Aaron Brunet is pottering in the kitchen when I arrive at his family home in Ōhaeawai in the Far North on a dismal winter's day.
He's got a pot of kawakawa tea on the go, and is mixing in ginger and lemon.
The ginger and lemon help bring out the
Former MasterChef winner reveals how he rebuilt his life after major burnout
Former MasterChef winner Aaron Brunet is passionate about creating simple, tasty, plant-based food. Photo / Jenny Ling
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He apologises in advance of handing over the cup, but I tell him not to worry, there won't be any elimination challenges during this interview.
He looks relieved, then puts a positive spin on it.
"It'll do you good," he says laughing.
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That's what Brunet is all about these days ... doing good for himself and others, and doing right by animal welfare and the environment.
The former MasterChef New Zealand winner is so passionate about "simple tasty plant-based food" it has become a mantra.
"I've given up those distracting things we think give us satisfaction.
"Eating more plant-rich food is one of the best ways we can all improve our health while being kind to the planet.
"It's not about buying new goodies and eating and drinking whatever you want ... people think life gets more boring but I think the opposite. It gets richer."
It's been nearly a decade since the former IT consultant became the 2013 winner of MasterChef.
To say the experience was life-changing would be an understatement.
Sure, he rode the wave of publicity, rustled up a cookbook called Cook With Me, and did a stint as a guest chef at top Auckland restaurant Euro.
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But after the book was launched and the tour was done, he was totally burnt out.
"My wife and I separated afterwards; it was a big life-changing event."
Being on the show was "intense", he said, and was the catalyst for turning to a healthier diet and way of living.
His body was also feeling the effects of an abundance of caffeine, alcohol, sugar and rich restaurant food.
"MasterChef was a big turning point in my life, I did a lot of searching afterwards.
"I wanted to live according to my values instead of reacting to the world around me."
Winning the show affected him on a deeper level, challenging his self-beliefs.
"Winning MasterChef clashed with how I saw myself.
"I didn't really have the confidence and deep-down belief in myself. It was the biggest shock to the system.
"It forced me to re-examine everything in my life from the ground up."
Changing his diet coincided with his daughter Ariana, then 15, learning about the environment and climate change and despairing about the future.
"She was deeply affected, she thought she had no future.
"As a dad, I didn't know what to do to help her.
"One thing I realised, if I changed my diet I could have less of an environmental impact, and show my daughter I cared about her future.
"I started to question, how can I live in a way that feels genuine to me and would make a difference to make the world a better place?
"I went back to eating plant-based food."
BEFORE MASTERCHEF, Brunet was living in Raglan with his wife and daughter doing tech support for local firms, and "not something I wanted to do for the rest of my life."
The family used to regularly watch the Australian version on TV.
Around this time, Brunet also started making artisan sourdough bread and selling it to Raglan people.
"I was quite depressed and not happy with life.
"I started making sourdough bread and became really obsessed with it.
"I really enjoyed that and my daughter said I should enter MasterChef."
Brunet has always enjoyed cooking.
He credits his love of food to his Italian-born mum, a vegetarian and "fantastic cook" who brought him up on tasty vegetarian food.
Now aged 74 and a "bundle of energy", his mum is a prolific gardener, spending a couple of hours a day tending her fruit trees, vegetables and herbs.
Over the past decade Brunet has contributed recipes to Eatwell magazine in the NZ Herald, given a TEDx talk and been a keynote presenter at national food events.
In 2017 he and Ariana took part in a Safe protest against factory farming which saw them, and 38 other Kiwis, locked in a cage.
He also did a two-year stint at the Waitakere Refuse and Recycling Centre in Auckland, helping process secondhand household goods and building materials, which was a "humbling, down-to-earth experience".
THESE DAYS Brunet, 52, is living a simple life in Ōhaeawai, where he's been for the last two years following a year in Kaikohe.
He fills his days doing photo processing work for clients, along with cooking workshops in Auckland and Northland.
He is also working on his off-grid tiny house, which is located next to his mum's bountiful vegetable garden.
There are plans for him and Ariana, now 23, to have a stall selling plant-based dishes at the weekend Kerikeri market.
Those dishes will hero humble fruit and vegetables like corn, bananas and beans - a far cry from the "wacky experimental food" he plated up on MasterChef.
Mostly, Brunet wants to inspire people.
He recently hosted a cooking workshop at Parawhenua Marae teaching locals how to rustle up hearty plant-based food.
He is keen to do more work bringing "storytelling about food and health" to residents of the Far North.
"I want to bring all other layers of food into the picture such as highlighting the connections between humans and plants, to make people think about where their food comes from.
"It's a big opportunity to talk about life-enhancing healthy food in a way that makes sense from a Māori world view."
BRUNET HAS spent a lot of the past decade "learning about eating a different way".
He has discovered the reasons for emotional eating, the role society plays in that through marketing, and the link between mental states and addictions.
"Food is a way we can do that in a socially acceptable way.
"There are more layers of food that we maybe notice.
"I've been trying to notice those other layers; the comfort eating and the motivations why we would choose healthy food."
Brunet maintains that changing your diet isn't as simple as eliminating certain foods; people should give their tastebuds time to adjust.
Getting simple food to taste good is more difficult than "throwing in more butter and salt".
"I'm no saint, I'm trying to learn these things but I'm doing it through hard experience.
"If I'm having a tough time and I fall back on these things, I'm learning what I have to do if I get urges to eat more chocolate.
"The truth is we need to slow down a bit and notice what's happening emotionally."
As for MasterChef, though it's shaken things up like Marco Pierre White making a sudden guest appearance, he has no regrets.
Being on the show was "amazing", he said.
"Facing my inner demons and facing up to the way I want to live that I feel good about are not easy, but they are rewarding.
"Often it's the hard things we do that teach us the most."
Aaron Brunet's super-charged smoothie breakfast bowl
• Make the apple mix base: Mix together grated apple, oats, lemon juice, coconut, and sliced Otago apricots.
• Make a deep green smoothie: Blend frozen banana, miso, coconut cream or oatmilk. Add foraged greens such as nasturtium, dandelion, kawakawa, kale, silverbeet, parsley and beetroot leaves.
• Pour the smoothie into the apple mix.
• Add grated pear, chopped banana and chopped golden kiwifruit around the side of the bowl.
• Top with a nut and seed crumb: Almond, walnuts, dates, sunflower, pumpkin and flax seeds, and orange zest.
