women with simple, nutritious recipes that make healthy eating more manageable.Together they discuss how hormonal changes during perimenopause and menopause influence metabolism, appetite and body composition, and why nutrition remains fundamental even alongside HRT. The conversation explains the mechanisms behind weight gain with low estrogen, including adipose estrone production, inflammation and altered glucose and insulin responses. They highlight the importance of protein, fibre and healthy fats, the role of the gut microbiome and the impact of reducing ultra-processed foods.The discussion also considers how hormones, nutrition and lifestyle interventions combine to support long-term health and reduce risks such as osteoporosis.This episode is essential listening for anyone looking to understand how hormones and nutrition work together and how food can be used as a powerful tool for health during and after menopause.LET'S CONNECT  Website 👉 https://www.drlouisenewson.co.uk/Instagram 👉   / @drlouisenewsonpodcast  LinkedIn 👉     / https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlouisenewson/ TikTok 👉   / https://www.tiktok.com/@drlouisenewson Spotify 👉 https://open.spotify.com/show/7dCctfyI9bODGDaFnjfKhg LEARN MORE Take my online education course, Hormones Unlocked 👉 https://www.learningwithexperts.com/products/hormones-unlocked-dr-louise-newson Sign up for my Confidence in Menopause Course 👉 https://www.drlouisenewson.co.uk/education---confidence-in-menopause  

So I've got two guests on my podcast today. I've got Mariella Fostrop and Bellsberry, and we're talking about their new cookery book called Menolicious. We talk about how important it is to eat healthily, how it is important that we cook and create meals from scratch, how we don't spend too much money or too much time on our food, but we look after ourselves. We improve our gut health and our metabolism. So there's lots of tips and nuggets here, so I hope you enjoy it. Welcome both of you. It's a double act on the podcast today. And I'm really excited. Marielo I've known you, I think, for quite a few years it feels like, but Bells, I've not met you before. So it's great that you're both here. And you've been brought together because of the fabulous book that I have on my lap that you have written together. And I was just saying before we joined that I feel a bit cheated because I can't taste any of the food because we're doing the, this remotely. So maybe when I meet you, you can give me some of the granola that you've been shaking in front of me on the screen. Absolutely. So Mariella, you do a lot, obviously, in menopause. And we've spoken before about how awful things are for women. I think they're getting worse rather than better. Things are moving forward and backwards at the same time. But in my mind, it's so important that women are given all the information they can to make choices that are right for them.

And I know that you agree with this as well. You know, as a physician, a clinician, I'm really fine that it's very important not just to be thinking about a treatment or not just been thinking about a disease or a disorder. It's looking at being the healthiest version of yourself. And as a doctor, I'm also ashamed to say that I've had very poor training as an undergraduate about nutrition and food. Yeah, it's the building block for everything that we do. And I often say to people, if I wasn't specialising in hormones, I would specialize in nutrition. But the two go hand in hand. I know that when I was menopausal, I wasn't eating as well because I couldn't be bothered to cook.

I was really tired. And everything was just such an effort. But even though my hormones are balanced with my HRT and testosterone, I still need to eat healthily as well. So I think what you're doing is really important. And, you know, this conversation is regardless of whether you're taking hormones or not. It's about how important it is to eat well for our future health, isn't it? I think, you know, ultimately, as you say, there are, you know, all kinds of challenges and they're all very subjective and they're very confusing, I think, for a lot of women because, again, as you say, you know, there's really not enough information out there at all, which is why we're campaigning so hard to even get menopause information provided during the 40 plus health check. But, you know, in a confusing period of life and at a time when I think, you know, treatment and support is not what it should be, the one thing that you can take control of, you know, at a time when everything might feel a little bit crazy around you is your diet.

And, you know, I say diet in the general sense of the word. This is definitely not a diet book at all. but it's basically crammed full of recipes that are crammed full of things that are good for you rather than bad for you. And in some cases, we'll actually support some of the symptoms. You know, we're not saying that they're going to get rid of anything. And, you know, like you, I think HRT is the sort of first base if you can take it. But I do think that we could all do with looking a little bit more closely and harshly at what we fuel our bodies with. during this period of time, and actually more generally, to be quite honest, there's not a recipe

in this book that isn't good for friends and family to enjoy as well. You know, you don't be sat there with a tin of kidney beans and a lettuce leaf while the rest of your family feast. So I think in many ways it's a sort of obvious step forward and hopefully a really easy manual to just kick start an interest in what makes your body feel better. Absolutely. So tell me about how you met. You met in London a couple of years or so ago and obviously sparked off a relationship and friendship to develop this book. Well, I was really excited to meet Bells because for a very long time I'd wanted to do a cookbook. I went to this sort of health boot camp called Yotam in my very early 50s, I think was the first time I went. Maybe I was even 49. And that was when I first had the sort of revelation that you could eat plenty, because I'm very greedy, but you could eat plenty and actually not feel like a sloth afterwards and just lie on the sofa waiting for it to pass.

