Jane Clark: Talking of which, you said what are you up to in the next few years of your life? So I was Jamie's battering ram. And I actually got death threats delivered by a certain well-known Twizzler manufacturer, and they said if you don't start stop knocking our Twizzlers, basically they'll knock me off. And I just thought, and that was delivered to my home.
Voiceover: Welcome to the Doctor's Kitchen podcast. The show about food, lifestyle, medicine, and how to improve your health today. I'm Dr Rupy, your host. I'm a medical doctor, I study nutrition, and I'm a firm believer in the power of food and lifestyle as medicine. Join me and my expert guests where we discuss the multiple determinants of what allows you to lead your best life.
Dr Rupy: I love hearing people's stories. It's one of my favourite things to do on the podcast, to dive deep into the history of what led to people doing what they do now. And myself and Jane were connected by Prue Leith, who you've heard on the podcast, you've seen definitely on TV. I've done a TV show with her myself, and she said you really need to speak to Jane. Her products are incredible and her story is amazing as well. And what you're going to hear today is all about Jane Clark, her career that has spanned three decades within nutrition, the shocking stories about what you what you're up against when you challenge the powerful food industry. I was really taken aback by some of the stuff that happened while she was involved in Jamie's school meals, her personal health struggles with endometriosis, starting the UK's first private dietitians clinic, working with the likes of David Beckham, her experience with dementia and her dad, and the inspiration behind her new line of products, which I think is so well needed and anyone that works in healthcare or care home settings or working with the vulnerable will understand why this product is just so needed as well. She's a dietitian and Cordon Bleu chef with more than 30 years experience in the nutrition industry and she's also authored nine bestselling books and worked with a number of people to bring about social change. And she's got this incredible mindset and passion that she uses to provide solutions to what she's currently doing right now, which is undernourishment and empowering and inspiring those who are vulnerable or facing health challenges to look after their health in an easy way. And you'll hear a bit about that later on in the podcast too. As well as her story, I also wanted to talk about the entrepreneurial journey that she's been on in a similar way to how we've done on previous podcasts with Prue Leith and Liz Earle, because I truly believe in the power of expert mission-led businesses to ignite sustainable change. It's partly why I'm taking a sabbatical and focusing on the app, the podcast, the nonprofit stuff as well. And on that note, our podcast recipe of the week, a recipe that reflects the topic of conversation on the pod, is the medicinal veggie broth that you can find on the app. The link is in the show notes and you can get a seven-day free trial, absolutely free. And we talked about soups quite a bit on this episode and this is the perfect embodiment of our chat. So you can check that out and I will also put it up on the newsletter that you can subscribe to at thedoctorskitchen.com, where we give you something to eat, a recipe, something to listen to, read or watch every week that will hopefully help you lead a healthier, happier week. It's mindfully curated and we've got some really good feedback on that with a really engaged audience. So thank you so much for people who send me messages on that and I'm trying to get back to all of them. But for now, I really hope you enjoy this lovely conversation with Jane Clark.
Dr Rupy: Great. We're going to have a great conversation. I'm really looking forward to this. You know, it's so funny, when we chatted before, after we were introduced by Prue, I just really wish we just recorded that because that would have been a really good podcast in itself, you know? Like learning a lot about you and your experiences and what you're up to now, which I think is fantastic. I'm constantly asked about it and I'm like, I can only do a few things at a time. So it's lovely to have people like yourself with that wealth of experience championing what is a really, really important topic. So yeah, I thought we could just repeat that conversation.
Jane Clark: Let's rewind.
Dr Rupy: Whereabouts are you based at the moment then?
Jane Clark: So home is Cumbria. So I did a COVID move with my daughter because they have fantastic broadband, but don't tell anyone about that. So I can remotely support my patients and run everything that I do from the hills and rather crazily, I'm a bit of a wild swimmer and a walker. So for me, that's my tonic. So Cumbria provides a backdrop for that, which is great.
Dr Rupy: Fantastic. Fantastic. We'll take us back to the start. You you sent your lovely book, Nourish, that I was reading it and I had to read the front and I realised it was written in like 2010. And the information in it is so relevant to today. It's wonderfully written. It's super, super rich and resources. But let's start with your sort of professional history and your career because it spanned over 30 years now?
