Mood Food: Jack Monroe and Kimberley Wilson
Channel: British Library
Date: 2020-10-11

Jack Monroe has transformed debates about food, poverty, mental health and more in the UK since her breakthrough Cooking on a Bootstrap blog. Now she is one of our most popular food writers, but still offering a very personal take on modern life. Monroe talks to Kimberley Wilson, a chartered psychologist whose work looks at the role food and lifestyle plays in our mental health, including disordered eating, the gut-brain axis and our emotional relationship with food. Guardian writer Zoe Williams chairs this frank and informative event about food, diet and mental health.

Speakers
Jack Monroe is a food writer and anti-poverty campaigner. Jack started writing her blog, A Girl Called Jack, in February 2012, in response to a local councillor who claimed that ‘druggies, drunks and single mums are ruining the High Street.’ What started as a local politics blog developed into budget food and recipes, which were picked up with interest by the national press as she detailed living with her son on a food budget of just £10 a week. Her new book Good Food for Bad Days came out in May 2020 and brings together seventy-five comforting and affordable recipes to make when you’re low in spirits.

Jack is an active campaigner, fronting a petition with Unite, The Trussell Trust and The Mirror demanding politicians debate the causes of foodbank use and hunger in Britain. Jack is an out lesbian woman, and in 2014 was listed in The Independent On Sunday’s Pink List at number 19.

Kimberley Wilson is a chartered psychologist and visiting lecturer working in private practice in central London. She is a governor of the Tavistock & Portman NHS Mental Health Trust and the former chair of the British Psychological Society's Training Committee in Counselling Psychology. She has just published her first book, How to Build a Healthy Brain. Kimberley's philosophy of Whole Body Mental Health is a comprehensive approach to mental health care; integrating evidence-based nutrition and lifestyle factors with psychological therapy. A former finalist on the Great British Bake Off and an award-winning food producer with training in nutrition, Kimberley's work looks at the role food and lifestyle plays in our mental health, including disordered eating, the gut-brain axis and our emotional relationship with food.

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