As it's Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK and Mental Health Awareness Month in the USA (plus we're a little behind on providing our community with stigma busting audio!) we're pleased to announce a special episode taken from our panel discussion at the Hotel, Restaurant and Catering Show. 

Kris from The Burnt Chef Project was invited to attend a panel discussion hosted by Exp101's Chris Fletcher and Kieron “The Boy” Bailey. The panel also featured guests Michel Roux Jnr, Adam Bateman, Ruth Hansom and Kris Hall.

The discussion focussed on the importance of Kitchen Culture in the modern hospitality scene and discussed both past and present considerations when looking to improve kitchen cultures world wide.

Thank you to Exp101 for inviting us to be part of this discussion and we hope that this you enjoy this weeks episode.

Head over to www.theburntchefproject.com for more info. 

Jillian Kruschell – Founder and CEO of Libra Consulting based in Canada.

A seasoned relationship manager, Jillian has extensive experience working with a full spectrum of organisations from small businesses to internationally-recognized brands. At Libra Consulting, Jillian leads a team who work with organisations to integrate diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging into business strategy. Libra specializes in working with young companies, and brings a DEI lens to the professionalisation of small business by creating policies and procedures rooted in employee well being.

It was great to speak to Jillian about the work that she does with organisations and we could have talked for hours about all the great she and her team are doing. An important episode that focusses on some incredibly important topics. 

For more information about Inclusion by Libra please head to Libra Consulting (inclusionbylibra.com)

This week we are joined by Julie Pilcher who was an amazing guest who shared the impact that focusing on nutrition has had on both her mental and physical health.

Julie began to experience a lot of problems in her early 20's with irritable bowel syndrome, then, in her early 30’s was diagnosed with cancer, with treatment leaving her traumatised, fatigued and in chronic pain.

Working in a busy corporate job, there was no time for self care, and her mental health deteriorated, trying to juggle work, family and ill health, resulting in burnout and lost hope for the future.

With conventional medicine resigning me to a life of painkillers, my own holistic journey began.

With help from a nutritional therapist and personal trainer and a hunger to help herself, she realised that self-care was a necessity, and small changes were having a big impact on her physical and mental health.

A lifelong passion for nutrition could no longer be ignored, and after 4 years of study, she graduated from the highly respected Institute for Optimum Nutrition.

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Her mission is to educate and empower you with the benefits of lifestyle medicine, helping you to feel well again, working alongside our amazing NHS. Just as important is to prevent chronic disease with 40% being preventable with lifestyle changes.

An incredible conversation with loads of beneficial insights for anyone inside hospitality and out. Thanks Julie!

For more info head to: Vagus Wellbeing

This weeks guest sees the return of Sports Performance Psychologist Joar Svensson from Ascension who joins us to talk in more detail about all things performance psychology, effective communication, motivation and mental health.

Hello and welcome to 2022's first installment of The Burnt Chef Journal. A podcast dedicated to tackling mental health stigma, raising awareness and inspiring others. 

We kick the year of with Simon Maguire who is Managing Director of Luxury Family Hotels. Simon talks openly about his reliance on alcohol, painkillers and food as a coping mechanism whilst he continued gain weight and build his career within hospitality. 

It was inspiring listening to Simon's story and the journey he has gone through to tackle his demons and start to unlearn the above behaviours. 

Simon is taking part in an Ironman competition raising funds for Alabare Christian Care & Support. For more information on Simon's fundraising, or to donate, please check the link out below.

Simon Maguire is fundraising for Alabaré Christian Care & Support (justgiving.com)

 Jacob van't Hoff. Is a personal trainer and fully-qualified nutrition coach. His mission is to help as many people as possible transform their body. He has worked with multiple professional athletes as well as countless regular people with families and jobs

He joins us on The Burnt Chef Journal to talk about ways in which we can begin to gain some control over areas of our health and wellbeing by focusing on our environment and how we react to stress in busy hospitality settings by focusing on nutrition, psychology and fitness.

This week's guest is Andrew who founded Emilias Pasta after re-discovering his childhood love of pasta and wanting to share his enjoyment and passion with others. 

But hang on, pasta is calorie heavy carbs, of which we are supposed to be eating less, no?

“If you make it freshly and in the right way, it digests properly. When we started, we thought, if you were to eat this every day, what would happen? I did just that for three years, I didn’t get fat, I got healthier.”

After university he turned down an offer to work on Wall Street and eventually worked in the events business before travelling Italy for a year and opening 2 restaurants dedicated to serving the very best pasta London has to offer. 

In this weeks episode of The Burnt Chef Journal we're joined by Trevor Bird. A globally acclaimed chef and known in Vancouver as the award-winning head chef and owner of the popular Vancouver restaurant, Fable Kitchen.

Trevor boasts an impressive number of titles under his chef’s apron as two-time Top Chef Canada finalist and Top Chef Canada All Stars. 

Kris and Trevor talk about the role that culture has played in the behaviours we see less of in the industry today but are still present. You’ll learn that Trevor is much more than a successful business owner and world-class chef -- he is a man that has visited the depths of his own ego, worked through the past, and has taken the time to heal and lead himself to a better future.

This week's guest is Burnt Chef Project Ambassador Harry Kimberley who has recently joined the amazing team of international Ambassadors around the world to speak openly about their mental health experiences to challenge perceptions and fight stigma.

Harry joins us from London UK to talk about his journey through hospitality touching upon many different working environments and what he has learnt about himself when it comes to management and mental health. 

We're currently recruiting for Ambassadors from around the world so if you are interested in applying to become an Ambassador for where you are then please head to www.theburntchefproject.com/ambassadorlinks for more info!

Thanks to Lamb Weston for supporting this podcast on a monthly basis. To try a free sample of Dukes head to: The Dukes of Chippingdom - proper British chips | Lamb Weston

Chef Stuart Collins, 37, is owner and chef at Docket No.33, Whitchurch in Shropshire. Stuart worked with big names in the food business, from Gordon Ramsay to Michael Caines and Gary Rhodes and had the opportunity to travel all around the world with his job as a professional chef.

In this chat we talk about his experiences and the things he enjoyed throughout his career as well as what it was like to work around the world for some of the industries biggest names.