And so I got interested in all of the sort of new ways of cooking, using things like coconut milk, using loads of pulses, using red rice, brown rice, tons of veg. But making it taste delicious, rather than... than a sort of chore. I mean, I'm definitely not. I love cooking, but I'm certainly not at sort of cookbook creation level. And so I very much needed a partner. And in fact, I just like working with other women. I think you kind of bounce ideas and, you know, things are often better with two minds rather than one. And so I was thrilled to meet Bell's outside Parliament when we were campaigning for the single prescription charge. And, you know, one of the first things she said to me was,

you know, what do you think about doing a cookbook? And I thought, oh, this is it, the perfect partner. She knows everything that I don't. And someone that I really respect and admire, she has enormous energy and dedication and a lot of experience, obviously, in the food world, not least because she's Mary Barry's daughter. But I think, you know, she spent her whole life, really, to date,

working in food. Yeah, so tell me a bit more about your background Bells because obviously everyone knows your mother but I wonder you know it's interesting my mother was an actor and I hated acting because I was always sort of persuaded to do my Lambda exams everything I mean I love the theatre so but obviously with food we can't choose whether we do it or not as you say Mariella we all have to eat so having your mother as the most incredible cook we've only had a very small glimpse as to how amazing she is when we watch her and read her books. It must have been such a privilege for you to have

eaten so well, I presume, from the outset. Absolutely. I mean, we've had good food in the house forever and mum lives six miles from us and she really instilled the values of good food but not expensive food. So, you know, mum didn't have very much money when we were growing up. We were a family of five and so she would, you know, do bulk food, but always nutritious. And I've learnt from that as well, you know, and I think a lot of the recipes in the book are not expensive. They're accessible. They're very easy to do, which is, you know, we want this to be in everyone's kitchen. So I think that was really important.

So mum instilled good nutritious food. And, you know, to have your cake, you just, you know, have one slice of cake. You don't need five, you know, all in moderation. And, yeah, there was always good food in the house. and she grew her own vegetables and fruit, so we learnt foraging from as soon as I could walk. I think it's an interesting thing, isn't it? Because our generation, you know, grew up with mums who cooked,

often didn't work, some did. And I feel very blessed to have had that experience because I think for a lot of kids growing up now, the idea of sort of cooking a meal from scratch seems to be becoming something of a sort of relic from the past. And, you know, definitely we know, how bad, you know, ultra processed food is. We know, you know, how we neglect our gut at our peril, but actually doing something about it, it's like we're a nation of cooking program watchers

rather than cooking doers. And, you know, I hope now it's something that we can kind of get back to a bit more because it's so important in terms of, you know, how you create the right nutrition. Yeah, and I think we've always gone like a big circle, you know, because you're mother's been going for so long, she's seen so many changes. So I've got a very old Arga cookbook of hers that's, that's donkeys old. And it's just brilliant because it's got butter, it's got cream, it's got just the basic ingredients. Whereas then suddenly in the 70s and 80s, we're told that butter's bad and we shouldn't have full fat milk and we should have all these, you know, spreads and various things. But your mother never changed and she carried

on with eating these, you know, looking at the raw ingredients, the healthy foods. And now people have agreed and now we know how important olive oils are and the saturated fats. And looking at things very differently. But you're so right. There's so many people that have just not understood the basics of cooking and it is the basics. And certainly, you know, when I look at this, it's not complicated. It's not got a really long list of ingredients that I'm going to have to go to some specialist book, a shop to buy. But also as mothers or as partners, it is often still the woman that cooks. I shouldn't really say that, but it's fact for a lot of us.

But actually to get people to be more motivated to cook for the whole family, it's just so important, isn't it? But to be able to do it in a simple way so that we know that we're giving food that's nutritionally valued, not just for us, but for everybody we're feeding too. Yeah, and I think, you know, in midlife, particularly women are busier than ever. You know, they've got growing children. They've got probably parents who they need to be looking out for as well, or elderly relatives and so on.