Jane Clark: Ish. Sorry. I can edit that out if you like. Yeah, three 30 years. Yes, it has. It's been a long time, but actually I'm so excited now in my 50s about what we're about to achieve, but we'll come on to that. So for me, I guess the start was really with my Auntie May, who is very dear in my heart and you'll forgive me if on this conversation, I get a bit emotional because there's very key people in my life that have been really at the forefront of why I do what I do. And Auntie May was the first and she was the aunt that my sister and I always like to stay with in Stoke-on-Trent because she had fantastic big sort of double beds with loads of duvets. And so we'd snuggle into the double bed and then in the mornings we get wafts of homemade jam and crumpets. And Auntie May was always treating us with beautiful food and you know, if you just had toast and jam, it would be toast on the fire, homemade jam. And that was really my start of realising that food was love and affection and a very sensual thing as well as a physiological and a necessity. So that was sort of foody background and then my late dad was a chemistry teacher. And so our home life was fascination of science and you know, in those days way back when, we had the chemistry lab in the garage. So it was that real sort of intrigue of what goes on in the human body, what goes on in the chemistry lab. And I put together those two key passions of my passion for food and my intrigue and love of science and went to do dietetics. And I went to Leeds and I could wax lyrical, but I thought that I would come out of university with an amazing medical knowledge and you have to have that as a practitioner. And that actually surprises people because people say, oh, it's just food, you know, what how can you go wrong with food? But we both know you can go really wrong with food if you don't know what's going on in the human body. So for me, learning all that medical side and then I thought, well, I'll come out with a great skill of cooking and to be able to inspire people to to eat really well, but boy, it's not really changed and it was a dreadful four years and I came out with knowledge but no passion. And another thing for me was that from the age of 15, right the way through my university years and through to my mid-20s, I also was incredibly unwell as a teenager and had to spend about a quarter of my life in that time in hospital. So I knew what awful food was like in NHS hospitals. That's not me knocking the NHS, you know, private hospitals are no different, but food was never the thing that I looked forward to in my recovery and my mom was the first one to bring flasks of soup. So I also knew what it was like to be a patient. So it's really been a combination of passion of food, medical knowledge and also knowing that I wanted to do things differently that's brought me to this place.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I I love the the start of that story, uh, with the crumpets. I can almost smell them myself actually with those memories. I mean, I I used to love crumpets when I was a kid as well and like jams and my mom would always make like weird and wonderful concoctions. I mean, she still does. She still makes pickles and jams and all that kind of stuff. Um, but I think it it's interesting where people who are in this space come from a foodie background, like that real love of food. And you can really tell in the writings and the recipes and everything else because that's kind of like it's flavour first and then there's functional benefits as well. And I think that's why what we'll get into a little bit later with regard to your your functional products, but how important that is to to get through because it's more than just nourishment. It's actually uh, about flavour, about the pleasure of of eating as well.
Jane Clark: Yeah, it is because life is about pleasure and obviously when someone's going through a tough time, which is a big area that I concentrate on now, if you don't have flavour and you don't have that appetite, you're get you're really coming from a very tricky place. And it was when I was 25 and I was at last well enough to start crafting my career properly because I'd really pulled myself through university being incredibly unwell but but really determined. And when you're a teenager and you're unwell, you go one of two ways. You either get really sort of downtrodden by illness or you become incredibly tenacious. And I became incredibly tenacious and driven. And so I started to work with patients who are living with the cloud of HIV and AIDS. And I had a lovely choreographer called Patrick who had Kaposi's sarcoma. And that's a tumor in the mouth. And I was looking after him and I was visiting him in hospital. And Patrick had a really poor appetite. You know, often when you're going through different treatments, whether it's cancer, dementia, but for him, it was his AIDS treatment was annihilating his appetite. And what he used to love me to do was to sit on the bottom of his bed and talk about the meals that I'd eaten. And I said, Patrick, isn't that torture for you? And he said, no, because the way that you talk about food just makes me believe that I will be able to eat again. And so I used to do that. So whether it was, you know, just a simple soup or something. So we would talk about food and then it would just tempt his appetite. And then towards the end of his life and actually at the very end of his life, I asked him what he would love me to bring for him. And he said, I'd love a punnet of strawberries. I'd love one of my last memories to be a beautiful English strawberry. And so I bought the strawberries in. And so we shared that lovely moment. He could hardly manage a mouthful, but just the smell, the taste on his lips was something that was shared and there were no words. It was that pure connectivity. And then I was disciplined by the hospital and they said, you shouldn't have bought something in from home. He's at risk. You know, and of course, we know when someone's vulnerable, we have to take risk very seriously. But at the end of the day, I said it was a risk. And this life's his life was more important to share that moment. And I just thought, I've got to do things differently. You know, we are going down a real rabbit warren if we're prioritizing something going through and a processing versus the emotional connection with someone. And that's everything that I stand for.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. That that resonates with me quite a lot. I mean, working in quite a process-driven system where you're bound by rules and you're not really encouraged to think for yourself or step outside of those. It's tough for people who have that natural tenacity and that natural sort of, you know, drive to want to do things different to bend over backwards for people to, you know, ensure people are that that very story, um, you know, describes so beautifully. Uh, it it's tough for people like us.
Jane Clark: Yeah, it is. Yeah, because you're you're right up against an establishment, a way of doing things. And you know, I've written the book Nourish, but that's my ninth book. And my first book, I I almost dedicated to my university professor. You know, had they not said that I couldn't do it, I would never have done it. You know, everything that I've done and my honorary doctorate was given, I'm just thinking, I've done what I've done because you said I couldn't. And just, you know, I'm a red rag to a bull, but you have to have amazing tenacity and courage because also as a writer, as a fellow writer, we know when we start hitting hard certain areas of the food industry, boy, you can be under threat. You know, another example of that was when I did the big school meals campaign with Jamie. And he I struck a friendship with him when Jamie wrote his second book. Imagine how long ago that was. And he's he came and found me and said, I gather you're a food loving nutritionist. And I said, yes, I am. He said, wow. He said, you know, they're normally sort of either diet sheets or wheat grass juice and alfalfa sprouts and here you are having a little cheese souffle or a, you know, a little panacotta or something. And I so we struck up a friendship and when Jamie said that he wanted to take on the school industry, the food that was being served to our children, I said, you're going to have to have some guts for this one because you're going to poke the beast. And he said, talking of which, he said, what are you up to in the next few years of your life? So I was Jamie's battering ram. And he I actually got death threats delivered by a certain well-known Twizzler manufacturer. And they said, if you don't start stop knocking our Twizzlers, basically they'll knock me off. And I just thought, and that was delivered to my home.
