About Maria-Carin from Gala’s Organic Kitchen

I'm a plant-based personal chef and cookbook author, specialising in healthy and delicious foods, with a love of cakes, animals and dancing to survive and thrive! I give online cooking classes and have published a cookbook called Lick Your Plate to contribute to the positive change that I perceive is needed in the world.

Vegan, gluten-free, and refined sugar-free wholesome foods that also taste divine are my fuel. Adding breathing and emotional release to cooking makes everything so much better.

Growing up in a vegetarian alternative boarding school in England sounds a bit fancy, but in fact, I ended up becoming a chain-smoker and sugar-addict. I was not a very happy camper. When I was 19, I decided to leave everything and everyone behind and find my way to Australia to search for a better and brand-new life. I'm sorry to say that I didn't know Australia actually belonged to its original inhabitants, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. So, I'm ashamed to say that I continued with my white privileged life, oblivious, but found a new home.

I stumbled across some luscious wholefoods chefs and discovered that eating healthily does not have to be nerdy, depressing or rigid. Despite having found a new way to cook, I still downed buckets of ice cream, followed by heavy sadness, but that slowly changed. The envy I felt of the Aussies going for runs at the beach at 6 a.m. and then a meeting with a soulmate that sparked a love in my heart I had not known, catapulted me into quitting smoking for good. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

I assisted a yoga retreat catered for by Edwina Blush, a macrobiotic chef and jazz singer, which, after a weekend of eating only proper wholefoods made by a sexy woman, left my body completely transformed! It was amazing; I had tasted a tiny bit of a new life, healthy AND delicious food — my new life. But, how and where to learn?

Back then, it would have been mighty supportive to have had really yummy and inspiring recipes to cook from, like the ones in my cookbook! Dishes that make your hips jiggle and put a smile on your face. Recipes that teach how to be creative in the kitchen, with what's at hand, real-life recipes accessible to 'normal' people. People like me who have strong feelings around food. People who don’t want to become Michelin chefs. People who want to nourish themselves with real food.

As we all know, the process of getting over food-addictions, addictions in general or bad lifestyle habits is not an overnight task. The transition to a more wholesome diet and life came with phases of detoxification and intense emotional adjustment. In this transition phase, I got through with a combination of running, breathwork, meditation, yoga, singing mantras and dancing a lot! (And, still do!!)

I picked myself up again and again and now know how difficult it is to change habits. Taking one step at a time towards my goals worked. Step by step, or bite by bite. And you can do it, too. Because I have had this experience of having to learn how to cook healthy food for myself, and have the discipline to keep moving my body, and I know that I can help you too.

The ways I found that changed my eating habits for the better were to avoid sugar and processed foods, exercise, educate myself in factory farming and the dairy industry, and perhaps most importantly; feel my emotions. If my feelings are ignored or denied, unexpressed, I can forget trying to make any positive long-lasting changes in my diet and lifestyle. I needed to move and breathe and cook healthy in the long term to get well. I am passionate about bringing this healing combination into the kitchen.

Slowly but surely, I started feeling more and more alive. I could actually begin to feel a 'YES' for life, at least some of the time. I had deeply buried that 'YES' when I was little, at boarding school in a foreign country. It was amazing to feel it coming back; I started wanting to eat more vegetables, more REAL food, not just refined carbohydrates and sugars.

I could feel the energy come back into me. I was becoming happier, more inspired and energised, which I had been seriously lacking before. My weight balanced itself out, and my skin cleared up. I started having more ideas about life, believing in myself, daring to love more, taking risks, and being part of the human race! It’s not that I had it all sorted and was ‘healed’. It was an ongoing process and still is, but —oh, what a joy to feel alive and well!

Coming into a better state of wellbeing, my mind opened up to learning about the land I was living on. Slowly, very slowly, my consciousness grew into becoming more compassionate and inquisitive. Learning about Australian Aboriginal history. Finding out that their land was taken away in order for me to just plonk myself on it and continue with my European life is so utterly disturbing and yet it is so socially acceptable in many places. Ugh, argh. I still struggle with this truth of the whites having killed and taken away the land from the Aboriginal peoples of Australia for good, and continue to do so.

So, I continue to educate myself on these topics. Always looking to find a way to contribute in a healthy way to our society. The question of the meaning of life, especially on Australian soil never left me.

Then, my father died out of the blue, age 60 and seemingly healthy, from heart disease — I instantly decided it was time I shared my healthy findings with everyone right now in the form of cooking classes! And so I did.

I studied nutritional science to be equipped to figure out how foods affect us. Using food as medicine was another course and one of my greatest passions, but I found I needed food to taste really good too, not just be healthy but lusciously exciting and sexy.

My catering services were in demand by yoga teachers, massage trainings, seminars, dance and health retreats, celebrities, cooking demonstrations, private 'one on one', cooking classes, dinner parties and birthday parties.

During all this, I also ran a weekly market stall in Sydney called 'Wholefoods Warriors' with my buddy Ron. These were eclectic, busy times with lots of cake eating and discovering the wider Australian country through the retreat centres I worked at.

In December 2015, my mother was diagnosed with cancer, and I unexpectedly departed Australia for Germany to be with her, which resulted in her death only ten months later. Despite all the healthy food we made for her. Since then, I have become more flexible with my 'diet', rules, should's & shouldn't's, 'good' and 'bad' foods.

It became evident to me that a healthy human doesn't rely only on nutrition and exercise but also on emotional health!

Well, things turn out unexpectedly in life, just like my mother's death. I am now living in the UK, the place I wanted to get as far away from as possible. It is still a brown and wet place, but I found hot, sweet love in it, as well as wild swimming and really good tofoo.

I invite you to make the recipes I have found on my journey, that have helped me live healthily and deliciously, and I'd love to know how they serve you.

It is most satisfying and humbling to hear that you have made my recipes and are incorporating them into your daily life, adding more greens, more vegetables, and more real nutrition into your life and your body.

When you proudly start making healthy treats or main meals where you hadn't before, or even just adding a new breakfast option or cooking technique that helps you feel better and is practical—it is so wonderful to hear!

When someone else gets as excited, like I do, about a recipe because it’s so very tasty, healthy and animal-friendly, all at once. That's wonderful, and makes everything worth it.

My food is always delicious and nutritious, vegan, gluten-free and refined sugar-free. I don't claim that a vegan diet is a one-and-only diet for everyone because, in my opinion, there isn't just one diet for all. And you might change your diet not just for your health but the animals and the planet too. Much to consider and learn about.

Every body is unique. I grew up 100% vegetarian but have been trying all kinds of foods lately. Having said that, I believe adding more plant-based foods into anyone's life is always beneficial, especially for your tastebuds, your beautiful, unique body, the animals, and even the planet.

MC