Lightbulbs went on in my head throughout the workshop, appropriately titled A conversation around compliance, motivation and the imperfect, irrational human being. Often health professionals wonder why people come to them for help, only to fail to follow the advice or treatment plan that’s provided.

This nonsensicality begins to make sense when  the complexity of our brain, emotions and thought-patterns are accessed (and when you bear in mind that to some extent, we are in fact all imperfect, irrational human beings).

As many of  us know breaking an old habit, is remarkably difficult. Of course there are cases where people have turned their lives around in an instant, but these are far outweighed by those of us who have tried every way to leave behind a habit, and still struggle to achieve lasting results. In fact often we can end up worse off than when we started.

But don’t despair – some helpful tips, gleaned from John’s workshop on this topic, included:

• When encouraging change, we must first ensure that in doing so, we don’t increase resistance to change. If we are confronted, a natural instinct is to resist, demonstrate reluctance or react. Often, objective, logical evidence is dismissed and any attempt to use logic and scientific argument can have the opposite effect that’s intended.
• We as humans are wired to loss aversion – meaning if you told me I need to give up chocolate biscuits, I may work to avoid this. Instead it is important to focus on what I would gain from giving up that box of chocolate biscuits each day.
• We have a commitment to our beliefs which is often difficult to terminate, even when things aren’t working. Evidence in support of a belief (such as, “no I don’t believe I need to exercise in order to lose weight”) may be lacking, but this belief has the power to create an immoveable force, leading us back to our old habits.
• Motivational interviewing is a common and effective technique used in all forms of counselling, including dietary counseling. Instead of confronting or persuading someone to change, this technique focuses on helping a person to mobilise their values and goals so that change becomes the bi-product of this. This is done using tactics such as practicing reflective listening, open-ended questioning, and summarising – then being able to identify and act on ‘change statements’ – i.e. acting when a person is actually ready to change. Changes statements include those which; recognise a problem, show concern, show an intent to change, or show optimism about changing.

While motivational interviewing is widely used by health professionals, I believe it can be applied to many areas of our day to day lives, and the way we communicate with each other. Without knowing it, I was constantly using this technique quite successfully when employed as a nanny. When the children resisted eating their vegetables, I would focus on what they’d immediately gain from eating them – which was having the freedom to leave the table and go and play on the trampoline again. And to a 12 year old this prospect was irresistible.

I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on where you think this could be applied, whether it be with your children or partner, or even with colleagues or business associates.

Having completed 16 radio interviews and five interactive celebrity cooking demos with audiences of hundreds, and with 600 “likes” on the Food Week Facebook page, Sarah Hanrahan from the Nutrition Foundation is justifiably satisfied with progress so far.

The approach of Just Cook – promoting positive, no stress cooking, with basic, inexpensive pantry essentials and just talking about food in a positive light has been received well by people so far.  “It’s so much more practical and well received than telling people what not to do”, said Sarah when we spoke to her today.

With rising food prices and cost of living increasing, many families struggle to manage on an average New Zealand wage (as shown by Campbell Live reporter Tristram Clayton’s reality check in living on a budget), Just Cook, and its message “Just get in the kitchen and cook!” shows it’s absolutely still possible to make healthy, tasty meals in the home without breaking the budget.

Research shows the biggest barriers to cooking at home are time, money and knowledge. Just Cook provides practical tips on how to address these barriers, such as knowing where to add a tin of beans or a cup of oats or to make meals go further for a fraction of the cost, adding good nutrition without compromising taste. The Food List  – a handy list of pantry, fridge and freezer foods to keep on hand at all times – is a great guide of kitchen essentials that can help those shopping on a budget prioritise what’s needed. And the Just Cook interactive kitchen houses easy, affordable, tried and tested recipes that cater to any combination of ingredients commonly held in NZ pantries.

The programme also has a schools component for year 10 pupils which will be followed and evaluated in the coming weeks. Students are challenged to produce a recipe on a budget to feed a family of five, using items in the pantry list and a few extra dollars.

As I write this, Sarah is just packing up from the final celebrity chef cooking demo in Britomart, where Masterchef finalist Nadia Lim cooked up a storm from the Food List in the fabulous kitchen provided by Fisher & Paykel.

