What's cooking: Catherine Saxelby

Catherine Saxelby's sound advice has many followers.

When you want want the best guidance on nutrition you can't do better than Catherine Saxelby.

Many people do exactly that - and it's made her Nutrition for Life the most popular book on the subject in New Zealand and Australia.

Award-winning Saxelby has just updated the best-seller, which was an instant success. This year's edition reflects the latest nutritional issues. Topics include the escalation in obesity, genetically modified foods, super-foods and allergies.

Saxelby, based in Sydney, has written extensively for magazines and newspapers, is head of the nutrition consultancy Foodwatch and nutrition editor for Super Food Ideas magazine.

Her books include Eating for the Healthy Heart and Everyday Diet Secrets.

What is your favourite healthy meal?

This sounds predictable, but I do love leafy salads. I have one almost every day and it's got to have a dressing on it, even if it's just a splash of olive oil and lemon juice. When the weather's cold, I have warm salads. I like to make a chicken and walnut salad with orange or ruby grapefruit segments on a bed of rocket and baby spinach leaves. If you toast the walnuts first and use a little walnut oil for the dressings it's sensational.

What is the best meal you've had overseas?

I love Germany's heavy rye and grain breads that are served at breakfast. In Italy, it's the thin-thin pizzas that you grab from a cafe window.

What do you eat at home when you don't feel like cooking?

Baked beans on grain toast is always a quick standby. Or I'll defrost a container of soup I've made - sweet potato and leek is a favourite. We have a good chicken shop nearby so I can buy a decent barbecue chicken with tabbouleh or coleslaw with rolls when I'm pushed. Or the local Lebanese restaurant does good takeaways.

What is always in your fridge?

Apart from milk, cheese and eggs, I like to keep a tub of hummus to use as a dip or a spread, salad ingredients, roasted red capsicum pesto which I use with fish or pasta, yoghurt, fresh ginger root, garlic, fresh fettucini pasta.

What do you always have in your kitchen cupboard?

Muesli, dijon mustard for dressings and steak, wholegrain bread like Molenberg, a variety of teas, honey, Vita-Weet crispbread - I've eaten these since I was a kid. And almonds or pinenuts for stir-fries, salad dressings, oils - olive, peanut and, lately, rice-bran oil - cinnamon, and cloves for stewed apples.

Is there anything you refuse to eat?

Potato crisps. I never bought them for my kids, even when they'd pester me. I steer clear of French-fries and cola-type soft drinks as a personal protest.

Are raw vegetables better for you than cooked ones?

Some are, some aren't. Eating raw vegetables preserves the heat-sensitive vitamins like vitamin C and folate, which is why I recommend a salad a day. Raw vegetables are lovely on hot days and fill you up for few kilojoules. But cooking improves the digestibility of most proteins and increases the availability of lycopene and other fat-soluble vitamins. So cooked tomato and cooked carrots (with a splash of oil) make good nutrition sense.

You don't seem overly fussed on organics. Do you think they're over-rated nutritionally?

Research shows that you don't get any higher nutrients in organic products, which is why I haven't gone overboard on them in Nutrition for Life. And they are more expensive and I wouldn't like to see people not buying any vegetables or fruit because they can't afford organic. Pesticide surveys come in very favourably for ordinary produce - they are almost always clear, occasionally just a little over. But organic is a better way of agriculture and I've sampled some top quality organic yoghurt and muffins.