Nigella Lawson's popularity hit by 'clean eating' fad

Lawson has previously spoken out about 'clean eating', a movement which seems to be affecting her own popularity. Photo / Getty

Her indulgent recipes and sultry delivery made her into television's most famous domestic goddess.

But Nigella Lawson is seeing her popularity wane in the face of the "clean eating" fad.
Miss Lawson, 56, has dropped out of the top 20 in the UK's latest cookbook sales chart, according to industry magazine The Bookseller.

Topping the list is the self-titled "body coach" Joe Wicks with his Lean In 15 collection of recipes and workouts.

Cookery writers Ella Woodward and Alice Liveing, who promote clean eating, are also sitting ahead of Miss Lawson and Jamie Oliver, who is 16th.

Miss Lawson's books have sold 210,528 copies - worth £2.6 million - since 2014.

But this compares to sales of £3.7 million - 270,000 copies - over the previous two years. Kiera O'Brien, at The Bookseller, said the success of clean eating authors is striking considering their low profile compared to household names.

She said: "More established cooks have huge backlists contributing to their figures - Jamie has 30 titles in the chart, Mary Berry has 47 - whereas the likes of Joe Wicks and Ella Woodward have only one or two titles out so far."

Miss Lawson has written in the past about her frustration with the "clean eating brigade".

In Simply Nigella, she wrote: "You will never hear me talking about 'healthy' food. I hate the term, but not as much as I am disgusted by the contemporary mantra of 'clean eating'.

"The clean eating brigade seems an embodiment of all my fears. Food is not dirty, the pleasures of the flesh are essential to life. We cannot control life by controlling what we eat."