You can access the celebrity chef recipes here, proof that some of our top foodies have great ideas for inexpensive food!

We welcome any of your favourite recipe ideas or comments for making meals go further on a budget – please post these in the comments section below.

The variety was great, yet helping after helping complemented each other well, because the quality was also top notch. Highlights for me were the freshly made rotis – cooked while you wait, the Indian curries, the divine morsels of barbequed kingfish and the vanilla panacotta to finish.

While this sounds like a restaurant review, it’s not meant to be.  The experience just got me thinking about how much the mix and match of cultural cuisines is now considered the norm.  We see it at restaurants, cafes, fast food outlets and cook it ourselves at home all the time.  We often don’t even consider the origins of this fusion cuisine as it’s now so much a part of every day life.

I’m interested to know what some of your favourite multi-cultural meals/dishes are. Please post them up in the comments section below. I’ll start with a few of my favourites; wasabi ceviche, spicy thai beef tortillas and, of course, the butter chicken pie!

The advantages of home grown produce are being recognised across the world. A recent survey of 2000 American chefs found one third of them identified restaurant gardens as the most popular trend for 2010. Not only does restaurant-grown produce cost less, but more and more of their customers want to know where their food comes from, and what better way to show them than to take them out to the restaurant garden?

An example closer to home of this resurrection, is the Garden to Table pilot programme, which started in several Auckland schools last year. The programme aims to teach children to grow and harvest produce and prepare meals using what they’ve grown. It was modelled on the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Programme – Stephanie Alexander is a pioneer in food education for children and is visiting Auckland later this month.

The Enviroschools network, which works with one quarter of all schools and kura in New Zealand, has empowered schools to plant their own gardens, as part of their focus on “nourishing our natural systems” since the late 1990s.  It’s been wonderful to see schools across a range of deciles getting involved, and now the Garden to Table project is closing the loop by also bringing in cooking skills. Along with teaching children gardening and cooking skills which can be taken home, the children are given the opportunity to enjoy sharing meals with their classmates, teachers and volunteers, and enjoy the social time that comes with sharing a meal – something that is equally important in developing lifelong healthy attitudes towards food.

The resurgence of home grown produce can only be a positive thing, both for the environment, our communities and hopefully our waistlines. However, we mustn’t feel guilty about purchasing fresh, canned or frozen fruit and vegetables from the supermarket.  For most of us this is still a necessity, especially for produce the average home gardener would be challenged to have on hand year-round!  It’s also important to take a practical attitude towards growing produce and plan ahead to ensure you can use what you grow.  My flatmates and I created a vege garden last year, but just as all our produce flourished, we went away on holiday. By the time we got back, our broccoli had flowered and our herbs had been attacked by slugs!

If you don’t have access to home grown produce, the next best thing may be the hundreds of fruit trees and other edible morsels dotted on public land throughout New Zealand! Check out the map to find the nearest one to you!

New Zealanders are getting behind Māori language week in their own ways – Dr Pita Sharples led a celebrity cook-off at the Wellington launch; ‘boil-up’ is featured this week on some of our hospital menus and our television presenters are giving lessons in Te Reo Māori while we watch the weather – despite our struggles to figure out where they’re up to on the map. The Australian-owned Progressive Enterprises supermarket group (Countdown, Woolworths and Foodtown) is also getting behind Māori language week, providing Māori translations of traditional Kiwi recipes, measurements and shopping lists in Te Reo, and investing in Māori Language Week advertising. It’s encouraging to see the promotion of Te Reo Māori move beyond the traditional realm of Parliament and Education, towards a potentially more inclusive meeting ground like the supermarket.

This year’s Māori Language Week is teaching us a few things about successful communications. The food theme highlights the value of finding common ground and experiences, no matter what our background, ethnicity, or religious beliefs are. This week’s execution also reminds us to make use of less traditional avenues for reaching and effectively communicating with target audiences. As PR practitioners, we must remember that just as food is all about communication, communication is all about engaging our five senses – taste, smell, touch, sound and sight.

Our day jobs may be all about words, but as Māori Language Week shows us, we naturally communicate in a myriad of ways.

* New Zealand’s three official languages are English, Te Reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language