Hello Hip & Healthy readers!

For those of you who don’t me, my name is Saskia and I am the founder of healthy food, lifestyle and award winning website Naturally Sassy. So a little about myself and my health journey: I didn’t always have such a passion for eating well. A few years back I was filling my body with low-fat, low-calorie foods in order to remain slim, however there inevitably came a point where my body literally couldn’t take this sort of malnourishment anymore. I experienced acute inflammation, which led to a serious strand of food poisoning campylobacter, and in turn, left me bed-bound for weeks – yep, seriously not fun. A few months on though, and with time out to really try and get to the bottom of my unsustainable diet, I finally realised that the food I was eating had a direct connection with my health and decided to make some changes… and so, through a bit of trial and error (cooking wise), Naturally Sassy was born!

As a ballet dancer I train for up to 8 hours a day, which as you can imagine can be very intense. As an athlete, it’s so important that I use the food that I eat to energise myself and ultimately allow my body to recover from it’s not-so-healthy past. My food philosophy is very simple though: eat natural and whole foods. Eliminating animal products and anything processed from my diet, and focusing on a plant-based approach towards what I eat every day is what (in the long term) makes me feel amazing and allows my body to thrive. However I don’t like to worry too much about the foods I don’t eat; instead I like to focus on an abundance of natural foods that make me look and feel my absolute best.

On my blog, I share recipes that are entirely plant-based, free of gluten and refined sugars, but still absolutely full of flavour! A common misconception today is that healthy eating is boring and has very limited options, but I promise you this is totally untrue! I love to take traditional classics such as pizzas and ice cream, as well as hot pots and chocolatey desserts (literally to die for!) and recreate them using the most natural ingredients that not only will be thanked for by your body but your satisfaction levels will be just as grateful, I can assure you!

I am super excited to be on board with Hip and Healthy this RAWesome week to provide you all with some of my favourite raw recipes and hope you all manage to get involved as much as possible.

As a result of including raw foods into your diet, you can look forward to improved skin, hair, nails and a wonderful increase in energy and improved digestion. I totally understand that eating 100% raw is not an option for a lot of people, and it isn’t something which I could stick to as I just LOVE some cooked foods too much, but don’t let that put you off getting involved in RAWesome Week though, even adding some raw veggies to your pasta or sneaking a smoothie into your day is so great and you will be sure to reap the benefits of even a small amount of delicious raw goodness. Here’s to a great week, let’s make it RAWesome Hip and Healthies!

Lots of love,

Sassy x

Get The Recipe: Naturally Sassy Raw Banoffee Pie