Recipe Book offers Food for Thought

23/12/2009

A collection of well-known celebrities including South West Chef Rick Stein and Rob Rees, The Cotswold Chef, have joined forces with staff from NHS Gloucestershire to put together a unique recipe book.

The book, entitled We Cook, We Care, is being launched this week and includes a range of simple healthy recipes that will appeal to everyone. But it also has a secondary aim – to raise the profile of local charity Gloucestershire Young Carers and the work it does.

In addition to Rick Stein and Rob Rees, Allegra McEvedy, star of BBC’s Economy Gastronomy, and TV’s Dr Mark Porter have also donated recipes. The majority of the mouthwatering dishes in the book, however, have been submitted by members of staff at NHS Gloucestershire who supported the project to raise funds for Gloucestershire Young Carers when the NHS Trust chose the organisation as its first ever Charity of the Year for 2009.

While money from the sale of the recipe books will go to Gloucestershire Young Carers which supports more than 500 children and young people who have a caring responsibility for someone in their family, it is also hoped that the project will shed light on how important the issue of food preparation is to young carers.

Ele Semadeni, Acting Chief Executive of the charity says: “In the many years that our charity has been supporting young carers in Gloucestershire our team of workers have come to realise that the preparation of food is a central and extremely important issue in the lives of the young people we come into contact with.

“While many of us may look forward to preparing an evening meal, there are probably others among us who find it a chore, sometimes stressful – trying to fit it in with looking after children or working long hours.

“But for young carers the planning and preparation of a meal takes on a whole new dimension. The young carers we support include children as young as 8 right through to young adults of 24. And while most young people rush in from school ready to rush out again to a weekly club or to a friend’s house, a young carer has other thoughts in mind.

“These young people have a caring responsibility for someone in their family who is ill, disabled, experiencing mental ill health or suffering from the effects of substance misuse. When they get home from school their day truly begins as their thoughts turned to their family.”

When a group of NHS Gloucestershire staff from Sanger House, Brockworth, learned of the importance of food in the lives of young carers they decided they wanted to embark upon a project that would benefit them directly – as well as the charity that supports them.

Lucy Lea, Equality and Diversity Manager at NHS Gloucestershire, who headed up the project through to fruition, says: “We thought a recipe book might be the ideal project. We hoped it would eventually raise funds for Gloucestershire Young Carers but we also knew it could be a book easy for carers – young and old - to pick up and use every day. We wanted to fill it with simple, healthy recipes.

“We are delighted with the support we received from our colleagues at NHS Gloucestershire. We received a huge number of recipes and it was so hard to choose the most suitable ones for the book but we were helped in this process by the team at Gloucestershire Food Vision. The recipes we eventually chose are just brilliant. Then we approached some famous chefs and cooks and Rick Stein, Dr Mark Porter and Allegra McEvedy were swift to reply.

“Perpetua Press of Newent then joined our team and eventually designed and printed the fabulous book. We have funded the work with donations from NHS Gloucestershire’s choosing health budget, cash raised directly by NHS staff as well as a donation from Midcounties Co-op and now we finally have a product that we hope will benefit young carers for years to come.”

Also included in the book are recipes by three young carers themselves as well as a short paragraph about each of their situations.

Tess, 14, supports her mum Jo who suffers mental ill health – including the debilitating psychiatric condition Anorexia Nervosa.

Every mealtime brings the issue of food and nutrition into focus for Tess. She would like to encourage her mum to choose to eat but has to deal with Jo’s mood swings that can be unpredictable.

Tess admits that she finds eating healthy difficult in the absence of a good ‘role model’ but says her favourite dish is probably sausages, mash and gravy. She has included her mum’s recipe for Spaghetti Bolognese in the book.

Anyone wishing to purchase a copy of We Cook, We Care should contact Trina Roberts at Gloucestershire Young Carers on 01452 733 060 or email: trina@glosyoungcarers.org.uk.