They've probably got jobs. You know, it's a sad truth that there are very few people out there who've got three hours to create a kind of perfect feast. And I think that the impetus is more and more. about things that are easy. You know, and unfortunately there are food companies out there where the easiest thing to do is get it delivered. I think it really would be a great thing to kind of take stock,

especially at a time when food itself is so expensive for a lot of families. And, you know, by creating recipes that really, you know, there are recipes in this book, my favorites, no coincidence, that take like 15 minutes to prepare. You know, they might take half an hour in the oven or something after that. But, you know, I think that you have to be practical about it. There's no point in pretending that we're blessed with hours of time to be domestic goddesses, to be quite honest. And so I hope that in a way, it's inspiring for people who might not necessarily think about creating, you know, interesting meals,

because it actually shows that it's possible to do really great things with minimum effort. And 90% of the recipes can be done in under. the 30 minutes because the average time apparently, thanks to our lovely Jamie Oliver, is 22 minutes that people spend on an average meal. So we felt that was really important, didn't we, Mariela? Yeah. And I think also the really hard thing, which Louise, you know, may not be a nutritionist, but, you know, from all your work that you've done amazing work in the menopause space, you know, one of the really distressing things for women is all of a sudden starting to put on weight, you know, for no real reason that you can discern.

You're doing the same things that you always did. But, you know, that roll around your belly just seems to obstinately stay there. And I think for a lot of women, it just adds to this feeling that everything is out of their control and they're debilitated. And so I think in many ways it's a really good place to start. Just, you know, in your early 40s, think about your diet. Think about what you eat. Think about what's good for you. You know, we don't really think of food as fuel as often as we should.

You know, we think of it like a nice meal. I really fancy this. I really fancy that. But you can actually tick both boxes if you just give it a kind of modicum of study. And I think you feel all the better and more empowered, you know, if you're not feeling the kind of debilitating effect of your body changing, not processing sugar like it. used to, not definitely not processing alcohol like it used to. You know, there are so many things that just change and you have to, the thing about change is no point in just, you know, being like King Canute and pushing it back or trying to, you know, you have to flow with it,

don't you? Well, I think one of the things, as you know, as a physician, I'm very interested in the cardiometabolic problem of low hormones. And when I say that, it's the changes to the metabolism in our body when we don't have our hormones. And as you say, a lot of people put on weight in the midline because our bodies are trying to get estrogen. Our ovaries aren't producing eustodial in the same amounts. So then our fat cells produce eustrone, which is a very weak type of estrogen, but it's all it can do. But our fat cells also produce lots of cytokines, lots of chemicals that increase inflammation in our body. And they can really, these changes in the metabolism can really have big impacts on the way that we use glucose, the way that our insulin is released.

And so there's this spiral really of things that happen. And what I see often in my clinic is that people are then scared to eat because they eat the same, they exercise the same and they're putting on weight. And obviously taking the right dose and type of hormones can really improve that, but it can take a while to kick in and have an effect. But in the meantime, women are telling me, well, I don't really eat, but I'm still putting on weight. But then when you talk to them, they're maybe having a low-fat yogurt with some fruit maybe for breakfast. They're having a meal deal at lunchtime. And then they might be having some pasta with a, you know, a ready-made sauce. And so they're hardly having any nutrition. They're not really having protein. They're not

having good fats. They're counting their calories. And I'm like, oh, dear, your first thing. And then they're hungry the whole time. All they're doing is thinking about food. Shed loads of salt as well, you know, absolutely. And that's why we haven't got calorie counts in the book, isn't it, Marilla? We were very strong about that. I hate calorie counting. I really hate diets. I've never been able to go on a diet. Maybe I hate them because I'm no good at them. But, you know, every time I go on a diet, all I think about is food. And I end up eating more probably as a result. It's like every time I go to the gym, I think I can afford to eat more. And so I rarely lose weight if I go to the gym.

You know, and I think for a lot of women, this whole kind of battling with weight is something that goes on all through your life and is really heavily impacted by your fertility journey and what stage you're at during it. And it's one of the things that we really haven't, you know, looked at, I think, forensically enough. And again, you know, in terms of information that just isn't enough out there. And so people, as you say, Louise, keep on doing the same thing. thing and then being puzzled and depressed about the fact that it's not working. And, you know, food ought to be fun. I love food. I mean, I don't want to keep repeating myself, but I really do. And, you know, I don't think that eating well should be a penance. You know, that that to me is no, I totally agree. And yeah, I mean, I, the trick is is of eating really is to be able to

eat and feel full for as long as possible. And I mean, I get migraine. So if I don't eat regularly, it will trigger a migraine. So I'm, you know, I'm very obsessed in what I eat because if I eat processed foods, for example, it will trigger a migraine. So I have to be prepared. I have to take food with me or I need to know where I'm going to eat or what I'm going to eat, which is a bit boring. But actually, it's given me really good habits. But you said Bells about protein and fibre because just explain a bit more about protein and fiber and how important they are for people. Well, I mean, protein is very important to support, well, as you know, to support muscle mass, you know, so to eat your lean meats, your beans, your lentils, nuts and tofu.