Dr Rupy: That's
Jane Clark: It was a letter and I just thought, we're making a difference. And if anyone thinks that the politics of food is any less scary than the alcohol industry, the tobacco industry, armaments, it is big time. So you have to have guts. So luckily I I grew my gray hairs early on in life, so no one can really tell whether it's having an impact or not.
Dr Rupy: It sounds like you had some uh, you got some battle scars that have definitely probably put you in better stead today so you can take on new challenges, but still that that's got to have been scary. I mean, how are you dealing with that stress at the time? I mean, I'm sure you had some support from from Jamie himself and and the organization, but that I mean, that that's really bad.
Jane Clark: Yeah. It is. It is. It was very scary and I I drew my comfort from the simple things in life, like going back to mom and dad, you know, whether it was just stopping and having a meal or going for a walk. I lived in London at that time. And I think the greatest thing that I can ever recall myself is turning off tech and just going and earthing. And music is a big passion for me. So I played the piano and violin from an early age. So for me again, just escaping and just taking it out on the piano or playing the violin was the way that I could just keep going.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I I want to try and keep some chronology to our discussion because you've done so many different things and I can imagine it's going to get a bit confusing for myself and the listener. So you you mentioned earlier that you were um, you had some health issues in your in your teens, is that right?
Jane Clark: Yeah.
Dr Rupy: Can you elaborate a bit more on that?
Jane Clark: Yes, I'm happy to. I had really bad endometriosis. So much so that um, it would the endometrium, which we know is the cells outside the womb, obstructed my bowel. So I would obstruct every month. So, um, I was having to take incredibly heavy painkillers and they annihilated my appetite and the extreme pain was just, um, I was on morphine-based drugs, you know, for years and years off and on. And again, they have an impact on the body. So, but I was determined that I wouldn't let that define me. And I had probably about 15 surgeries to try and sort it out, um, because I was desperate to be a mom. And so they kept on saying to me, the only thing we can do is just to have a hysterectomy. And I was, you know, I was 20, I was 22, and to consider that was an enormous thing. But then I got to the age of 25 and it was a defining moment when I was in hospital. I was acutely obstructed and I was on nil by mouth and my dad came to see me and I was high as a kite on morphine and unable to eat anything. And he sat on the bottom of my bed and he burst into tears and it was seeing my dad just show that emotion and I realised I couldn't go on any longer in the way that I was. So I had my major surgery, had the hysterectomy, um, and then went backpacking in Thailand and went and got my love of food back and got bought a new story back. And that's something I work very hard with my patients on is because I never ever wanted to be defined as someone that was unwell. And that's a big thing that I try and carry through every bit of work, even if you're unwell, don't tilt your head, don't treat someone just as if they've got no voice. And so I went and found my voice and then set up my practice. So a lot of my experiences as a teenager and early 20s have driven me to do what I do.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, that's amazing. Um, again, I think similar stories that I hear from people in this industry comes from either personal or very close family issues that have inspired them to look at things differently. Um, I know my own issues with my heart condition when I first became a junior doctor over 12 years ago now, uh, actually no, it's 13 years ago, wow. Uh, that gave me the experience of being a patient and the simple things that we take for granted as medics. And it was it was a real transformative moment for me actually, because just three months earlier, before being admitted into the medical assessment unit and being, you know, stays overnight and all the electrophysiology studies and everything else, I was walking into the wards, swinging around my stethoscope, having a chat with all the consultants and nurses, feeling like, you know, I've made it. I've, you know, done six years of med school and I know what I'm doing. And then all of a sudden, bam, I'm in the patient bed myself and I'm next to other patients and I can understand and feel that vulnerability and that embarrassment of being a patient. And no matter how much we try and empathize with people, it's very hard to understand that without going through it, going through it yourself. Um, so yeah, that that that I I feel in your story must have been incredibly powerful. And I'm so, you know, the way you've kept that through, uh, your your private consults as well and what's what has essentially inspired you to do more, um, I mean, it it it says it says itself, I guess, isn't it? In terms of, um, what you've done thus far.
Jane Clark: Yeah, and I think it's rather like there's a lovely quote about friendship is a true friend is someone who asks how you are and waits for the answer. And I think we could do an enormous campaign within the healthcare professionals to say that, you know, ask how a patient is, but don't then go on to the advice or the prescription or the diet sheet or because I was told off again for just talking to patients for too long.
Dr Rupy: Really?
Jane Clark: And I said, if you, yeah.
Dr Rupy: Oh my god.
