Spices are powerhouses of flavour and health with the crucial benefit of being calorie and fat free. Spice Diet is a simple and healthy way to enjoy tasty food whilst also maintaining good health. This is not an invented contemporary fad; it has a strong foundation in centuries’ old knowledge and traditions. Spice Diet reveals the secrets of one of the oldest and most valued, mystically powerful food sources known to mankind, and shows how spices can have a dramatic impact on our health, lifestyle and well-being.

Spice Diet guarantees weight loss whilst allowing you to enjoy flavourful food at every meal. Western tastes are ever more receptive to spices: from traditional (cloves, cinnamon, fennel); Indian (chilli, garam masala, turmeric, coriander) and Mexican (smoked chipotle chillies); to Chinese (Szechuan, Five spice, star anise) and Middle Eastern spices (Sumac, Za’atar, Ras el-Hanout). Yet we still know very little about their history and ability to improve our diets. This book unlocks their magic, fusing traditional spice secrets with simple, modern recipes.

I was brought up eating Indian spices and home-cooked food. However, when I moved away from home, I moved away from my ’food roots’ too and was tempted by the growing proliferation of fast food. Instant food availability and the addictive effect of high fat, high salt, sugars and colours. I soon began to feel and look tired and began to put on weight. Even when I cut down on calories and felt I was eating less, I was still hungry and not managing my weight well.

Over the years I began to learn more about food and the effects of it on our health, energy levels and our weight. I realised that I wanted to eat healthily and feel full; to enjoy my food and to have a good relationship with it. But I didn’t want to eat bland, flavourless and often insipid-looking ’diet’ foods. I wanted to eat food with lots of flavour, to enjoy dishes from around the world, and share foods with my family. I discovered that when I balanced spices with healthy food my weight reduced and then stayed down.