Patrons

Steve Bennett (Benefactor & Patron)

The current decline in our nation’s health makes me frustrated, furious and fired up to create change! Together we must cure the curable and prevent the preventable chronic illnesses that plague modern day living.

I am driven by a feeling of duty, to pass on the knowledge I have gained in turning my own health around (I was obese for over 25 years) to others. To do this, I spend most of my working days on several different approaches to health education.

I am passionate about preventing and reversing, diabetes type 2, obesity and metabolic syndrome across the UK. Therefore, I spend my working days on several different approaches. I created an organisation called Health Results to help people explore, measure, and improve their metabolic health and I am a benefactor and trustee of the Bennett Foundation.

I focus my philanthropic efforts and funding on catalytic health education, backing organisations with the potential to deliver disproportionately high impact. This is why the Bennett Foundation supports the Public Health Collaboration (I am a patron and benefactor to the PHC – which aims to put prevention at the heart of the nation’s healthcare system), ACE Africa and the charity BIG CHANGE.

I am a dad to 7 wonderful children, 2 adorable grandchildren and husband to a great wife. My day job after the morning school run is following my passion to educate our country about metabolic health and I also executively chair several companies that I previously founded. I love adventures too, and have trekked to the North Pole, sailed across the Atlantic, undertook some mammoth Strive Challenges and more recently, along with several members of the PHC cycled 500 miles in five days with Zero calories! See “Zero five 500” on youtube

I have written several health books, Primal Cure, Britain is Sick, Primal Gourmet and more recently Fat & Furious.

Hannah Sutter (Patron)

A qualified solicitor and passionate advocate for the use of natural low carbohydrate diets for the management of general health and the use of nutritional ketogenic diets for the management of diabetes, epilepsy and many other serious health conditions. In 2004 Hannah founded Natural Ketosis, a natural low carb and nutritional ketogenic solution for obesity and weight loss, providing delivered meals and one to one support for a long lasting, weight loss solution. In 2011 she authored “Big Fat Lies – Is your government making you fat?” A critique of the Eat Well Plate and exposé of the conflicts of interest in SACN (The Scientific Advisory Panel on Nutrition). Finally, in 2012 she Founded The Natural Low Carb Store – a specialist food supplier for 100% natural low carb food.

Giancarlo & Katie Caldesi (Patrons)

Giancarlo and Katie Caldesi have two restaurants, a cookery school and several published cook books between them. Giancarlo and Katie ran their first ‘Caldesi’ Restaurant as a purely Tuscan offering and began making regular trips to Italy to research the Tuscan cuisine and discover new dishes. In Tuscany Giancarlo rediscovered his roots – the simple and effective peasant cooking of his family. The couple went on to launch Caffe Caldesi a less formal regional Italian restaurant and café and in 2005, after years of teaching in the restaurant kitchens, they launched La Cucina Caldesi, a state of the art cookery school where they run a diverse range of cooking courses for all ages and abilities.

In 2006 Katie and Giancarlo appeared in the BBC television series Return to Tuscany which saw them take over a hotel in Tuscany where they ran a residential cookery school for a month. They also worked together on a BBC cookery book of the same name. The series launched them as TV chefs and they now make regular appearances on television for programmes such as Market Kitchen, Masterchef, BBC Breakfast, Sunday Brunch and Saturday Kitchen as well as frequently contributing to articles in the national papers and glossy magazines.

Tom Redwood (Patron)

I’m Tom, the founder of fu:di.

I’ve always worked with and around food – I love it! I used to think I knew about health – I ate mostly homemade food and enjoyed a good run around the park. Life was ticking along nicely until I fell off the health wagon. All of a sudden, I found myself morbidly overweight (130kg!!), with aches and pains all over my body. The real wakeup call was being diagnosed as pre-diabetic at the age of 39. The thought of going on medicine for the rest of my life, not to mention the other consequences of managing diabetes / risk of further health complications, was the final straw.

When I spoke to my best mate Ben, he suggested I try cutting out sugar and reducing carbs to try to help reverse my diagnosis. Eating more fat and cutting out healthy grains, however, didn’t make sense to me – fat makes you fat, right? Turns out I was wrong. Ben pointed out that your body either runs on carbohydrates (glucose) or fat (ketones). If you cut out carbs, your body goes into ketosis and you’ll slowly start being able to burn the excess fat (of which I had plenty!) and put your body into a healthier metabolic state – in theory giving you a fighting chance to reverse diabetes – fingers crossed…

To cut a long story short, after just 3 months of this new diet, my blood sugars had returned to a “normal” level and were no longer in the pre-diabetic range. Within 6 months I had lost 15kg and within 12 months another 15kg. All of this was great, but I still felt I had lost a big part of my personality – my “foodiness”. Cutting out everything I used to love was hard. I missed the Friday night burgers with my family. I missed bowls of pasta shared with friends. Not to mention, none of the brands in the market spoke to me – often overly sweetened and almost never foodie!

