About Elisabeth Winkler

That’s me above – thanks to Paul Norris for great pic.

My beloved blog was shortlisted for the Guild of Food Writers 2009 awards. Joy.

I am food editor for The Source , the green magazine for the UK’s South West.

Here is my mini CV. I am a journalist and editor, passionate about progressive messages.

I started as a freelance journalist writing about natural childbirth in 1985 in Parents magazine.

I was a National Childbirth Trust teacher, using Active Birth yoga postures and breathing, and inspired by Spiritual Midwifery author, Ina May Gaskin, and water birth obstetrician, Michel Odent. There are parallels between trusting the body to give birth and trusting nature to give food.

1980s and 1990s, I was published in all the UK’s broadsheets and most of its women’s magazines. I wrote about survivors of genocide for the Mail on Sunday; abandoning a baby for Best; the lives of Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre in Marie Claire and interviewed Boy George for The Sunday Times Magazine.

In 2000, I had a weekly green political column in the Bristol Evening Post called Earthmother.

From 2001 to 2008, I was editor of Living Earth, the Soil Association’s magazine. Until May 2009, editor of Mother Earth. I am steeped in organic history and its wise principles.

I launched the charity’s page on Facebook in March 2008.

A compulsive communicator, Web 2 compels me.  I am a digital party-animal.

I am dreaming of building an online resource by and for the people who eat and farm real local and organic food.

I am a member of the British Society of Magazine Editors, the Guild of Food Writers, and the National Union of Journalists.

What do I mean by real food? As close to nature as it can get. I want mine grown organically – without chemicals and with respect, and as close to my home as possible. And wholefoody and unprocessed too, please.

Food is a brilliant way to do your bit for the planet – and get more healthy.

How we eat – organic, seasonal and local – is crucial to our green future.

We need to move away from the centralised food system of supermarkets and back to growing and trading organic food locally. This way we improve local economies, support small farmers, create community, get fresher food, cut down on food miles and make our food supplies more secure. What’s there not to like?

I have a delicate digestion so I like eating mostly plant foods including grains and pulses with occasional dairy and/or flesh. I am allergic to tomatoes and do not get on with green or red bell peppers.

When I was teenage hippy, I learned how food was linked to health. Science has since caught up and agrees.

Aged 15, I used to hang out in Seed, Craig and Gregory Sams‘ legendary macrobiotic restaurant. I remain a closet-macrobiotic ever since.

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