Jane Clark: And that was way back, you know, we're going back many years. And I just said, if you don't listen, how are you going to be able to help? Because it's and actually that's something I feel that we've lost over the last couple of years in I've been incredibly lucky to be able to still support my patients and the demand is huge now for people to know what how can they help themselves, they can help a friend. But I've always thought that and it was a conversation actually with our mutual friend Prue when we were sitting around having supper at hers one evening and we're having one of those great debates of the challenges in the NHS and doctors don't have enough time and you know, no one has enough time. And I actually just said it. I just said, actually, I don't agree. I said it takes no less time or no more time to listen for a few seconds because it's that thing when I've been seeing people in face to face, which is what we've lost, it's that throwaway comment as they leave the door the room or that slight look that they give you and it's that it's being in tune with that. And I'm not saying that we all have to spend an hour seeing a patient. Our systems can't cope with that, but just stop and listen. And I think the way that we have lost that way to communicate with people to me is one of the most damaging areas of healthcare that we've lost. If we got that back, and we know I've got a friend going through her cancer treatment at the moment, it's about that communication. It's about communication of information, which if we get it right, it's really right. And if you get it wrong, we're we're we're sliding down a slope. So I've always tried to think as you did, you know, what, how did I feel as a patient? How did that vulnerability affect me? And if we can listen as practitioners, that's one of the greatest things you can do.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. It's it's an unpopular uh, opinion, I think that we do have the time to do those little things. If you think about it from the reverse, you can really ruin a patient experience by saying the odd comment, you know, the the I I discussed this actually with um, uh, Dr. Deepak Ravindran, who is a pain consultant. And he said one of the worst things that uh, a GP or an orthopod can say to a patient about their osteoarthritis x-ray of their knee is that your your knee joint is bone on bone because it gives this visceral picture to the patient that, oh my god, it's literally pushing on each other and no wonder I'm in this much pain. And it actually heightens that pain experience. So a simple thing like that can have a negative effect. I I certainly believe in as little as it takes to say that, it can have a converse positive effect as well. So, you know, there are little hacks and tricks that we can do within the constrained patient consultation to actually have a a massive benefit. So yeah, it is an unpopular belief because I think as medics, and I've definitely gone through that myself, you know, we can look at this through one lens, which is the the poor time, uh, the lack of staff, the lack of funds, etc, etc. But we can we we are resilient through different means as well.
Jane Clark: Yeah, and I and I deeply respect that place that so many of us are in. Um, but I just also think that as you say, those simple things, just stepping back for a second. And it was actually, it's my dad, he taught me when I was 13, he taught me chemistry at the same, I was at the school where both my parents taught. My mom was a music teacher and my dad was a chemistry teacher. And dad who sadly passed at the end of last year, he he lived around the corner from where he used to teach and it was beautiful to see so many pupils just knew my dad for the man who would just stop and think before he answered. And as a teacher, you know, that was something and sometimes I just taking that second. So it's but everyone, you know, is also I think a practitioner, another element of it is that you're a bit like a chameleon. So you just have to be that person in that psyche, in that space that your patient needs you to be. You know, if I'm thinking back from Patrick the choreographer, right the way through to a young mom who's just had a diagnosis of early stage breast cancer, right the way through to a city exec who's sort of got a high cholesterol, you know, you have to, you'll hear in my voice through the voice changes according to how you have to be. And I think again, just knowing those subtleties of of communication and but I starting point going back to food, I often ask at the beginning of a consultation or is for a patient, what's your favourite food? And it normally completely throws them because they think I'm going to come on and go, right, you mustn't have X, Y and Z and I'm going, yeah, but what what do you really love to eat? And it's oh,
Dr Rupy: it's all be going from this place. So, so back to your story. So, um, you you've had your major procedure, um, you've headed off to Thailand, you've, you know, reinvigorated your love of food. Um, what what's next on uh, on on Jane's journey? What what happened there after?
Jane Clark: So I came back, set up my practice, which was in Chelsea. This is one of the first private practices in the UK, is that right?
Dr Rupy: Yes, it was. It was the first private dietetic practice and it was in a lovely street just off King's Road and it was a beautiful house and I couldn't afford to have a flat in London as well as a consultation room. And also because I I was determined that it would have lovely squishy sofas and nice big bowls of fruit and nice curtains and things. So it was a perfect place and I'd not realised and it was only when I was given my doctorate a couple of years ago, um, and my parents were both able to be at the ceremony and I was giving my acceptance speech and said, you know, it was when I was sleeping on the floor of my practice. And I saw my mom just go, hang on, because I couldn't afford rent and for six months, so I slept on the floor of my practice, created the practice, set myself the goal of by the age of 30, I would write my first book. I'm always goal driven. Um, so I wrote my first book, that was a best seller and then the Observer Guardian came after me and said, we want you to write about health alongside Nigel Slater. What a blissful job that one is. Uh, so I very happily wrote for the Observer and Guardian for a few years with the wonderful Alan Jenkins. And then the Times launched Body and Soul. It was a fantastic health section, so they took me over there and then on Sunday and then went back to the Times because they were struggling. And then Paul Daker came after me and he said, we want you to write for the Daily Mail. And love it or hate it, it had and still has an amazing presence. And Paul came after me and I actually I was the only female columnist who had a twice a month meeting with with Paul and you can imagine shaking, you know, knees going in. And but we had eight and a half million readers in those days. So I was a columnist. So I and continually writing books and seeing my patients and working with Jamie on his campaign and then um, the very handsome, gorgeous David Beckham came after me to help him with his football academy. That's a tough job as a woman, I can tell you. Not. Um, and so that was that was a great fun project and so I helped him with his academy and so I've been I've been really lucky that scattered throughout my 30 years of looking after patients, I I just love being creative and challenging within areas where they need to be challenged.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's incredible. And so from that, uh, private clinic that you were sleeping on the floor of, I mean, I'm sure that you weren't sleeping on the floor for much longer after that, right? I mean, especially if you've got David Beckham knocking on your door. No, I've been very lucky, but in those days, you just had to take an overdraft out and do that. So, yeah, I got my flat and yeah, it was there were but it was it was that's what was necessary.
