No more bling and bagels. Georgie Tarn is now all about the veg. After spending time at a life-changing juicing boot camp in the Med, she saw the light and dived into a vegan lifestyle. So enamoured is she with the health benefits that she’s sharing it with the world, via small vegan cookery classes.
In the pre-joining information she raves about the effect her new healthy diet has had on her health and appearance:
“Since changing to a vegetarian combined juicing diet I am eating more food than
I ever did before, but I have lost weight, my puffiness has depleted and I have
loads of energy. Additionally the headaches and brain fog I used to suffer with
have disappeared. I feel awake, I feel fabulous, my hair skin and nails have
improved and I look younger.”
All sounds amazing — who wouldn't want some of that?
She does look the part — all shiny eyes and glossy hair, as she demonstrates to me and ten or so other middle aged women (with a token 20-something boy) how to knock up a her ‘Spring Juice’. Fennel, celery, apples, parsley and lime were fed into her industrial looking juicer as she chatted away to us about her experience of cutting all animal products out of her diet. You could have inhaled your five a day through the pungent smell of the fresh fruits, herbs and vegetables as she worked.
What came out of the (surprisingly silent) machine was as green as Kermit’s tuccus but (I am certain) far tastier. As we sipped it through bamboo or stainless steel straws (to protect our teeth) she moved on to produce a second green drink — this time, pear and ginger with a scoop each of chlorella and spirulina (two healthy powdered algae supplements) to up the protein and Shrek-like aesthetic of those shots. So far, I was thoroughly enjoying the vegan lifestyle.
She moved on to vegan milk, showing just how easy it was to turn a bucket of almonds into almond milk. I’ve not been overly impressed with supermarket nut milks. Fresh from the nut was quite a different matter. Creamily delicious and worth the soaking, blitzing and squeezing involved. She honestly ‘milked’ the bag of blitzed ground nuts to extract all the liquid.
An added bonus was turning the leftover nut grounds into a batch of cacao cookies. An addictively chocolatey hit containing no refined sugar and topped with a single sliver of dehydrated strawberry.
She’d dried the berry dried in her own dehydrator together with slices of mango. Both fruits were like guilt-free jelly sweets; pure fruit flavour with zero added sugar. Her assistant, Helen Tyler, had attended the same juicing weekend and had also embraced her inner vegan, although perhaps not to the extent Georgie has. Both look great though.
The pair worked together to create a vegan lunch — mushroom pate (subtitled vegan chopped liver); aubergine koftas — that we helped shape; smoky sweet potato mash; and for pudding — poached pears and limes and a vegan ricotta lime mousse.
Once it was all ready, we sat down around a huge table to feast on the veggies. She’d added a fresh, crunchy, mixed salad plus vegan feta cheese (surprisingly tasty) made from coconut oil and tomato salsa. The main course dishes were all light and flavour filled, with the added bonus of making you feel more saintly with each mouthful. Even if I may have overdone the portion quantities ever so slightly.
I was less enamoured by the sweet course. I'm not sure refined sugar-free and (proper) dessert will ever happily exist on the same plate for me. Fresh fruit is great, but proper pudding needs some a bit of the evil white powder for taste and texture. (That's not to say you have to eat it, just that's what it demands if you're going to eat pudding at all.)
I still managed to eat the vegan version; I just may not attempt it myself at home. I’d probably stick with the fruit — fresh or poached/baked in its own juice as Tarn had.
I left Veg Jump full of inspiration and good intentions, racing off to clear the shelves at my local greengrocer. I even spent the next week or so, blitzing up all the fresh produce I could find in my Nutribullet. It didn’t last, but the recipes were lovely and the food, tasty.
I’d totally recommend a trip to one of Georgie’s monthly courses. She’s inspirational, and your gut will definitely thank you for it.