You know, it's really important. So fiber is very important for the gut. And so you do need to have your fiber-based, fiber-dense foods in your diet. And that's why in the book, we have got the protein count, fiber count and carbs. And so much of the ready-made food, sorry to go back to it, that you buy, has literally, you know, no fibre whatsoever in it or, you know, the barest minimum. And yet it's one of the easiest things to put back in your diet, you know, tins of beans using, you know, good rice instead of white processed rice. You know, there are so many ways that you can address it. You just have to be motivated to think, okay, you know, my stomach, my digestion.

is working in a particular way now and it needs some help along the way. And I think in many ways, you know, although this is a book, you know, we called it Menalicious for a reason, you know, it's a book I wish I'd had in my 20s and 30s, you know, just in order to encourage the good habits that I learned when I first went to that boot camp, for example. You know, just in terms of, you know, delicious food that contains, you know, we think I think in a way, food became, has become something to really, you know, beat yourself up about. There have been a billion fads in my lifetime. I think I even tried the vodka and grapefruit diet at one stage, because in my 20s,

my weight used to go up and down much, much more than it has actually since I had my kids in my early 40s. So I don't think it's an issue that's relegated only to women going through perimenopause. and I think it's one of those things where, you know, the earlier you start thinking about fuel rather than just filling, you know, the better. Absolutely. And, you know, I speak and see a loss of women who have hormonal changes when they're not menopausal or perimenopausal. So they have PMS, premenstrual syndrome or premenstrual dysphoric disorder, PMDD. So they have a lot of sugar cravings just before their periods, you know, when their hormone level, levels really drop. Their mood goes down. They feel very mentally and physically slow often, but they're craving the wrong foods and then they eat a lot of carbohydrate, a lot of processed foods

and then they feel worse because their sugars, you know, all over the place. So looking at foods that's going to have the right GI index to really stop these peaks and troughs of insulin it's going to be really beneficial throughout all ages of women really, isn't it? Absolutely. And I think in the book, my favourite piece is the nutritional science explained, which talks about the collagen, the B vitamins, the fibre, healthy fats, magnesium protein, the pre-bartics, pro-bartics, etc. In very, very simple terms.

Because I think it's not easy to understand what part all the, what part all these have to present in your body? And it's really important to understand it. I think as well for me, like that we've got a chapter on sort of food to go because one of my worst habits is, you know, I suddenly find myself absolutely starving halfway through a working day and I'm surrounded by chain sandwich bars and, you know, and you go in and then you grab the first thing that you see.

and when I was working on Times Radio, you know, and I had four years where I was in there every day, like a sort of nine to five job, I started taking lunch with me because I got just really fed up of trying to sort of forage around London Bridge for food. And it made such an enormous difference, you know, making myself like a really nutritional bean pot or something,

you know, that I could heat up in the microwave at work. and give myself something that really sort of lasted throughout the day, helped with that slump in the afternoon. I mean, the other thing with that sort of sugar craving in the afternoon is it's, you know, it's so tempting to just reach for a bar of chocolate or, you know, something sweet to kind of get you through it. But actually, one of the things I've started to do in the last couple of years is just sort of mass make energy balls, you know, made with loads of dried fruits and nuts and so on.

It takes two minutes. you stick them in the blender, you can make 50 balls and then just put them in the freezer and make sure that they're around, you know, take them with you in the morning if you're going out to work or whatever, make sure they're at hand when you have that slump. And you get such a brilliant burst of energy, but it's also sustained, you know, so you're kind of ready to wait for your evening meal before you start having those cravings again. Yeah, because you've got three different, haven't you, energy balls on one page, which is great. It's the worst picture in the book. to just get that out now.

Doesn't look the most appetising. It looks like a tray of testicles, I think, which isn't the most appetising thought. But all the rest of the photography is so fabulous that I thought we might overlook it. So I'm just doing a disclaimer on the energy ball photo. I was at your house when we were filming that. Remember, I had to go away when we were photographer.