Jane Clark: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so we mentioned the Jamie Oliver story a bit as well. How how long were you working on the school meals campaign? And I'd love your opinion on that, obviously. I mean, during COVID, we we saw some pretty horrific, um, uh, uh, examples of, uh, what would be classed as mismanagement, I guess, um, by by the government and, uh, uh, some famous footballers getting involved as well. What what was the Jamie experience like and what were the barriers that you saw? And do you think anything has changed thus far or do you think we're we're still got a long way to go before we actually see systemic change?
Dr Rupy: I think sadly we're going back, we must be going back. How old's Maya? Maya's 19. Probably going back 15 years. Yeah. When it was started and I worked with Jamie and his team for a couple of years and that was really the heyday of the project. And rather like the well-known Turkey Twizzler story, um, I'd go on Radio 5 Live and would be against or pitted against the mums who were just saying, you know, how dare you sort of criticize me for popping a burger through the the school gate for my child, you know, who do you think you are to start telling us that we're doing it wrong? And I said, firstly, we're not saying that we're doing it wrong, but we could do it better. And I think that was the it was very disruptive. We galvanized amazing gravitas in certain schools. You know, if we go back that to that time, school dinner ladies, people working in kitchens in schools were seen as the lowest of the low. Yeah. It's sadly where care home cooks and chefs are now seen, but that's something I'm changing. But in those days, you'd never have been on the BBC Good Food program, food and farming awards for a school meals dinner lady. You know, this is the legacy we've brought we've brought an amazing gravitas in certain areas. So I think we have changed it for the better, but boy, there's a long way to go and it's heartbreaking to see what is going and what is not going on in many areas. And actually during COVID, I was in touch with this a fantastic charity up in Edinburgh that supports, it's called the Spartans, and they support children and young people in very deprived areas of Edinburgh who don't have the meals to put have a meal. And we donated thousands of drinks to go up there because I said, we need to we need to make a difference. We're going through an incredibly tough time. So I think that sadly, we needed the well-known footballer to to step in and to shout again and say, in many, many areas, we are not doing it good enough. So we still need to keep pushing and pushing. But we will have made a difference to certain young people's lives way back when. So that's great because they will have seen that it makes a difference to what they put inside their bodies. So they'll be the teenagers now and they'll be the next generation of parents, but we need to do so much more.
Jane Clark: Yeah, yeah. I think listeners will know that I'm the kind of glass half full kind of guy. And I definitely look at like the Jamie Oliver story and people I don't think people realize like how a, how long ago it was and B, how few episodes, I think it was only a couple of episodes or something like that and it had that much of an impact that we're still talking about it decades on. Um, and also, you know, that sort of understanding or the appreciation that what we feed our kids in school has a massive impact on attention, on their propensity for disease and the foundation for their health going forward and why that's actually a a massive investment if you want to think about it in economic terms into our NHS as well. And that that lateral thinking is something that we really need to start doing a lot more of, particularly in a post-pandemic world. Um, but yeah, it it is obviously heartbreaking when you when you see what happens thereafter. We we actually spoke to a few uh, organizations and charities, um, last year, uh, including, um, uh, Magic Breakfast and uh, FareShare and a few other people. Yeah, they're doing some really, really good stuff and I just want to try and keep promoting them as much as possible and and and pushing that sort of agenda because otherwise, you know, it'll just fall to the wayside. But I I think that that pivotal work, uh, that long ago is still what people refer to, uh, today and I it's amazing to see and hopefully we can do the same thing with what you're working on now actually, which I think perhaps doesn't get as much attention because people who are in vulnerable situations, uh, the elderly, you know, it's not as it's not as sexy if I'm being frank.
Dr Rupy: No. And it's and it's not just the elderly too. Yeah. I think there have been some amazing stories over the last couple of years to highlight the fact that there are a lot of children, teenagers in care settings that deserve better. So, and I think going just going back briefly to the what Jamie and what the school meals project did is that it ignited people power. And that's incredibly powerful. And that's what I'm trying to do with Nourish, to ignite people power because yes, we can be sitting in our board meetings, we can be having campaign meeting after campaign meeting and opinion formers and yes, that's that work is incredibly important. But equally, there's nothing like just galvanizing and empowering one person to step forward and actually to take, as my mom did with me, a flask of soup around to someone or just show that gesture of food. So and then you get that cascade. So people achieve enormous things. So for me, nourishing people who are vulnerable has to be led through people power because that's that's the way that we'll we'll change this world.
