Michelle Garrett-Williams, who runs a plant-based catering business ‘Be Nourished’ from Port Erin, has released a book titled ‘Kiss! Plant-Based Eating and Kick Starter Recipes’.
The new book offers guidance on how readers can keep themselves motivated and interested in a plant-based diet, as well as offering a number of ‘starter’ recipes alongside illustrations and pictures.
Michelle’s catering business ‘Be Nourished’ has seen her host plant-based cooking and catering classes.
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She also ran a mobile catering trailer selling healthy take-away food between March 2023 and March 2024.
‘People are genuinely interested and curious about what and how I eat, and over and again the comment I hear most is “I’d love to eat more plant-based but I don’t know where to start”.
‘With this in mind, I wanted to create an easy-to-understand way for people to eat the way they wanted to.
‘This was floating around my mind for a good few months before I finally got started; the “food heart” came first, following a doodling accident at work!
‘This is shown throughout the book and is super easy to understand, giving you an instant visual aid of how to construct your daily plant-based plate. From this, I then wrote KISS! to expand on the food heart and how to use it.’
The ‘food heart’ consists of words brought together in the shape of a heart, and includes foods such as raw salad, non-starchy vegetables and greens, berries, fruits, nuts and seeds.
The book has taken Michelle four years to complete, which included an ‘arduous’ nine-month process of transferring a plain word document into a fully designed book ready to send out to publishers.
Discussing the writing of the book, Michelle said: ‘It was a joy. Once I got the first paragraph on paper, it pretty much flowed. In fact, you could say it became my obsession!
‘I literally ate, slept and dreamt it. Constantly on my mind, I carried a notebook and laptop with me everywhere and, whenever inspiration hit me, I would jot it down in my notebook.
‘Adding in the recipes was hard work. It pushed me to my limits but ultimately it was worth following through on - now my readers can dive straight in using the shopping and pantry guides together with the recipes, to create some easy and super delicious meals in an instant.
‘Creating new recipes is something I love doing and a lot of the recipes in the book are created by me and have been served up at my catering trailer. They’ve been tried, tested and approved already.
‘My personal favourite recipe is the chocolate avocado with peanut mousse cake in the dessert section. It looks naughty! But, due to the ingredients that I use, and those that I don’t, it’s a “healthy cake” and guilt free.’
After sending the book out to publishers, Michelle eventually secured a partnership with PYP (Publish Your Purpose).
The publishers’ only work with authors who write factual pieces and that have a ‘purpose’ - something that serves to help other people. Although the PYP website specified that they didn’t publish recipe books, they made an exception with Michelle due to the guidance the book offered.
She added: ‘I made the right choice with PYP, as they’ve been an incredible support to me throughout. Now we are finally published, the journey just begins.
‘My contract with PYP is lifelong and continues after the book launches. There’s still a lot to do and I plan to write more books in the future.’
The book is now on sale at the Good Health Store in Port Erin, while it is also available online by visiting www.benourished.im/product-page/kiss-it-to-plant-based-eating