Once I realised it was these moments with friends and loved ones that I missed so much, I started to try and hack some everyday recipes. First came ketchup, then bread and burger buns. Jams and chutneys followed, with chilli sauces, granolas and mayo (don’t forget the seed oil!!) soon after. All of a sudden, I was living again. Healthy & Happy.

Ben & I decided that with his obsession with statistics & metabolic health and my obsession with food (and new found obsession of metabolic health), we had the ingredients to build a business that could really make a difference. Et voilà – Purpose Driven Foods was born!

We’ve got a simple ambition – improve the metabolic health of the world.

Ben Calderhead (Patron)

I’m Ben, the co-founder of fu:di.

I’m a former academic and for many years I wrote research papers and taught courses in mathematics and statistics at Imperial College London. “How on earth did you end up founding a food company?” I hear you wondering… well, it turns out that the simple question of “what should we eat?” can partly be answered using mathematics – analysing data and looking for patterns can be a very powerful approach. However, it’s not easy with all the noise…

I used to travel a lot for work and while I was spending some time at a university in Massachusetts, I became interested in the question of what we should eat to be healthy. In the supermarket I discovered lots of new food brands with unusual ingredients. One in particular kept cropping up: high-fructose corn syrup. It seemed to be everywhere, even in foods that I wouldn’t expect it, such as bread and sausages. Why would so much of this ingredient be used in the US and might it have any impact on people’s health? The answer to this question is a long one, but it is expertly and beautifully explained in the very readable book “The Big Fat Surprise” by Nina Teicholz, which I would highly recommend. In short, it seems sugar is the problem in almost all metabolic diseases.

Now of course, a bit of sugar once in a while isn’t going to do us any harm, but when we eat it every day, the repeated spikes and subsequent dips in our blood sugar can, over time, result in insulin resistance and metabolic disease – this includes obesity, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimers etc. This was a shocking revelation for me – why aren’t we told this in clear, unambiguous terms? Especially, since 60% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy; a figure we are rapidly approaching in the UK.

But I don’t eat sugar everyday…do I? Well, once I began to look more carefully at what I ate, I discovered I was unknowingly consuming hidden sugars in my food all the time – and not just while I was in the US. After all, there are over 80 different words for sugar-containing ingredients, some of which I’d never heard of before, but all of which have very similar effects on blood sugar, and ultimately our health. Furthermore, refined carbohydrates are just sugar molecules joined together and when we eat bread, rice, pasta, these long chains get broken down and spike our blood sugar. Our body reacts in the same way as if we’d just eaten some sugar! No wonder I felt the need for coffee in the early afternoon after a carb heavy lunch.

I’m passionate about metabolic health and educating people to eat well and feel great. What better way to try to improve the metabolic health of the world than to start a food brand based on ridiculously tasty recipes created by my best friend Tom, with high quality, nutritious ingredients and the science of metabolic health.

Dr James Goolnik BDS MSc (Patron)

I’m James a dentist, educator and founder of Optimal Dental Health in central London, and I’m proud to be a Patron of the Public Health Collaboration.

After three decades in practice (and an MSc in Conservative Dentistry at the Eastman), I’ve seen the same pattern repeat: sugar and modern diets don’t just damage teeth they drive inflammation, dysregulated blood sugar, gum disease, and wider health problems that show up in the mouth early. That’s why I’m passionate about prevention and helping people make simple, sustainable changes that protect both oral and metabolic health.

I lecture internationally on the mouth–body connection and have served as President of the British Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry. I’m also Head Judge for the Private Dentistry Awards, and I’ve been recognised in the profession for many years, including being named among the most influential people in UK dentistry.

I wrote “Brush” and “Kick Sugar”, a practical cookbook to help families reduce sugar without losing the joy of food. I’m also IAOMT accredited and SMART certified, and I continue to study and train in lifestyle and functional approaches to support whole-body health.

I’m married with three children, and my mission is simple: help the UK get healthier, starting with the mouth.