Jane Clark: Yeah, absolutely. Well, tell us a bit about the foundations for the project that you're involved in now and what your focus is right now. Have we skipped any bit after that? I know you've had such a colourful professional life. I I don't want to make sure that we haven't forgotten anything because yeah.
Dr Rupy: No, I think the I guess the the two elements probably we've skipped over which it really showed me that again that food can make an enormous difference is I adopted my daughter.
Jane Clark: Oh yes, please tell me about that. Yeah.
Dr Rupy: So yeah, so Maya having had the hysterectomy when I was 25, I I grieved and thought, you know, for me, it's my career, I can do everything and but I I didn't need to be a mom, you know, I can be fulfilled, but there was always this little nag at the back of my mind. So I decided at the age of 30 to go down the process of adopting myself. And that took me around about five years and I found my daughter Maya in India eventually. And she was five months old when I found her. And I took me another 10 months to get her back and at the age of 15 months, she weighed three and a half kilos. Wow. Which you know is birth weight for many babies over here. And my had really bad rickets and was very malnourished. And people have said, you know, gosh, she was lucky to land on the lap of a nutritionist, but in essence, I fed her as a mother. You know, I I instinctively, you know, I we formula fed for a whole year and then started the weaning process, which is something I feed back into my work now for parents who get really anxious about, but they haven't had broccoli by the age of eight months or, you know, there's, you know, there's parenting is you learn as you go along and that's what I did as a nutritionist and mom to Maya. So, you know, Maya now is 19 and a show jumper and really strong and healthy, but that showed me the difference food can make to a young child's life for me personally and also knew what a huge um, you know, that it's a really exciting part for us to craft her recovery through food. And then my dad being diagnosed with frontotemporal lobe dementia around about 12 years ago was a really tough moment for me because I knew from my clinical work that dementia is a really cruel disease and yeah, there are beautiful elements of our life that we shared through music and food. Actually, my dad had an amazing sweet tooth. So he would always when he came around for lunch would just say, right, what's for pudding before he started eating the main course. And that's something that's very common with people living with dementia. And and so I'd always tease dad and say, look, you've got to have your main course before your your pudding. Um, but for me, seeing that that element of deterioration for my dad and the way that swallowing was affected for him and for many of my patients, it took me back to what I was taught at university, which was we were taught that you just took a normal meal and bunged it in a liquidizer and served it as a mash. And I said, no way, Jose, I'm not having that for my dad. So luckily at that point, um, I I knew enough to know that as an example for swallowing, if we didn't know that the hardest thing for someone who struggles with swallowing is to actually swallow water. And you might think that's the easiest thing because the layman thinks there's nothing in a glass of water, but actually you need to make something slightly thicker to engage the muscles. So I started, you know, looking after dad through that and that's an area of education for people to know that when you're vulnerable and you have trouble swallowing, then knowing how you can influence the texture of something then can help someone nourish themselves. So for dad, I was living and breathing it as his daughter as well as always through my career. So that was that was a big driver to to set up Nourish as I have done.
Jane Clark: Mm, yeah, absolutely. And so it it sounds like, you know, from this personal experience, uh, with your father, obviously your clinical experience as well and your daughter, when did the the light bulb moment occur that you're like, you know what, I need to create a company out of this. I need to, you know, try and fulfill a a need because my experience of, uh, drinks that are used for patients who have elements of dysphagia or um, don't have the energy to to consume enough, um, uh, food to satisfy their needs is pretty dire as well. I mean, I've tried them and they're not they're not lovely at all, but they're all we have essentially, or we used to have anyway. When when was that light bulb moment?
Dr Rupy: So that was when I I'd written the book Nourish and I'd sneakily held on to electronic and digital rights and I'd set up my website with lovely Nigel Slater-esque recipes and ideas and inspiration and information. And as you say, I as a practitioner, I'd never ever recommended um, the not very nice, well, horrid drinks out there. And I thought, actually, I want to do it. I I need to now start putting the products out there that can really help support people and met up with a very dear friend of mine, Micah Cahill. Now, Micah was involved in the setup of Green and Black's chocolate with Joe Fairley and Craig Sams and I knew Micah and his taste buds are fantastic. His palette, you know, he's like the sommelier of, you know, the food world really. And we met up in those good old days when, well, now thankfully we can re-meet, but we met up at St Pancras station and I said, Micah, I'd love to create a drink that has all the lovely ingredients within it, but also from the packaging, it looks inspiring and looks beautiful and with dignity because for me, I never wanted for my dad to be a sort of a horrible plastic bottle with a, you know, a purple lid and something that I wasn't proud of. And also, if you look at the list of the ingredients, it just scares the living daylights out of you. And I just said, we've got to do something that's really natural, has organic ingredients, but tastes lovely because going back to the Auntie May days, if you can ignite someone's taste buds, you've got a chance of being able to support someone nutritionally. So he helped me create the drinks and we had to fight really hard for it and we're still fighting because you're you're going up away against a wave of um, it's been done before, you know, this is how we've always done it. We've always just had those drinks out there and I'm going, but you can do it differently. So, you know, we had to, I had to cajole my food manufacturer, you know, if you as an example, if you created a drink and you had to do a test run, it normally would cost you about 6,000 pounds to do a test run. Ours was 36,000 pounds to do a test run. Because and I wanted, you know, the best Alphonso mangoes, I wanted my Auntie May best raspberries and I was just going, so I had to convince my investors to say, yes, because that's what I would want. I certainly wanted it for my dad and that was really beautiful towards the end of his life to be able to just share those little, he loved his chocolate drink. And for me, I thought, I've got nothing to lose and everything to gain because I'd, you know, I'd fought the Turkey Twizzlers and the the legislative people and just thinking, right, you know, I'm going to now start taking on this whole world of when you're vulnerable and you're struggling to get calories, nutrients inside your body, we can do it much better.
