Spreading The Word On Healthy Foods – Jewish Museum Australia 2002
Health food whiz Sandra Dubs concedes she wasn’t sure what to expect when she agreed to teach natural cooking to groups of religious Jewish women. But the self-taught foodie could not have received a more enthusiastic response to her classes at the Jewish Museum of Australia. “These women know how to make a great chicken soup, but 1 showed them how to make a fantastic rniso soup,” Ms Dubs says, with a laugh. “Now I’ve heard of all these Shabbat dinners where miso soup is served up alongside all the traditional Jewish food. “Traditional Jewish cooking is very rich and very high in fat. But now we are suffering the effects of that son of diet. The food I teach people to cook is definitely a big change from schnitzels and chicken soup. I want to show people it’s not about quantity, it’s about quality”. Ms Dubs viewed her classes at the Jewish Museum as one of the greatest challenges of her career. “Here I was introducing all these Japanese and natural ingredients that had been approved as being kosher to women who had never experienced anything like them before, Initially, I did get the reaction of ‘Oh, my goodness! What is this?’ But by the end of the class, they were all asking for second and third helpings. it was just fantastic.”
A former Mount Scopus student, Ms Dubs had degrees in accounting and marketing when she resolved to follow her passion and pursue a career in the health food industry almost 15 years ago. Nevertheless, her decision to quit her accounting profession to take up a $5 an hour job packing muesli and nuts in a health food store certainly raised eyebrows among family and friends “Everyone thought I was mad,” she says, frankly. “You also have to remember this was 14 years ago and going to work in a health food shop in Carlisle Street just seemed like such an insecure career at the time. “But I just felt I had to do it in order to keep a balance in my life and isn’t that really why we do things? I have always recognized that I’m quite an opinionated person and it’s really good to have something positive to be opinionated about. I feel I can now pass on information and help people.
Over the years, Ms Dubs, 41, has been extensively involved in many areas of the health food industry. For four years, she owned and operated the Manna Natural Food Store in South Yarra and she set up and operated the Daimaru CBI) Health Food Cafe and Vegetarian Creations Cafe. She established Melbourne’s first Japanese cooking school, The Japanese Cuisine Company and has been a natural food consultant with Spiral Foods for more than 10 years. Classes continue to grow in popularity. She now teaches at the Australian School of Macrobiotics, Tamara’s Kitchen, the Jewish Museum and at her home in Middle Park.
Ms Dubs even spent two years living in Bali teaching the local Indonesian women to cook healthy, low-fat food, “Living in another culture was very interesting,” she says. “It was great showing the local women how to make sushi and they were so precise and so patient with it. The experience gave me a more universal approach to the way human beings live.” Ms Dubs fervently believes there’s much more to organic food than brown rice and lentils. She claims there’s no reason why healthy food can’t look and taste delicious. “You can eat so many interesting dishes that are easy to include in your daily cooking. Instead of just doing an ordinary stir fry,. we am now using sea vegetables which have so many more minerals than land vegetables. We’re also using soya foods like tofu and we’re including many different types of legumes, as well as a much broader range of vegetables. “I really like to demystify the ingredients. It’s much more simple than people think to cook healthy food, but you do have to start somewhere and it can be a little overwhelming in the beginning when you’re looking at all these unusual ingredients”.
Ms Dubs is also a strong believer in the concept of ‘food as medicine’ She believe conditions such as eczema and a low immune system can be relieved with certain foods. “The Chinese have been involved in food medicine for centuries,” she says. “The things that we eat really do have vital benefits to our health. Our diet is the first thing we can do to change the way we live. It’s something we can all control ourselves. ” by Jackie Brygel
