Recipe for success | News

The Gordon Ramsay Academy is helping to support our teenage patients with diabetes.

Soraia Cabral, Paediatric Diabetes Nurse, reached out to the world-renowned chef’s cookery school to help her patients improve their relationship with food.

The Woking-based Academy is now offering patients with type 1 diabetes aged between 11 and 15 years the chance to take part in a bespoke cookery class.

Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust is the third NHS trust to work with the Academy on classes for teenage patients with diabetes, joining a programme which started in 2021 when the Academy opened.

George, aged 12 years, who took part, said: “I thoroughly enjoyed the class as it was fun and taught me how to cook some new foods.”

So far, 12 children have benefitted from the free sessions and learned to cook fajitas from scratch, including making their own tortillas.

Soraia said: “The cooking experience is great because a lot of children with type 1 diabetes have a complicated relationship with food and they feel confused and anxious about what they should eat and when.

“The sessions give our young people a better understanding of food and they also get to meet others who are facing the same challenges.”

Classes are offered on a Sunday morning once every six weeks for up to eight young chefs in the making. The recipes are designed to be approachable to all confidence levels, focussing on rediscovering the ‘fun’ in patients’ relationships with food.

The classes have inspired some of the participants to go on and take other cooking classes offered by the Academy, which runs a wide-ranging programme of cooking classes for all ages (from 6+) and abilities.