I know. And we both looked at that shot and went, I don't know. I don't know whether people can still. For those of the people that are watching it, you'll be able to see the different shades of brown on the tray. Buy a copy and you can see it in all its gory glory. Yeah.

But the others, the other, you know, colours make up for it. And actually, you know, eating the rainbow sounds a bit cheesy, but it's so important. And you mentioned about the gut microbiome. And it's really, really important. A lot of doctors as well still don't understand the importance of the gut microbiome and the connections with our mental health and reducing inflammation. And the more that we can improve our gut microbiome, the better. So, you know, I would have thought by just looking at your book,

pretty much all of the recipes are going to improve the gut microbiome, aren't they? I mean, it's funny, a lot of doctors still say to someone who presents with kind of tummy issues, you know, oh, you need to go on a white food diet. You know, you want plain white bread, white rice, white. And I find it baffling because we know so much more about food nowadays. And it feels like we're on catch up with the very people who, I'm not saying, well, doctors should be nutritionists, but it would be good for an awareness of, you know, the whole, I mean, I'd say Tim Spectre

and people like that have been doing and, you know, teaching us about gut health and so on. It would like to see, I'd love to see that sort of expanded through other areas of advice giving. Yeah, it's so important. I feel, you know, I take my responsibility of being a medical doctor very seriously and I feel like I can't, I can't tell people to eat better if I sit there having eaten McDonald's, you know, burgers for my lunch and smoke 20 cigarettes and whatever, you know, you have to practice what you preach. And it's so much easier, actually, to talk about how much better you feel when you eat, eat better. And, you know, my diet has improved with time. And, you know, I also have

three children and I've always felt very responsible for bringing them up and making sure that but they are well fed as well. And I always, you know, cook for the freezer and everything. And it is important, but it's habit forming. And you've got to get in the right frame of mind, the right habits to sustain. Because it's not just like a one day thing. Every day we've got to cook and we've got to do the shopping. And like you say, a lot of people do find it very expensive.

But a lot of things that certainly in here, it's not all fresh food either. You can use like tins of beans, use lots of seeds. lots of things that you can buy in bulk. And I think, you know, I love buying in bulk because it, but it does make things so much cheaper, doesn't it? No, absolutely. I mean, bulk buying and bulk cooking, you know, I think are, you know, definitely our friend, one because it's much cheaper.

And the other, because it's so much less time consuming. You know, I never make a meal that's just for that meal. I mean, I love leftovers anyway, you know, even if they're just leftovers the next day, you know, in the fridge. But I tend to make enough so that I can make one meal and freeze one meal so that I can just pull that out on a day when I'm truly knackered and, you know. And especially with soups. We're coming into soup season.

And that is, and I know you don't like leftovers. None of us like leftovers, but Mariella, you particularly don't like things that left in your fridge. I love leftovers. I meant vegetable, you know, just like old veg. That's what I meant. Sorry. But to make a soup, you know, and to be able to freeze it, et cetera, and keep you going, it is absolutely fantastic, isn't it?

We've got some good soup recipes. Yeah, absolutely. So there's a lot we need to be doing just to educating. And, you know, I wish the medical profession would take diet and nutrition a lot more seriously because it will really help prevent a lot of diseases. We know it's, you know. But don't you think, Louise, as well, that that's about, you know, what we're supposed to be moving towards,

but it seems to me incredibly painfully slowly, which is this idea of preventative medicine rather than reactive to conditions. And we just don't seem to be there yet. And I think people sort of say, oh, do you have to go on about menopause again? But the thing about menopause is that it actually highlights a lot of things that are issues on a much broader spectrum, you know.

and, you know, for example, with menopause, if you have the information, if you know what's happening to your body and you have a vague understanding of what's going on, you will make all those adjustments before it's too late and you're developing long-term, you know, conditions as a result of the depletion of your hormones. But if you don't know any of that, which is the situation we were in, I would argue, 10 years ago, then you're creating patients for the future by just not giving them the information they need, which is why, you know, I go back again to the 40 plus health check and just women being provided with information. Yes, it doesn't start. You know, I used to think that menopause were just a bad birthday present on your 50th, and then you sort of careered off into the twilight and probably died a few years later. Well, you know, we know that that's not the case.

We know that it starts up to 10 years beforehand. We know that it's an amazing gift that we have as women to have a second phase of our lives when we're sort of liberated from extreme empathy and we become more selfish and more ambitious and more energetic if we treat ourselves well and can have a really interesting second half of our lives, which is certainly not the sort of mythology around menopause or certainly not until very recently. No. We need to improve our health span for our lifespan fundamentally through good food.

