The From Scratch Body - 1 year in

Thank you for joining The From Scratch Body in its first year of existence. Unless this is the first thing ever you’re reading of mine - in which case, welcome! At the beginning of a new year that I know will be great for us (it’s time!), I want to reflect on what TFSB became last year - and what the plans are for the future.

I am blown away by what TFSB has become.

When I launched The From Scratch Body this time last year, shared my first YouTube video, my first podcast episode, my first blog post and my first recipe - I had no idea what was going to take off, if anything. I didn’t really know what this project would look like. I just knew that I was super motivated by making food that left me feeling good, and that I was fascinated by the power of good ingredients, and the knowledge available to us for free. And I thought it was crazy how many people still think cooking is something that isn’t available to them. I had been one of them not long ago!

After sharing blog posts, recipes and podcasts every single week of 2021 (cheers to me!) and some pretty involved YouTube videos with recipes, health tips and appliance reviews, I am pleased to say that I am still as passionate about encouraging people to cook from scratch as I was last year. I wasn’t just a new convert - cooking from scratch has become a whole lifestyle for me. It’s a continued exploration - I get new ideas almost every day of things I want to try from scratch. And more often than not, it’s easier than I feared. And I feel better than I would had I eaten a ready-made version. So I will continue.

As so often happens when one starts to learn about something, I am realising how little I know, and it is making me hungry for more and more knowledge. I want to really be able to share with you why it’s great that leafy greens contain vitamin K, and how we combine protein, good fats and complex carbohydrates, while at the same time not worrying too much about those things and just cooking intuitively, for fun and for enjoyment.

Can it be done? I really believe it can. But I think it’s a practice. For me, as the founder of TFSB, but also for you, as someone joining me on the journey.

To look at some concretes from 2021, I was blown away by some of the things I achieved. To have a story about my journey from endometriosis diagnosis to from-scratch cook in one of my favourite online publications, Delish, a similar story in the Norwegian Endometriosis Organisation Endometrioseforeningen and collaborating with the amazing people at Magimix, being invited to their gorgeous kitchen at their Surrey HQ and being given a Cook Expert to keep were a few achievements that I thought I’d have to wait longer for. My podcast is growing slowly but steadily and I’m pleased to see that my monthly listener stats are looking like a steep staircase into a promising future. But maybe most incredible of all, within the space of a year I am on 5000 watch hours and nearly enough subscribers to be monetised on YouTube. That is huge news, as monetisation will officially turn TFSB from a passion project to a business. And that changes everything. It changes the amount of time I am able to work on it to give you the best content and information, and it gives me peace of mind when working on it (instead of my 100 other projects - though I will continue to give them attention too, don’t worry, music fans!).

Thought my Instagram and Facebook are merely ways to communicate what is new on the podcast, website and YouTube channels, it’s great to see people joining me there every day too.

So if you haven’t yet, definitely make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel, podcast, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. And let me know any requests you have for TFSB in 2022!

I am continuing to discover and get ideas for what I want to do this year with The From Scratch Body, but rest assured I have plenty of ideas, including a spreadsheet full of recipe and blog ideas, and the focus is likely to get more YouTube heavy, and I am planning on some e-books soon too.

Message me on Instagram @TheFromScratchBody!