BBC Dragons’ Den star Kirsty Henshaw takes on the UKs top selling ready meals

BBC Dragons’ Den star Kirsty Henshaw takes on the UKs top selling ready meals with a new range launching in Sainsbury’s, July 2012

Working mum Kirsty Henshaw, 26, shot to fame when her allergen-free dessert range – inspired by her food intolerant son, Jake – won over Dragons’ Peter Jones and Duncan Bannatyne in 2010.

Today, Kirsty is taking on the UKs top selling ready meals, introducing her range of healthier, irresistibly delicious and naturally nutritious chilled everyday meals.

The new range is super-charged with goodness; each meal is lovingly made up of nutrient-rich ingredients such as quinoa, aduki beans, brown rice and lentils to help you live life to the full.

Kirsty has created natural food swaps to provide healthier alternatives, and uses brown rice instead of white and sweet potato instead of white potato mash. Sugar has been replaced with natural Agave syrup for fewer calories. The meals are also free from wheat, dairy, lactose and nuts so they are suitable for everyone.

Kirsty adds: “A lot of ready meals on the market appear healthy however they are often packed with high levels of saturated fat, sugar or artificial flavours.”

“This new range is about providing people with something that is genuinely healthy as an alternative, and most importantly the meals taste fabulous!”

The meals have a low ‘green light’ for saturated fat and sugar content and have been designed to give a happy balance between salt levels and taste, they use natural sea salt and will at most register an ‘amber light’. At least one portion of your five day is provided for and the meals are low in calories (ranging from 276 to 420 for a Chicken Tikka Masala).

Kirsty’s chilled everyday meals will be available to purchase at Sainsbury’s nationwide from July 2012; the range includes:

ü Moroccan Vegetables with Brown Rice and Quinoa

ü Sausage with Onion Gravy and Carrot, Sweet Potato & Potato Mash

ü Chicken Tikka Masala with Brown Rice

ü Cottage Pie with British Beef mince and topped with Sweet Potato, Carrot & Potato Mash

The kirstys.co.uk website, which Kirsty has designed with her father, Darren a nutritionist and homeopath who runs health shop Aphrodite in Penwortham Lancs.

Raw Skin Food Spa at Ivo Venturi.

World renowned Beauty Medi Spa Owner Ivo Venturi, with over 30 years experience in the spa industry has welcomed Award Nominated 100% Allergen Free Ethical skincare brand, Raw Skin Food into its chic medi spa, situated in the opulent Knightsbridge opposite Harvey Nichols, on Sloane St.

As someone with a history of  bad skin in the past I am very careful with what I put on my skin. I once read that a women puts over 200 chemicals on her face a day. Do we really need all of these chemicals in our skin products? No, we don’t. And why put alcohol in them, it dehydrates! This is why I am now such a fan of Raw Skin Food. I had an Avocado facial and it looked like I was wearing very good foundation.  They now have a life long fan. I just can’t complement them enough.

Raw Skin Food’s Founder, Ethical Beauty Entrepreneur & Vegan Raw Foodist, Clare Eluka, is proud of the partnership with the spa:
‘This truly is the future of contemporary spa and treatments. Our ethos is sumptuous, healthy and ethically sound. By using living natural ingredients present in our products including Mangoes, Brown Rice and Cocoa in their rawest and freshest form, our clients will experience the truest and purest epitome of ‘Raw Skin Food’. By being a leader of the new school of spa, women and men can look to us for 100% Allergen Free treatments that will only enhance the natural beauty from the outside in by eating, drinking & applying fruit & veg to the skin.’

The beauty products are hand made, not tested on animals and don’t have any chemicals in them. They are so pure that you can actually eat them! So if you want to treat yourself and go to the spa, do, but if not; then definitely try their products. They are reasonably prices and worth every penny.

5 Sloane Street, Knightsbridge, London, SW1X 9LA