Root & Rise with Lucy

Toral Shah is deeply passionate about the health and wellness of people and of the planet. Professionally she is a Nutritional Scientist (MSc Nutr Med), Functional Medicine Practitioner, Food and Health writer and Consultant, as well as the Founder of The Urban Kitchen.

She is a unique and refreshing voice in the world of wellness as her knowledge is underpinned with a strong foundation in medicine and science. She originally went to medical school with a view to becoming an oncologist but when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, she realised that this was not the career for her. After completing her BSc in Cell Biology, specialising in cancer, she worked in research, winning a prestigious Royal Society internship where she worked on SRC oncogenes. Toral then went on to do an MSc in Nutritional Medicine at University of Surrey and became a functional medicine practitioner working with nutrigenomics.

This combination of an informed scientific background and a big heart for helping others is truly inspiring. She uses her knowledge and her passion to help a whole host of people, but a strong focus for her is cancer patients & survivors (not only is her Mum a cancer survivor, but Toral herself is a 2 times breast cancer survivor), and combating the lack of diversity in healthcare (currently, BAME people have poorer health outcomes, even when you take into account socioeconomic factors, and are often diagnosed with cancer at later stages). She is working with several charities and organisations to ensure that they are creating more inclusive health promotion campaigns with more diversity and inclusivity so that all communities know that cancer can affect them.

In this podcast episode we cover a whole host of topics! From explaining what functional health actually is, to exploring white privilege & unconscious bias (particularly in the wellness space), to her top tips on eating as well as possible on a budget, to the loneliness pandemic, and to sharing her wellness toolkit.

You can find out more about Toral on Instagram @theurbankitchen on Twitter @urbankitchen & via her website www.theurbankitchen.co.uk

On Sunday 29th November 2020 she is running a workshop through her events company What the Health Events (co-created with Amy Abrahams) called “Your 2021 Health Manifesto” - it’s an online workshop all about helping you to prepare to maximise your health in 2021 (goodness do we need it after 2020!!). If you want to explore more / sign up head to https://www.whatthehealthevents.co.uk/events Their Instagram is @whatthehealthevents

If you want to connect with your host Lucy she can be found on Instagram @lucyvictoriajacksonyoga or via her website www.lucyvictoriajackson.com - here you will find all the info you should need on her Online Membership Root & Rise: the Practice.

Resources from the conversation this week:

Breath work app https://eddiestern.com/the-breathing-app/

Sway by Dr Pragya Agarwal https://uk.bookshop.org/books/sway-unravelling-unconscious-bias/9781472971357

Extra resources recommended by Toral:

Invisible Women by Caroline Perez https://uk.bookshop.org/books/invisible-women-exposing-data-bias-in-a-world-designed-for-men/9781784706289

Superior by Angela Saini https://uk.bookshop.org/books/superior-the-return-of-race-science/9780008293864 - (she also has another book called Inferior)