From the 1st October 2023, the email address info@suzysumner.com will no longer be working. To contact me for any issues concerning health coaching or if you would like to organise an ‘Eating for Energy’ seminar inside your workplace for you and colleagues, please contact me via suzysumner@gmail.com My situation remains the same as in my last update -still very much enjoying working for change in food legislation with foodwatch and keeping me busy. Always good to hear how you are doing… so please don’t hesitate to drop me a line if you feel like it! best wishes Suzy ..read more

It’s been such a long time since I last wrote a blog. So many times I put it on my to-do list. So many times it fell off again. I thought it was about time to update you and my website about my current activity as a health coach and let you know what else I am up to. We have all been through a difficult couple of years. A lot of uncertainty, fear and feelings of isolation for many. I made a conscious decision during this time to not add to the many opinions all around us about what we should and should not be doing. However I feel now that we are beginning to breath a collective sigh of relief ..read more

Yesterday the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) released a long-awaited report and concluded that titanium dioxide or E171 is no longer safe to be used as an additive in food. This white powder which is used in chewing gum, sweets, baking powder and also present in toothpaste, creams, paint and medication has finally been declared as genotoxic which means that is can damage DNA and be a pre-cursor to cancer. More tests will take place. The European Commission announced yesterday that it will take measures to ban E171 from foods This is good news - however all the time that this additive h ..read more

One of the biggest shifts in the last twelve months has been the number of people working from home. It presents many challenges to people in terms of social contact and movement, but can be also advantageous in flexility and reduction in commuting time. But how has it affected how you eat? Do you find that you take time for a meal and are able to prepare something healthy, or is it a problem that the biscuit tin is never more than a few metres away? Here are a few tips that can maybe help you. 1) Stop the rollercoaster Simple carbs like white flour products, white rice or sugar will give yo ..read more

For many people at the this moment a lot of thought is on how we can protect ourselves and our loved ones from Covid-19. I have had several people asking me about how we can boost our immune systems so I thought it would be useful to put something in a blog. Of course the advice being given by the health authorities about hand washing and minimising risk in contact with others is the most important advice we can have. This in no way contradicts this advice. However what boosts our immune system? Here are some of my top tips: Focus on getting as much fresh fruit and vegetables into your daily ..read more

Kicking off the year and the decade wishing you all fun and pleasure in cooking and eating and discovering new tastes. We are really fortunate (at least in Brussels) to be living at a time when great quality local, organic and seasonal ingredients are all around us. Delighted to see the new initiative BioSoukCity around the corner from my house in Anderlecht which is providing fruit and vegetable baskets and has a small cafe with a homemade soup and really reasonable prices. In the city centre the new Wolf foodcourt is offering a wide range of high quality food options in one of the most beau ..read more

The last few weeks have been tumultuous in many ways. There is no need to go into details. Some of it is of course connected to events in the UK and the now inevitability of BREXIT but even more the growing divides that have taken over the UK - but not uniquely there - they are very present in many more countries, including in Belgium. I feel a loss of humanity and connection in how we speak to each other online. How messages are circulated without being checked for their truth or their potential violent effects. It seems clearer to me that we cannot wait around for our leaders to make the st ..read more

Please will readers from outside this wonderful city excuse that it is a very Brussels focused post - maybe it will give you good reasons to pay us a visit! The Car-Free Sunday in Brussels has to be one of my favourite days of the year. This year I sat and drank my green smoothie for breakfast with the door open in my Anderlecht house and could hear the church bells ringing over in St Gilles… amazing what sounds come through when the constant drone of cars have gone. We usually get out early and go for a long bike ride with the kids before the afternoon craziness sets in. This year was no exce ..read more

We use a lot of chickpeas in our house! A couple of times a year I do a big order from the supermarket that is delivered to the house. We don’t have a car so this is really useful for the heavy and bulky stuff like toilet rolls and salt for the dishwasher. Normally the order includes about 50 jars of chickpeas - which usually gets a comment from the delivery man! However this summer when we were away in France I cooked the chickpeas from dry and they just seem to taste SO much better. So - September is new year for me and one of my new aims is to cook the chickpeas and therefore reduce the was ..read more

Readers of this blog will know that I have always been an advocate of avoiding artificially produced ‘Trans Fats’ which are shown on food labels as ‘partially hydrogenated fats/oils’ (see 5 Fat Facts) Good news last week is that the European Union has passed legislation to limit the presence of these fats in all products where they are artificially added (note that naturally formed trans fats are present in some animal based products) - this means in biscuits, pastries, cakes, margarines…The limitation will be to 2g per 100g (following the line taken by Denmark in 2003). This reduction will ha ..read more