Jane Clark: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like, I I remember those purple, I mean, they're still exist, you know, the the Fortisips and the Enshores of the world. I I know you probably can't say the words, but I can because it's my podcast. Um, but they are terrible, like really disgusting, you know, I've tried a whole bunch of them and I remember I used to lament when I had to suggest them to patients on the ward as well because they, you know, I wouldn't have it myself and I wouldn't want my my parents to have it either, anyone I love one. So the fact that you, you know, have have created a product is amazing. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about that entrepreneurial journey because a lot of people who listen to the podcast are really interested in their own ideas or perhaps they've had their own personal experience and they they don't know where to start. So with your with your contacts, obviously you had Mika, who's sounds amazing. Um, where when did you actually start the process of, okay, investing your own money and then getting other investors on board and then actually that process of, okay, okay, this is my business plan, this is what I want to try and achieve. Like and and have you always been that sort of entrepreneurial minded? I guess, you know, from running your own clinic, you know what it's like to run a business.
Dr Rupy: Yes, I've always had that, uh, that goal to yes, I set up my practice, so I knew what it was like to sort of run an overdraft and start to sort of craft what does success look like in five years. So I when I created the drink, I, yeah, invested all my own money, took the risks. Luckily, it was just me and Maya, so and my practice was able to support me whilst I was investing in the um, the seed stage of my business. And I met a really lovely man, we're going probably what, five years ago now, who was really struggling with his eating. And he became a friend and I told him what I was up to and he said, I'll invest 100,000 pounds. And I said, what? And I he said, yeah, I'll do it. You know, what you're about to do is amazing. And so that started me, you know, on that sort of, right, someone else's and he actually did that without with a very loose business plan. You know, it was just and I do still see that now if I can get in front of someone, you rather like I do with a patient, you just talk to them and listen to them and see where they're coming from. And tragically, loads of people have been touched by the conditions that we now deal with with Nourish so that there's always someone in somewhere in someone's story that they see rather like you and me that we know what bad looks like. So I've been very lucky that then after my seed investor, I cajoled, um, a group of management consultants to help me with the business plan. Um, I actually had been on sort of an enterprise allowance scheme, uh, course when I was living in Nottingham as a teenager and knew, there was a fantastic guy called Gordon McKenzie who taught me how to write a business plan, but I needed a a really high, you know, I needed a proper business plan to then go after the hundreds of thousands of pounds which I've had to go after. And actually through Jillian who works for me, she used to work for one of my patients and he sadly passed from cancer. And I met Jillian actually at a ballet class. And she said, oh, you're Jane Clark, aren't you? And I said, yeah, I am. And she said, well, you know, our mutual contact has passed away and I wondered, you know, and we started working together, which was really great. And then she introduced me to people that would be interested because of everything that she'd seen her boss go through. So I've been lucky that I've had private individuals who have really wanted to champion what we're doing with Nourish. And then I did a small crowdfund during um, the pandemic, the lockdown of last year. And actually we now we're going to go for big investment because it's a really exciting time to be to really now start making a big difference in a big way.
Jane Clark: Absolutely. So it's I'd say that and actually I'm I'm talking next week about how to be a female founder and I there's one image that I'm just going to put up to start off with and it's an image of a swan because you the swan is on the top but the legs have to kick hard underneath because it's it's it's really hard, you know, it's without getting too much on the female founder, but actually again, that's played through in my professional life, you know, as a a female in a very, it was male dominated medical world. Thankfully now it's changing. Um, but you also have to fight hard to to pull the business through and to to also protect the values that I hold really dear. So, you know, we only ever use organic ingredients. We actually deliver to people's doors, which is one thing I was adamant about because and I never wanted to come across as critical of medics and timings, but getting access to GPs, getting access to prescriptions, advice, all of that side, I wanted to be able to get nourished drinks to someone's doorstep because and it's DPD next day delivery because if someone's struggling with their appetite or needing that extra nourishment, they don't need it in four weeks time when they can get an appointment, they need it now. And also not being able to get out to the shops. So I've always so now what I've loved is that the nourished boxes arrive on someone's doorstep and I want to build up that content, that sort of newsletter, that tactile, going back to my good old Daily Mail days when we had eight and a half million readers of print, you know, if you're going through a tough time, you don't actually want to spend all all the time online. You actually want something tangible. So we'll be doing newsletters and papers and and that side of things. Again, so for me, Nourish is an element of that tactile, that sensory, but actually tackling a really serious issue, which is undernourishment.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. I I mean, I love hearing about because I'm I'm obviously interested in entrepreneurship and business, but I I'm particularly interested in businesses with purpose who are in the health and wellness sphere and are founded by experts, people who have that experience, that that tangible, um, uh, experience of of working with patients that can essentially weave through whatever products or services that they're creating like yours, for example. And I also think about this through the lens of, okay, what is the goal of the product itself? So, you know, Nourish comes across as something that is so needed, like, you know, it's something that every medic, every person within healthcare knows instantly, ah, yes, those things that we really need to like improve. What what are the wider aspirations of the brand? Um, where else do you think there is a need, uh, to improve the the nutrition elements that you can essentially address next after the, um, the the fortified drinks?
