British columnist, broadcaster and, perhaps most famously, incoming Celebrity MasterChef judge Grace Dent grew up in Carlisle, in Cumbria.
In her new position as judge on Celebrity MasterChef, she has the support of John Torode’s partner, Lisa Faulkner.
The BBC has called her the “perfect choice,” while Grace herself has described the role as a “dream” position of hers.
However, it will mean more food to eat. And when you’ve got 4,000 calories under your belt by 10am, more food may be less a blessing, more a curse.
Grace Dent says it’s ‘perilously easy’ to eat 4,000 calories by 10am
Incoming MasterChef judge Grace Dent – on Jeremy Pang’s Hong Kong Kitchen this weekend (June 21) – regularly consumes vast quantities of indulgent food before noon. Before 10am, even.
Such is the life of a high-flying Guardian food critic, as she recently explained to Caroline Hirons during an episode of her Glad We Had This Chat podcast.
“Yesterday, when I was at the restaurant, I’d eaten at least 4,000 calories by 10am. It’s perilously easy to do that, a big stack of pancakes, a really lovely latte and then trying another course, and then things in brioche, a little trifle, and there you go, 4,000.
“People who know me say it’s either a feast or like being with a giant squirrel,” said Grace, who made a short appearance on I’m A Celebrity… in 2023.
It may sound like a dream to some people, but Grace has her hangups with it. It is a complex privilege to be plied with calories in a world that places so much pressure on people, especially women, to look a certain way.
“Being a restaurant critic means your body doesn’t belong to you,” she said. “It belongs to the newspaper really. There is always thousands, and thousands, and thousands of calories coming.”
She has been on a diet ‘all her life’
Her brother is among those who comment on her weight, she says. Even if it’s in jest.
“I’ll eat a load of food in the morning and then go on MasterChef in HD TV.”
No one looks at themselves on high-definition television and thinks they look amazing, she insisted.
“The camera sticks on more weight. And with my life, being one of the only women who does it, it’s clawing back calories.”
Despite her profession – or because of it – her journey with weight has been “a very typical Gen X journey”, she said. Meaning what?
“I’ve been on a diet all of my life. When people say ‘you shouldn’t talk about that’ or ‘it’s not okay to know calories or weigh yourself’, I’m like, look, I’m a Gen X woman, my earliest memories are piles of diet magazines sitting on the coffee table, cut-out-and-keep 900-calorie-a-day diets to get you to slim down into your bikini.”
And her secret to feeling good about herself is hardly rocket science.
“I’m three years sober,” she said. “Three years ago I realised I couldn’t outrun my diet, no matter how much I walked.
“I couldn’t outrun how much drink was in my life, I was just a British drinker. A very classic British drinker and I got to the age of 47 or 48 and thought ‘this is going to kill me’.”
If you’re worried about your alcohol consumption, charity Change Grow Live has advice and resources about cutting down or quitting alcohol here.
Catch Grace on Jeremy Pang’s Hong Kong Kitchen at 11:40am on ITV1 on Saturday June 21.
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