My journey into food for healthcare began long before NOOT. When I was a child, my parents owned a nursing home where my mum was the matron. For its time, it was quite special — well-to-do patients, herbal baths, and even a chef. His name was Mr. Gabriel, and he was one of the first people to inspire me to cook. He was patient, generous, and endlessly skilled — his herby Yorkshire pudding still lives in my memory.
 
The food there was homely yet elevated, not the gimmicks of the 70s but timeless, classical cooking. When my parents divorced, the nursing home didn’t last, but that gave me the privilege of spending more time with my grandparents. My grandfather in Ireland grew almost everything he ate — potatoes dug straight from the soil, cabbage cut fresh, apples and strawberries picked from the garden. My grandmother in the UK, a former publican and hotelier, showed her love through food. She was warm, generous, and a wonderful cook. I like to think some of that spirit passed down to me.
 
Years later, while studying, I did a placement in hospital catering. The experience shocked me. Huge vats of gloopy gravy, grey sauces, and food that looked more like wartime rations than meals designed to help people get well. It was the opposite of everything I believed food should be.
 
For many years, healthcare wasn’t my path. I built restaurants, created free-from food for airlines, and studied for my MSc in Food Science and Nutrition. But slowly, healthcare found me again. I manufactured food for hospitals pre- and post-Covid, and consulted for a major provider. What I saw was disheartening — menus that hadn’t moved on in 30 years, focused on cost control rather than health outcomes.
Then came personal experience. I was unwell myself, on the receiving end of meals that made recovery feel harder, not easier. Later, my mum suffered a stroke and spent time in hospital and nursing care. The medical care was excellent, but the food? Bland, difficult for patients to eat, with little thought for nutrition or dexterity. In the nursing home, the issue was the same: a single supplier, one weekly delivery, and no real dietetic strategy.
 
All of this, combined with my own coeliac disease, made me determined to act. NOOT was born from the belief that food should be both delicious and nourishing — restaurant-standard meals informed by science, designed for health outcomes, and tailored to every stage of life. We bring in research on gut health, low FODMAP, keto, alkaline, and immune-supportive diets. We use nootropic ingredients to support recovery and wellbeing.
 
Food is often the highlight of a patient’s day. When you are unwell, alone, or recovering, a good meal can give comfort, dignity, and even joy. I try to humanise the people we serve by imagining them as my family or loved ones — because that’s who they are to someone.
I wholeheartedly believe that food is medicine. And with NOOT, I want to show what’s possible when care, empathy, and science meet on the plate.