Jane Clark: I think the next, certainly the next five years of my life are going to be really accessing everyone who's going through a tough time with nourishment. So that whether that's a teenager, that's a young mom, that's someone who's in a care setting, that's someone who's isolated, not being cared for at home. You know, there are millions of people in this country and beyond. You know, we will go international because also we know in certain many, many countries, again, the chemical led way of dealing with undernourishment has been the only way that they've seen that it's possible. So I've definitely got international aspirations with that and we've had approaches for that, which is really exciting. And then of course, there are going into savory products and different things that um, can really again, with those touch points of natural organic, you know, we we we've got a lovely pipeline in the workings because I don't just stop at a drink. You know, it's when someone is struggling with nourishment, they need so many different products to inspire them and and also you know, if we go back to my mom bringing in soup, you know, I I've had so many patients in hospital over the years that I just say to their friend, just take in a lovely flask of soup. You know, we go back to the traditional Jewish soup of chicken soup. We know that evocative side. And actually that was something I because I still see patients because I love it. I I really love that minute when you just can see someone's eyes just light up and I had a patient actually the day before yesterday and he's going through his cancer treatment and he as we both know, when you're going through cancer treatment, the treatment, particularly chemotherapy attacks your rapidly dividing cells. So you often get diarrhea and you can't hold on to much food. And he's using the drinks, which is amazing. But also I said, look, having something warm and easy to digest like a lovely soup is better for you than having one of your juices that friends might have said, oh, you need to be juicing. You need to be getting all these sort of carrots and alfalfa sprouts and beetroot into your system. Well, if you put that inside someone who's going through chemotherapy, you've got a cascade and so you lose all the nourishment. So again, just that that light bulb moment of one patient just saying actually something like a traditional chicken soup with every fresh ginger and loads of fresh herbs in it can just soothe the gut and that means you're not on the loo all the time and it means then you can hold on to the nourishment. So there's so many different products that we will go into, but one step at a time. That's what I still try to tell myself every morning.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I I I know I I the feeling's mutual definitely because you just want to do so many things because you know like how many issues there are and how you can fix things and you know, you you just got to sort of pace yourself, I guess, haven't you? With uh, with all these ideas. Um, I I wanted to ask you just to close, um, about the the the current state of nutrition within the NHS. Obviously, everyone knows that there are issues there. There are some quite interesting developments with the hospital food review that Prue was involved in, um, uh, the public sector catering conferences that are quite bullish on the ideas of chefs being trained alongside nutritionists and you know, providing, um, uh, choice. It seems like there is some energy and that the workforce are becoming galvanized with, um, with ways in which they can improve nutrition. What what are your thoughts on that? Are you are you positive about it or do you do you think we've got quite a long way to go before we actually see systemic change?
Jane Clark: Like you, I've always been a glass is half full kind of girl. So and I wouldn't have got to where I've got to if I was the opposite way, you know. So I think that having gone through the brutality as we have done for the last couple of years, I do think now we have a golden opportunity to and I do think we'll get there because there are some amazingly driven people who have also made the conscious decision, whether it's through loss of a loved one or a friend and seen what bad looked like, that they actually now want to really make a big difference. So I do think within the NHS and going also to the care setting that if we can educate chefs, also give them that connection, that community to know that they're not isolated within a care home kitchen. And there are some, you know, amazing pioneers that politically really stamping their feet. And let's be really honest, before the pandemic, no one talked about care homes. Yeah. Or if they did, it was in a really dismissive, yet all of a sudden, we're all caring about them, you know, they were there before and we were incredibly lucky with dad's care home because he came to the stage where he couldn't be supported in the way that we wanted him to be supported. And he went into the care home for the end of his life. And he ended up being there just a few months and for me, we were really lucky that the care home allowed us to go and be by his side for the last couple of weeks of his life to sleep alongside him taking turns and to bring in the food to to show him love and affection through the ways that we wanted to. And for me, that's we can really shout from the rooftops and say there are amazing care homes out there. So I do believe we will get there because now we've got a golden opportunity to do so and so let's just do it.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. You're such an inspiration, Jane. And it's so wonderful to hear about your journey and your stories and what you're up to now and how you're just really not, you're not losing any pace or energy. So it's great. It's uh, it's super inspirational. I'm sure a lot of listeners will will really uh, appreciate you sharing so much today.
Jane Clark: Well, it's been lovely to do it and actually it's just it's like, you know, it's a kindred soul, so it's great to talk it through.
