Sarah Wilson on building (and ultimately giving away) her I Quit Sugar empire and the dishes that have shaped her life

Desert Island Dishes

Food, Food Interview, Desert Island, Desert Island Dishes, Arts, Food Podcast, Dish, Interview, Society & Culture, Cooking, Chef, Personal Journals

4.8 • 780 Ratings

🗓️ 19 October 2023

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My guest today is Sarah Wilson

Sarah started I Quit Sugar in 2011 as a lifestyle experiment for a column she was writing. This led to an e-book, then three New York Times bestsellers and a business that saw 1.5 million people signing up to an eight-week nutrition programme. But as time went on, Sarah wasn’t enjoying it anymore. She says, ‘The business got to a point where it had gone from being a joy – creating, inventing, connecting with people – to a business concern. It felt soul-destroying. It felt wrong.’ And so in February 2022 she sold off the business and its assets and gave everything to charity. She now donates the money to carefully researched charity projects that target inequality, indigenous issues and the climate crisis.

Sarah consumes essentials only, has never owned a handbag and doesn’t own a car. Her career has been extraordinary, she became the editor of Cosmopolitan Australia at 29, hosted the most-watched TV series show in the nation’s history -the first season of Masterchef Australia – and wrote the international bestseller First, We Make the Beast Beautiful, which Mark Manson described as “the best book on living with anxiety that I’ve ever read”. Her most recent book This One Wild and Precious Life, is also a prize winner and Sarah has been ranked in the top 200 most influential authors in the world (two years in a row).

Thank you very much to Nestlé Carnation for sponsoring this weeks episode. Head to their website www.carnation.co.uk for lots of recipe inspiration and there’s even a free downloadable recipe book waiting for you there too.

You can find me @desertislanddishes and the website at www.desertislanddishes.co

Thank you for listening!

Margie x

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is brought to you in partnership with Nestle Carnation.
0:04.2	Carnation has been delivering sweet and creamy deliciousness to desserts nationwide for over 120
0:10.7	years. Whether you're making or baking, topping or mixing, their products make desserts
0:16.5	easier than ever. Incredibly simple and quick to use. You can make so many amazing treats with Carnation,
0:23.7	from cheesecake to bonofi pie, fudge, caramel and toffee,
0:28.6	a staple ingredient in every keen cook's cupboard.
0:32.3	Head to their website www.combe.
0:36.3	For lots more inspiration, and there's even a free downloadable recipe book
0:41.5	waiting for you there too. Thank you very much to Nestle Carnation.
0:48.3	Hi, I'm Margie Nomura and welcome to the Desert Island Dishes podcast. This is the podcast where every week I ask my guest to choose their seven Desert Island dishes.
0:59.0	These range from finding out about the dish that most reminds them of their childhood,
1:03.0	the best dish they've ever eaten, and of course the last dish they would choose to eat before being cast off to the desert island. The question is,
1:12.7	what would you choose as your last meal? Hi, how are you? Hope you're all really well. So many of you
1:20.2	have been sending the loveliest messages recently about the podcast and I just wanted to say a huge
1:26.1	thank you and I'm just so happy that you're enjoying
1:29.8	it. We now nearly have 10,000 of you signed up to the newsletter Dinner Tonight, which is so
1:37.4	amazing and I actually get quite nervous when I press send now because that's a lot of inboxes.
1:45.9	If you aren't yet subscribed,
1:54.0	you can head to dinner tonight.substack.com and you'll get one gorgeous, easy recipe sent to you every Sunday that you can easily cook for a weeknight supper. I did my first Zoom cook-along for
2:00.2	the newsletter subscribers the other day,
2:02.0	which was really fun. And we've got some very special guests coming up who are going to be
2:06.6	joining for the cook-alongs too, which I'm really excited about. Anyway, on to today's episode.
	...

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