Last week my friend and I stayed at the Billabong Retreat and participated in the Wellness Essentials retreat. An aspect of the Wellness Essentials retreat we enjoyed at the Billabong, in addition to the twice daily yoga sessions in a bush setting, was the food that Executive Chef and Head of Wholefood Education, Simon Favourito cooked up every meal and his nutrition workshop. I thought it was worth writing about it in a separate article as we really got value out of Simon’s workshop.
We found Simon’s workshop informative and well balanced, in the sense he didn’t preach that eating certain foods will do such and such to your body but disclosed upfront the different schools of thoughts and explained what and why he believed certain foods were beneficial for you. The workshop gave us an invaluable insight as to how Simon approaches food and why and tips to integrate wholefoods in your diet.
Simon told us his story. “Growing up I had some challenges. I was the overweight kid at school, I had really bad skin, I had low self-esteem … then I spent some time with my dad, who came from the coast of Sicily and also wholefood chef. He only works with wholefoods, not because he thought it was trendy but because that was the way he was brought up. Whatever was growing on the island that’s what he would use, If it wasn’t in season, he wouldn’t eat it.”
After spending time with his dad, Simon said to us “My life was different in many ways: I started to feel better, I started to think clearer, my skin cleared up and I felt stronger. I lost weight and girls started to notice me and realised there was something in this ‘wholefood’ thing.”
“As a chef, I started to look at food as medicine and the way people use to live really appealed to me, old culture and tribes, eating real food and using it as medicine and how they saw the effects of it.”
“Food as whole is the most important thing we can start and continue to learn about”, Simon says to us at the workshop. “We share it with friends and family, it’s something that binds us to a community, it nourishes us at all levels, it’s something used to heal ourselves, it tastes good, smells great, its entertaining, it’s artistic and therapeutic.”
In Simon’s nutrition workshop, I learnt that hemp seeds is the new ‘rockstar’ in the wholefood scene as it provides protein, high amount of magnesium, nature’s sedative: it relaxes your muscles. He advised us that they are essential fatty acids food for neurological function and joints. It is said they have the perfect ratio recommended for humans built in it for the best function. You can buy them at Woolworths and Coles now but you can get it from Lariese who grow them in Canada and they sell good quality hemp seeds. Simon was spiking our food with hemp seeds like salads, muesli on our meals throughout our stay. Simon told us they are also alkalising, the state of body ideally we should be in because most diseases and inflammation flourish in acidic environments such as toxins and stress that create that environment.
I also learnt nutritional yeast is also the new ‘in thing’ in the wholefood scene. It is essentially a yeast grown using molasses. It’s heated up and bacteria is killed and you’re left with a nutritionally dense inactive yeast. You can’t bake with it. It is complete protein and very high in B vitamins, which are good for you particularly B12 big one, which contributes to things like neurological function, sleeping anxiety. Simon told us that a large population is B12 sufficient.
Every meal, which was plant based, at the Billabong Retreat was something I really looked forward to after our first night at the Billabong Retreat. It was communal and the food was served in buffet style in a small dining area. There was a wonderful selection of vegetarian meals throughout my stay. For example, for dinner one night, we had: sweet potatoes and red lentil dhal with lime, ginger and turmeric spices; basmati rice with quinoa cooked in a turmeric ginger stock; baby spinach with zucchini salad with a lemon and nutritional yeast dressing; house pickled cabbage beetroot; toasted sesame, fresh chilli oil and homemade coconut cream on top and for dessert strawberry banana sorbet with a raw cacao sauce with blueberry coconut cream spiced coconut almond crumble on top. Mouthwatering just writing it!
Get to know Simon in 5 minutes
- Your ideal food day?
To be completely honest, I can’t ever decide as I feel every food and meal can be amazing in its own way and in the perfect situation. On a cold and rainy day I could be enjoying braised beans and thick, crusty sourdough with marinated olives and chilli for breakfast, rich slow- cooked curry with starchy, grounding vegetables & spicy pickles for lunch or dinner, and hot cacao, herbal tea and elixirs throughout the day. While on a warm summers day I can easily feel as satiated with papayas filled with coconut chia pudding and berries, vibrant cold pressed juices and fresh zucchini noodles tossed in loads of herbs, zesty pesto w’ toasted nuts etc.
- Go to recipe for home?
About 6 years ago I was faced with a situation that led me to decide not to use recipes again to expand my creativity and approach to food. So I tend to see them up as I go along. However, if I must offer a go-to recipe, it would be for a Vanilla-Spiced Hot Chocolate. It’s filled with a loads of special ingredients and spices and tastes amazing without the guilt attached. It also has some medicinal mushrooms to add as an option to turn this already healthy hot chocolate into an immune building super elixir! You can find it on my recent Instagram post here:
- What’s always in your fridge?
Having an abundance of fresh ingredients is a must. It allows me to easily create whenever ‘inspiration’ or ‘hungry’ comes calling. Also, whatever herbs are in season; basil, parsley, coriander, mint etc. You can never have enough herbs – they are so good for any type of cooking, making pesto, sauces or simply to use fresh. Other foods are fresh seasonal leaves like spinach, chard or flat leaf rocket. Some type of fermented vegetable (sauerkraut, kimchi, coconut yoghurt etc.) Hemp seeds, lemons and other citrus like limes or ruby red grapefruits. A few starchy, grounding vegetables like purple or orange sweet potatoes, taro, and carrots along with fresh ginger root. Olives and capers. There’s always olives!
- What catches my eye on a menu?
Depending on the venue, I’m often looking out for something that sounds a little different and what the chef is trying to highlight. Like the name of producer where one of their ingredients comes from, wild or locally grown ingredients and something unusual, hopefully something I have never heard of. When I see these I am in straight away!!
- Food philosophy?
I feel that eating and learning how to prepare a wholefood-based diet is one to the most important things we can do for our health, happiness, self-awareness and connection to each other and nature. The human race has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years eating wholefoods from nature that have been minimally processed, if at all. It’s only relatively recently that industrialisation has influenced the growing, processing, packaging, preservation and the introduction of ‘food like ingredients’ that aren’t anything like what we have survived and thrived on for millennia. I personally advocate eating a completely if not, predominately plant-based wholefoods diet. There are so many positive health, financial and sociological effects from embracing a diet like this.
You can go to the Billabong Retreat website for more details on Simon’s Nutrition Workshops. I did his workshop as part of Billabong’s 3 days, 2 nights Wellness Retreat program.
