Everyone has a story. Ursula Arens was inspired by a school project long ago to imaginatively map out a career as a dietitian. Interview by Nicola Baird. Photos by Kimi Gill
Ursula Arens: key writer on the British Dietetic Association’s report One Blue Dot– an environmentally sustainable diet– which improves public knowledge about nutrition and offers a toolkit for dietitians. (c) Kimi Gill for Islington Faces
From a neat pink folder Canonbury-based Ursula Arens draws out a very special document. Inside is a photocopy of a handwritten school project, done when she was about 13, which clearly shows her determination to make a career working on food.
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So how did Ursula’s life plan come about as a school student in the early 1970s? “I was born in South Africa, to two German parents, grew up in Hong Kong,” explains Ursula. “I was a real reader as a child, and I’d read all the books in the house. There was nothing else and then I found Let’s Eat Right To Keep Fit. I was so inspired by this evidence about what you eat and how it affects your health. It meant I never had any career decision to make. From then on, I just knew I wanted to do something in nutrition and advise people on health. I loved the science of it – and I’m still completely obsessed by that interaction of food chemistry and the body, and how this functions for good or poor health.”
Ursula Arens’ teenage ambitions and influences. (c) islington faces
Ursula still has the original copy of the book by Adelle Davis, though it is now rather battered from many reads and house moves. In fact, the front cover corner has been nibbled off, apparently a victim of Hong Kong cockroaches. According to Wikipedia Adelle Davis was, “the most famous nutritionist in the early to mid-20thcentury”. Let’s Eat Right To Keep Fit was written in 1954 and updated in 1970. Adelle Davis may not be a well-known name now, but she certainly started something. For Ursula reading it as a young teenager saw her switch to a vegetarian diet. She adds that: “Growing up in Hong Kong where the Chinese like to see their food alive a minute before they see it on their plate might also have had something to do with this.”
These days being vegetarian – or vegan – is pretty mainstream. But Ursula’s school essay is especially wonderful, because it has the young teenage Ursula writing her own obituary, entitled, Death of a Dietitian… “As we are all aware Ursula has died at the age of 114 – the highest recorded age in South Africa. Many believe that her low carbohydrate, high protein vegetarian diet is the reason for this fantastic age. Along with this diet she invented many other ‘food facts’ which remain invaluable to science today…”
Ursula’s youthful determination to make an impact was bolstered by another book she read aged 16, Diet For A Small Planet by Francis Moore Lappé. She says it, “was one of the first books looking at the relationship between the environment and food.” It also gave the world the term ‘protein economics’ which led to many people becoming vegetarian in order to enable the largest number of people to have a nourishing diet (including Islington Faces).
Dietitian Ursula Arens: “I’m not a foodie, I’m a basic cook but I always try to make meals healthy.” (c) Kimi Gill for Islington Faces
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Places Ursula Arens loves in Islington
- “My weekly highlight is the Park Run – it’s about 300 people running 5 km every Saturday at 9am. It’s free, fun and for all shapes and sizes. I’ve been doing it for three years. Five times around Highbury Fields sounds a bit daunting but I really enjoy it and they always have a tail runner who will support you and help you build up your personal best. It also means you won’t be last. When you’ve finished all sorts of people are chatting, it’s often someone’s birthday and they sometimes bring along cake. It’s a great way to meet people and a good place to volunteer – you’ll see lots of Duke of Edinburgh award volunteers.” Park Run celebrated its 400thevent at Highbury Fields a month ago, see how to join the runners (you need a barcode) here
- “Highbury Fields, and the lovely New River are my main places to go with the dog. Once a month he does Pets Against Loneliness (PAL) a Saturday morning drop-in for anyone which meets at New Unity Unitarian church on Newington Green.” If you would like more details about bringing along your well-behaved dog or meeting people with dogs, then contact Lyn Ambrose at lynambrose@gmail.com or call 0788 667 4190.
- “I mostly shop at Budgens, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose on Highbury Corner, but sometimes go to Chapel Market or Ridley Road.”