Absolutely right. You know, I'm really interested in the whole difference between health span and lifespan. And I always say it's not the age we die. It's a journey to that age. And everything that we can do to reduce diseases, you know, it seems weird me as a doctor saying, I want to prevent disease. We can do that with nutrition. We can do that with exercise.

We can also do it with good hormonal health as well. and we have to join the dots and work together because it's not one or another, it's doing it all together. And as you say, Mariella, you know, the most important part of my work is educating people so they can make choices about their future health because so many people, for example, don't even realise that we can prescribe hormones, their licence to be prescribed to prevent osteoporosis, which affects one in two menopausal women. Well, you know, I mean, that's another of the shockers, which is that an awful lot of women

don't know that one of the underlying symptoms or one of the underlying, you know, diseases that can be created by this loss of hormones is osteoporosis. Yeah, absolutely. Quite honestly, you know, women need to be aware of the connection to serious conditions. Yeah. That are caused if you don't take action. And, you know, I mean, I don't want to make it sound all doom and gloom because we do make menopause sound like, you know, this terrible, terrible, you know, period of time where nothing works and, you know, and there are lots of women who sail through and there are lots of women who have minimal symptoms, but the underlying symptoms, I think, are some of the most worrying and they can often just, you know, be left completely, you know,

to get worse because of this lack of understanding about what you can do to mitigate. Lack of knowledge. Yeah. Absolutely. So we still need to keep going. We still need to be thinking of it as a hormone deficiency that lasts for, ever with health risks. But in the meantime, we need to be thinking about your book.

I always ask for three take-home tips. That's hard with two of you. So I'm just going to ask each of you, actually, your two favourite recipes for the book. So if I go first with you, Bells, what are your two recipes that you're most proud of that you want people to do? So I'm so excited.

I would love the Rasal-Hanut rice salad with orange and cumin dressing because I love the dressing with the orange and the cumin ticks all the boxes. I think it's an original recipe and I like the fact that you can choose which rice you want or which grains because that's so important. So I absolutely love that recipe.

And oh, what else am I going to do? I think the Mediterranean lunch pot, because as Marilla was saying, to take a lunch pot, whether it be a jamdar to work, and that has again that has red rice but that has the buckwheat so that's going to be a slow releasing for your energy shelled hemp you know it's it ticks all the boxes and you know the mediterranean diet is fantastic for all of us so that's my take on that perfect over to you mariella well for me for

speed and deliciousness and it may help that it's got the word quick in it but the coconut spinach and chickpeas also in there, dal, is so delicious. Literally, I did it the other day in, what, 12, 13 minutes in terms of prep. They're all things that you can have in the cupboard. You can have the spinach in your freezer. You know, you can have the chickpeas in tins, coconut milk and so on. So I absolutely love that. It's a real go-to.

And I do quite like making, we've got these delicious flatbreads in there, probiotic flatbreads. that you can make, which again, you sort of buy them in the supermarket, don't you? Because you think, well, that's going to be a lot of effort. But actually, there's barely any effort at all in making the flat breads to go with it. It's an astonishingly good meal. And the other thing, I guess, would be the porridge bread, which I was originally had the recipe shared with me from my Irish friend of mine, Orla, which is bread made with oats, yogurt, seeds, an egg, a tablespoon of milk.

And it is, I think it's fair to say, completely foolproof. I'm not a good baker. I don't have bells and her mother's skills at all. Everything I bake just looks terrible. My daughter, thankfully, is better than me. So Molly is the cake baker in our house. But this porridge bread is foolproof. And I know that because I'm the baking fool.

And it takes away. I love bread. I really love bread. I mean, it's probably my greatest vice. You know, if I'm in France, I'm like in baguette heaven. but obviously it doesn't make you feel that great after I've devoured it, whereas the porridge bread, guilt-free, you can put anything you like on it, you can cut it up and freeze it in slices and use it for your toast in the morning. My top favourite is toast with a butter and marmite,

but, you know, on healthier days I might have some almond butter. But it's just, it's such a good bread. And, yeah, you know, people look at me like, what, no flour, no, and, and, and you don't miss any of it. And even my kids like it. Perfect. So, well, I'm feeling quite hungry, but thank you so much for joining me today.

It's been great. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Thank you so much for having us on, Louise. You know, we're both big fans of yours and incredibly in awe of all the work you've done in this space as a real pioneer. So it's great to talk to you.

Oh, thank you.