Gene Eating by Giles Yeo

Author:Giles Yeo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2019-04-08T16:00:00+00:00

QUEEN ELLA

The BBC’s Horizon documentary about the ‘clean eating’ phenomenon was ‘green lit’ in the early summer of 2016. When production began, we knew that we wanted to try and land an interview with one of the key drivers of the movement. We reached out to a number of the big beasts, including Natasha Corrett of Honestly Healthy and the Hemsley sisters, Jasmine and Melissa, more in hope than in expectation. The director and producer of the documentary was Tristan Quinn, and his ethos was to be as open with the reasons for our investigation as was reasonably possible, and also with the fact that I would be approaching the interview from a position of scepticism. I therefore did not think that their public relations teams would let us anywhere near them, and I was not surprised when Natasha declined our invitation and we got no response from the Hemsleys. There was, however, no one bigger than Ella Mills (née Woodward), otherwise known as Deliciously Ella. Her début cookbook was the fastest selling, ever, in the UK, and she had more than a million followers on Instagram. Her recipes, at least in her first two books Deliciously Ella and (just in case you couldn’t get enough of Ella) Deliciously Ella Every Day, are vegan (this appears to be a bad word in the plant-based community; more on this later), as well as refined sugar-, gluten- and dairy-free. Ella’s team did respond to our request. This led to a couple of exploratory meetings, including one where Ella and I met in person, so she could sniff me out. We let her know that while we would supply the broad topics for discussion beforehand, there would be no questions barred, but she could choose whether or not to respond. Much to my surprise, in spite of the conditions, she agreed to be interviewed by me on camera.

The BBC had rented a large studio apartment for the purposes of filming a number of scenes. It occupied the second floor of a trendy converted warehouse, and was spaciously open plan, with high ceilings, skylights, as well as exposed piping and brickwork. The centrepiece of the studio was a large fabulous kitchen (I will admit kitchen envy), and the plan was for me to cook for Ella (eek!), while conducting the interview. Every so often, you find yourself questioning your life choices ... this was one of those moments.

I am a fair home cook, so I do know my way around a kitchen. The problem was, I don’t typically cook many vegan dishes; I maybe have four or five in my repertoire. I could hardly have produced a steak for Ella, because that would simply have been rude. Plus, there was the small matter of the interview and the whole event being captured on camera for primetime TV! This was a valuable once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I needed to put a strategy in place to make sure I didn’t screw it up. In the end, I

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