{"id":151269,"date":"2025-10-29T10:21:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T10:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/151269\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T10:21:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T10:21:09","slug":"clodagh-mckenna-shares-3-tips-for-boosting-happiness-through-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/151269\/","title":{"rendered":"Clodagh McKenna shares 3 tips for boosting happiness through food"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you watch Clodagh McKenna on ITV’s This Morning, she\u2019s fresh off doing a meditation behind the scenes \u2013 and probably a dance too.<\/p>\n

All the crew are so used to it after six years of the Irish chef appearing on the popular daytime show that, “they all know \u2013 they just walk past”.<\/p>\n

The 50-year-old explains: “I do a meditation when I wake up in the morning, then I do another longer meditation about half an hour before I go live [and] I do my dance for five minutes in my headset all around the back of the studio. The dance is to really be myself [on live TV] and be calm inside.”<\/p>\n

But how she eats is the main driver behind her energy and smiles we see on TV. “It\u2019s a running joke, how many times I get asked, ‘How do you look so positive and happy?\u2019<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The answer \u2013 alongside dancing behind TV sets \u2013 is her diet, which “helps me with energy, it helps me with my mental health and it keeps me happy”.<\/p>\n

There “isn’t enough attention” brought to the relationship between food and mood, she says, which is why it\u2019s the centre of her ninth cookbook, Clodagh\u2019s Happy Cooking (“a really personal book where I share my relationship with food,” she notes).<\/p>\n

“And it\u2019s a decision you make, to realise, ‘Oh, this really affects how I feel physically\u2019 \u2013 when you feel light and nourished, physically, you just feel better.”<\/p>\n

“I never eat processed foods,” she says, “Now, if I do, if I have it once in a while, if I\u2019m at somebody\u2019s house or something, I really feel it, or the next morning, I can really feel it. I feel my energy is low.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s especially as I hit 50 this year \u2013 I\u2019ve just got to put more consideration into the food I\u2019m eating.”<\/p>\n

\n

The chef, from Cork, adds: “To change how you feed yourself is giving yourself the best gift you can give yourself in life.<\/p>\n

“I have a lot more on but my energy and my mental health is definitely way better than in my 30s, way, way, way better!”<\/p>\n

These days, McKenna eats at least three to four servings of fibre-filled pulses a week, a homemade juice every morning with “celery, fresh turmeric, ginger, flat leaf parsley, lemon and spinach \u2013 I get all of that goodness into me in the morning”, and a little granola with yogurt for protein.<\/p>\n

“Doing all those things really, really helps me \u2013 my stress levels are lower. I can’t imagine [if I didn\u2019t] how I would feel at my age, with my workload at the moment, running the farm.” (McKenna runs a sustainable farm named Broadspear, in Hampshire, with her husband Harry Herbert, on the grounds of Highclere Castle \u2013 the main location for TV\u2019s Downton Abbey).<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s really about loving yourself more,” she adds, “It\u2019s about putting you first and making sure that your engine is well oiled. It\u2019s about looking after and feeding your body, and knowing if you do that when you\u2019re got more energy and you\u2019re looking after yourself everything else around you benefits from it.”<\/p>\n

\n

McKenna says not to try and overhaul your diet at once and instead to make small changes so they stick.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s her advice\u2026<\/p>\n

1. Start the day with a homemade juice<\/b><\/p>\n

“I would say, start with juicing,” she suggests. “I think that it\u2019s quite overwhelming if you have too many things that you\u2019re going to add into your week. So pick one thing a month [to change].<\/p>\n

“If you don\u2019t have a juicer, invest in a simple thing like a NutriBullet, or there are also copies \u2013 anything that will literally just blend it!<\/p>\n

McKenna has a ‘brightening juice\u2019 recipe with beetroot, and a \u2018bloat-be-gone juice\u2019, including pineapple, ginger and mint, or even a stronger, \u2018body revival shot\u2019.<\/p>\n

“You\u2019re going to do it every morning so you need to get up 15 minutes earlier, so you\u2019re going to bed 15 minutes earlier, so just reset your clock. I go to bed incredibly early and I get up early as well,” she says.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

2. Bake your own bread<\/b><\/p>\n

Shop-bought bread can be full of preservatives, and McKenna swears by baking her own.<\/p>\n

“Designate a time in the week where you’re very relaxed, for me, that\u2019s Saturday morning. It could be a different day for somebody else, but find that little cosy spot \u2013 timewise \u2013 and start making bread.<\/p>\n

“I would say start with my soda bread because it\u2019s the easiest one to do. It\u2019s just a shape, stir, shape and bake bread \u2013 you can\u2019t go wrong with it. There\u2019s no rising, there\u2019s no proofing, there\u2019s no extra skills that you\u2019ve got to learn.”<\/p>\n

McKenna\u2019s mum taught her how to make soda bread, and she says there\u2019s something nurturing in the act of making something like bread from very basic ingredients of not much more than flour, milk and bicarbonate of soda.<\/p>\n

“I think it\u2019s akin to going out to pick kindling for the fire. It\u2019s that nature-gatherer feeling. It\u2019s so basic, it\u2019s what our mothers would have done, our grandmothers, or great-grandmothers. So there\u2019s like a natural instinct in us somewhere to bake bread.”<\/p>\n

“The smell of the bread baking turns a house into a home in a matter of an hour \u2013 all the sudden it\u2019s comforting and it\u2019s warm. I would love the whole nation to be baking bread. But I think for anybody who\u2019s feeling down or mentally struggling or feeling sick, baking bread should be the thing you do when you\u2019re at your worst point, because it can only make you feel better.”<\/p>\n

\n

3. Make a new recipe every week<\/b><\/p>\n

“Pick one recipe a week that you’re going to do \u2013 don\u2019t try and all of a sudden, cook every single night, because you\u2019ll just hate it,” McKenna says, suggesting a day that\u2019s not stressful. “Maybe that\u2019s a Monday or it could be a Thursday when you\u2019re feeling good because it\u2019s nearly the weekend.<\/p>\n

“Pick a simple recipe, whether it be a delicious soup, my red lentil curry \u2013 which is really easy to make \u2013 or roasting a chicken. You\u2019re teaching yourself a new skill, and then you\u2019ll slowly start building up your store cupboard.”<\/p>\n

On weekends, she\u2019ll “let go” a bit \u2013 still by home cooking, but “I\u2019ll have whatever I want, a delicious blackberry galette, or I\u2019ll make a tarte tatin, or beef bourguignon, or a delicious ragu, or chocolate beef chilli and rice, and a glass of wine.<\/p>\n

“Whatever I eat, whatever I\u2019m cooking, it\u2019s all really good, it\u2019s not processed, but it feels like indulgence at the weekend. Then Monday comes around and I\u2019m kind of ready, almost craving, to get back to my pulses.”<\/p>\n

Soon, it may become second nature to mostly cook from scratch. ” I cook every night at home, and I love it. I cook every lunch, usually at home as well, says McKenna.<\/p>\n

“I feel like I\u2019ve not given myself enough love if I don\u2019t cook.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Clodagh’s Happy Cooking by Clodagh McKenna is published in hardback by Kyle Books. Photography by David Loftus. Available 30 October.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you watch Clodagh McKenna on ITV’s This Morning, she\u2019s fresh off doing a meditation behind the scenes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-151269","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-world","21":"tag-world-news","22":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115456959223221201","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}