HONEY,* I THE CELEBS!
The Charles aide who became a ‘green goo’ guru... and now has an army of slimline stars addicted to her recipes
TO SOME she’s the queen of ‘green goo’, the sort of modish food expert whose spiralised squash, vegan shakes and coconut nectar crystals give cookery a bad name. Yet Amelia Freer, a former personal assistant to Prince Charles, has won the hearts (and stomachs) of a host of celebrities with remarkable results. James Corden, Kirstie Allsop, Boy George and singer Sam Smith are among those who say the 42-year-old has helped them achieve dramatic weight loss. Freer has even won fans among those who seem to need little help with their waistline, including TV sports presenter Gabby Logan and model Lisa Snowdon. Her regime is based on cutting out comfort foods such as cheap starch, sugary snacks and processed foods in favour of wholesome, freshly cooked meals – but it also imposes a rather harsh calorie count.
She has provoked some controversy by recommending exotic coconut nectar crystals collected from the flower of the coconut plant and obscure palmyra jaggery (crystalised nectar collected from the flowers of the Sri Lankan palmyra palm) as alternatives to sugar – although she says that plain old honey will also do.
Freer, who aims to help her clients ‘nourish and glow’, puts her success down to the expertise she gained after leaving Prince Charles’s office at Clarence House at the age of 28 to embark on a four-year course in nutrition.
The move was inspired by overhauling her own diet to improve her health. She now works alongside a psychotherapist to help clients who have an unhealthy relationship with food, and says her recipes are nutritionally sound, in contrast with fad diets.
Thanks to her starry client base and best-selling diet books, there is nothing slender about Amelia’s company, Freer Food Ltd, which has a bank balance of nearly £500,000, according to the latest accounts – up from £31,000 the previous year – and looks certain to expand still further.
But does her diet work? Judge for yourself. Here are before-and-after pictures of some of her most fervent fans, the celebrities whose tummies have gone from fat to flat under her guidance.
But don’t hold your breath for a personal appointment with this new food guru. She took to spreading the word through her books and blog because her waiting list had become so long, she was forced to close it.