- “My two daughters – one’s an estate agent, the other is studying business management – live at home. They both want to stay in Islington if they can afford it.”
- “I’d be keen to try more restaurants locally, but the family really likes to go to Gallipoli, 102 Upper Street. I usually order the vegetarian meze.”
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Ursula Arens, an expert dietitian, with her dog Rusty goes once a month to the Pets Against Loneliness group in Stoke Newington. (c) Kimi Gill for Islington Faces
She has a BSc in Dietetics and in June 1993 added a post-graduate diploma in marketing to her c/v. Impressively – and in a clear case of life imitating art (or a determined teen taking the right career path) – Ursula went on to be a writer on one of the world’s best-selling nutrition book, Foods That Harm, Foods That Heal, published by Reader’s Digest in 1996. Her experience includes working for the Consumers Association on its Which? health magazine,the British Nutrition Foundation, as a company nutritionist for both Roche Products (vitamin specialists) and at Waitrose. She has also worked as a clinical dietitian in two hospitals including the American Army Hospital in Berlin and Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow.
When Ursula moved to the UK in 1986 she swiftly joined the British Dietetic Association (BDA). Over the years she’s been on a many of their committees, and is currently an active member of the sustainable diets committee. Last November working with colleagues at the BDA she published a ground-breaking report, One Blue Dot. The title refers to planet Earth and the content offers advice to UK dietitians on the subject of environmentally sustainable diets.
Ursula is now a freelance writer and consultant on nutrition and dietetic issues. This has led to a regular column in the monthly magazine, Network Health Digest, aimed at dietitian and nutritionist readers. (www.nhdmag.com) For nearly three years she has organised face-to-face meetings with dietitians and people working in nutrition grilling them (in a friendly way) about their work interspersed with fascinating detail about their own life. Ursula generously claims: “I try to do my interviews inspired by Islington Faces – chatty and personal. They are great fun to do and I’m always inspired by the interviewees. There’s always so much more behind their public career. You discover layers and the zig-zag of career paths which you can share with the reader.”
Sitting in Ursula’s clean kitchen, at a table by a hatch lined with condiments such as pepper, salt and sauce Ursula admits that nutrition is a huge topic. “I have 1,000 opinions on diet and nutrition, but I don’t advise people on specific medical conditions such as allergies.” Since the One Blue Dot work, she does however give talks on environmentally sustainable diets; recent audiences include Leeds University and London Met University.
Ursula Arens with One Blue Dot which offers advice to UK dietitians on the subject of environmentally sustainable diets. (c) islington faces
“The problems for feeding the world are complex,” explains Ursula patiently. “There are currentlyseven billion mouths to feed, predicted to be nearly ten billion by 2050, and there isn’t one perfect solution. But with the trend for people towards eating less meat, companies are now working on technical dishes such as cell-based meat. It’s a high-tech option for the affluent. Cell-based meat is not going to be feeding the poor,” she says. The good news is that Ursula thinks that plant-based proteins such as lentils and beans will get taste makeovers and there is interest in insect ingredients like beetle flour and cricket flour.”
Unlike her arrow-straight route into a food career, moving to Islington was chance. “I lived with my husband in Holborn and when child two came along we needed somewhere bigger, but there were no large flats. My boss had been to Canonbury School and she suggested the area. We’d never heard of it, but we had a look and loved it,” says Ursula. “We’ve lived here for 20 years now. It’s a really nice area for kids to grow up in.” Today the house is calm as her daughters now have jobs, though they are both still living at home. Life is definitely busy for Ursula, switching between her roles as practitioner and reporter – even her lovely dog has an extra string to his bow, working as a PAL for Pets Against Loneliness.
- Read more about the diet that can feed the world in One Blue Dot
Over to you
If you’d like to nominate someone to be interviewed who grew up, lives or works in Islington, or suggest yourself, please let me know, via nicolabaird dot green at gmail dot com. If you enjoyed this post you might like to look at the A-Z index, or search by interviewee’s roles or Meet Islingtonians to find friends, neighbours and inspiration. Thanks for stopping by. Nicola
