Award-winning chef, nutritionist and author Bridget Foliaki-Davis often returns home to New Zealand from Sydney, but this visit is busier than most.
“It’s bittersweet,” says Bridget. “We’re home for my daughter Krissy’s wedding and I’m launching my seventh cookbook, Bridget’s Healthy Delicious. But we’ve also attended my nephew’s funeral after he died suddenly, which was awful. There are a lot of big feelings.”
For more than 20 years, Bridget has worked alongside some of the world’s best chefs, and cooked for greats, including Oprah Winfrey. She and her husband Mahe’i own culinary and nutrition business Bridget’s Healthy Kitchen, creating gut-healthy sugar-, dairy- and gluten-free recipes.
Born and raised in Ōtara, South Auckland, Bridget grew up surrounded by gangs, violence and drugs.
“We were really poor, but I didn’t know that,” says Bridget, 50, who is mum to Krissy, 33, Coco, 24, and Mace, 20. “I thought my childhood was amazing. I still do. But now I realise there was a lot of stuff going on that comes with that environment.”
Although she was happy, Bridget couldn’t shake the feeling there was more to life.
“I’d think, ‘Surely this isn’t it?’ I was always inquisitive and wanted to know what the world looked like, especially the food. We’d be eating fish and chips, and sweet and sour pork, and I’d be watching all these amazing chefs on TV.”
The youngest of four, Bridget left school at 14, taking a chef’s course before becoming a single mum at 16. “I grew up in a loving but problematic household and I wanted Krissy to have more,” she says. “She was my driving force. Everyone said my life was over, but I wanted to do better for my beautiful daughter.”
Bridget started working in restaurants alongside people from different countries and cultures.
“Suddenly this world of opportunity and flavour opened up,” she recalls.
Now a mum of three, Bridget was offered a job running Australian chef Bill Granger’s Sydney restaurant Bill’s in 2008, moving there with Mahe’i and the kids. “I worked harder than I’ve ever worked in my life,” she tells.
But after a while, that nagging voice in Bridget’s head piped up again. She became fascinated with Twitter and began sharing recipes online, quickly amassing more than two million followers.
“We were very early social media adopters – that’s how I ended up as the VIP chef for Google,” she says. “They contacted me because I knew how the internet worked.”
Yet success came at a price. “I was eating bad food and drinking heavily, and my body started to break down,” she admits. “I was 40kg overweight and I’d convinced myself that as a Māori, I was just big-boned.”
But along with the physical weight came mental fatigue. Depressed, lonely and diagnosed with fatty liver disease and pre-diabetes, Bridget retreated.
“We owned two gastro-pubs and I worked around 100 hours a week,” she tells. “Whenever I wasn’t working, I’d hide in my room. My relationship with Mahe’i and the kids was breaking down, and at 42, I had a miscarriage. We were making good money, but I didn’t have a life.”
So Bridget wrote a cookbook. “I’d always wanted to write a book and I did, but mentally and physically I was in the worst place of my life.”
So when she was invited to appear on TV, panic ensued.
“I thought, ‘Who’s going to buy a book from someone who looks and feels like me? So I Googled ‘How to lose weight in five weeks’.”
Having tried multiple diets before, Bridget started researching gut health.
“Once I looked at the science, I realised going back to the basics – getting rid of processed foods, sugar and highly-refined carbs, and stripping it back to the way our grandparents cooked – was the secret. By following gut health principles, instead of losing 10kg in five weeks, I lost 12kg.”
Bridget embraced whole-foods, including fibrous vegetables, and became a qualified nutritionist.
“Rather than potatoes, carrots, corn and peas, I started eating broccoli, cauliflower, eggplant, fennel and courgettes – vegetables I didn’t know existed growing up,” she says. “I cut out sugar, and included more plants and healthy proteins like chicken, turkey, salmon, sardines and tofu. I flavour everything with spices – your spice cupboard is your best friend!”
These days, Bridget’s Healthy Kitchen provides nutritional advice and recipes to a huge online community, and she and Mahe’i run a thriving healthy food business.
“We’re a family-operated, evolving multimillion-dollar business,” says Bridget. “There’s still more to do because I want as many people as possible to feel as good as I do. We all deserve to feel good, be healthy and live our best lives.”
Help is here
Suicide Crisis Helpline – 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO).
Depression Helpline – 0800 111 757 or free text 4202 (to talk to a trained counsellor about how you are feeling or to ask any questions).
Anxiety NZ – 0800 269 4389 (0800 ANXIETY)
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