Two Raw Sisters talk to Paula Bennett about healing through food - Ask Me Anything

Two Raw Sisters, Rosa and Margo Flanagan, join Paula Bennett on this week's episode of Ask Me Anything. Photo / Susannah Blatchford.

They are amongst our best-selling cookbook authors, but for the Two Raw Sisters - aka Margo and Rosa Flanagan - their relationship and journey with food has been complex.

The sisters rose to fame for their plant-focused approach to food, and have published four books, with their fourth, Simple Fancy, the second highest-selling cookbook in New Zealand in 2022.

Yet both of them admit that our relationship with food can be complex, and it’s a journey they have been on as well.

“Food is just such a complicated topic, like there’s so many people telling you to do this and not do that, and then another person saying the complete opposite and it’s like, well, what do I do?” Margo said while speaking with Paula Bennett on her NZ Herald podcast, Ask Me Anything.

For Rosa, her journey started when she was an athlete for eight years with a focus on middle-distance running. While she was training during that time, an imbalance of what she was putting into her body and the energy she was using up saw her diagnosed with Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport, or REDIS.

“For me, nothing was ever enough. So I’d go and do more than what my coach would tell me to do, and that just was a downward spiral. I suffered anxiety and depression and got myself in a really deep, dark hole. For me, to get out of that, I learned about food and the importance of food and fueling your body. And that’s where my passion for food really kind of started and went on to do a degree in human nutrition.”

While Rosa was the foodie, Margo never thought that much about her relationship with food and eating. That was until she went looking for answers to her chronic fatigue that she was diagnosed with when she was 16.

“I had five years of health professionals telling me there was nothing I could do, it was just kind of a ‘rest and get over it’ situation.

“And then we went over to the United States and this lady said, ‘have you heard of gut health?’ And very much a buzzword now, but I said, no, never heard of it before. And she said, you need to focus on consuming more plants. We’re not telling you to cut out anything in particular, but just focus on more plants.

“And within three months, my chronic fatigue had pretty much disappeared.”

Their revelations in that space inspired them to go into business together, launching the Two Raw Sisters brand - even against the advice of their parents.

“Mum and Dad literally sat us down and said, you girls can never start a business together because you don’t get along,” Margo recalled. “And we’re like five years later, Mum and Dad, what do you think now?”

Listen to the full podcast to hear more from Margo and Rosa on their journey with food and how it can help you live a healthy life.

Ask Me Anything is an NZ Herald podcast, hosted by Paula Bennett. New episodes are out every Sunday.

You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.