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Enter English. She doesn\u2019t own a restaurant, have a Michelin star or a cookery programme. But armed with a BSc in nutrition from King\u2019s College London and her iPhone, she has become the go-to recipe source for millions of followers, mostly women like me (young, busy, healthy-ish) who watch and cook the hundreds of delicious, nutritious recipes English shares free on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, where she is simply known as \u201cEm the nutritionist<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n While Ottolenghi may have a monopoly on the dinner party, English is the reigning queen of the healthy midweek meal. Banish images of carrot sticks and bowls of bran flakes \u2014 English eats all the traditionally \u201cunhealthy\u201d no-gos: pasta, bread, dessert. Her recipes hit the sweet spot between tastiness and healthiness while ticking all the boxes every busy Gen Z or millennial person wants: prep-able; packed with \u201chacks\u201d; high in protein; heavily reliant on my generation\u2019s appliance of choice, the air fryer. Not to mention the catchy phrase with which English signs off each video: \u201cSo good.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s why clips of her \u201cprep-able protein sandwich fillings\u201d or \u201csalads that won\u2019t go soggy\u201d have racked up millions of views online, where everyone from Carrie Johnson<\/a> to supermodel Rosie Huntington-Whiteley follows her. Or why, when English shared a recipe for hot honey cottage cheese toasts, Marks & Spencer traced the online sale of 18,000 pots of cottage cheese directly to the video. Instead of the \u201cDelia effect\u201d, call this the \u201cEmily effect\u201d.<\/p>\n Each of her slick recipe videos is filmed by English on her phone in her newly renovated kitchen in prime southwest London real estate, where she lives with her husband, Aaron. This is where we are meeting today, pristine marble worktops decked out with copies of her latest book. Her first, So Good, was the bestselling debut cookery title of 2024, selling 35,000 copies in the first week. So I\u2019m not surprised English is glowing when she opens the door. Although if you\u2019re one of her followers, you\u2019ll know she attributes her glossy skin largely to the consumption of pomegranate seeds, beetroot and sweet potato.<\/p>\n \u201cI get messages from people telling me how much [of those ingredients] they eat now. That and cottage cheese,\u201d she says before, right on cue, listing the benefits of drained cow\u2019s milk curds. \u201cIt\u2019s versatile, high in protein and it adds this kind of rich, creamy loveliness. It\u2019s also very different now from the terrible cottage cheeses we had back in the day.\u201d<\/p>\n Part of English\u2019s job today, she tells me, is to help women repair their relationship with food after decades of being bombarded with toxic diet culture. If you grew up thinking carbs were bad, and the secret to being healthy was eating as little as possible, keep reading.<\/p>\n Like millions of her followers, English came of age when fad diets were in constant rotation and cereal boxes were emblazoned with images of women holding measuring tapes around their waists.<\/p>\n \u201cCan you believe that they had that on food packaging? It\u2019s mad. And do you remember the Special K diet?\u201d she says. The result is \u201cthis idea that nutrition is about restriction, reduction and misery. What I do is create food that you want to eat, but has been designed with nutrition in mind. I want you to look forward to every single plate. I want to bridge the gap between the science of nutrition and what actually tastes good. Because I love food. I love eating. I love restaurants.\u201d<\/p>\n That she does. One of the reasons English is trusted among women is that alongside nutritional advice she leads a relatively normal life, going out for drinks, sharing recommendations for her favourite restaurants (these include Chelsea\u2019s hottest spot, Martino\u2019s, and the Notting Hill bistro loved by the Beckhams, Dorian<\/a>) and enjoying wine. And \u2014 shock \u2014 her life hasn\u2019t turned upside down. \u201cThe community that I\u2019ve built are people who want to be healthy and prep their meals, but they also want lasagne and like a burger.\u201d<\/p>\n English\u2019s own nutritional non-negotiables are straightforward: an hour\u2019s walk first thing, morning sunshine and three balanced meals a day, prioritising fibre and protein.<\/p>\n Her nutrition journey began during her school years. Having grown up on a council estate in Bedfordshire until the age of eight, the second of five children, she won a full scholarship to study at a local private school for sixth form. A self-professed straight-A science buff (she got one of the highest chemistry grades of her school year in the international baccalaureate) she planned on going to university to study biochemistry or biology. That was until the summer she turned 17 and was scouted for Asos, the online shopping mecca of the 2010s.<\/p>\n It was the era of thigh gaps and Victoria\u2019s Secret fashion shows, and while English did well as a model, after a summer of travelling she was told by a new agency that she needed to lose weight. Her legs, they said, had got too fat.<\/p>\n She describes how her relationship with food changed \u201clike a light switch\u201d being flicked. Her perception of her body was transformed, triggering an eating disorder that turned her life \u201cupside down. I\u2019d come from a family of food lovers. We\u2019d never talked about dieting or bodies, and suddenly I had lost all that sense of normality.\u201d<\/p>\n It took six months and a therapist \u2014 English credits these sessions with saving her life \u2014 for her to quit the fashion industry, eventually revisiting her plans to go to university, this time to study nutrition at King\u2019s College London.<\/p>\n In the summer of 2020, English, then working as a private nutritionist, began sharing videos on Instagram of recipes she wrote for clients. Her following built quietly until four years ago when her recipe for Greek salad with garlic bread went viral. From there, things snowballed.<\/p>\n \u2018My proudest achievement\u2019<\/p>\n English\u2019s success ever since has been stratospheric. As well as three books and a fourth in the works, in 2024 she launched her science-backed gut-health supplement company Epetome, which bagged a multimillion-pound funding round in February and has started clinical trials. \u201cIt is my proudest achievement to date,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n English is impressive \u2014 polished, articulate, confident and driven. She is also a millionaire, a milestone she achieved by the age of 29 mostly through paid partnerships \u2014 \u201ccollabs\u201d as they are called today \u2014 with brands from the premium cookware brand Le Creuset to the online retailer Cult Beauty, which pay English to advertise their products. Her influence is now so great that it\u2019s not just her pills and books followers want to buy but also the make-up and even the toothbrush she uses.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember seeing [\u00a31 million] in my account for the first time. My dad was the first person I told because he is so entrepreneurial as well. I\u2019ve never met anyone who\u2019s more resilient and hardworking.\u201d English\u2019s dad owns a sign-making company that took off during lockdown.<\/p>\n She doesn\u2019t see herself as an influencer \u2014 \u201cI hate being called it\u201d \u2014 but that doesn\u2019t mean she hasn\u2019t been subjected to the modern phenomenon that comes with operating online: trolling.<\/p>\n \u2018People told me I looked too skinny or ill\u2019<\/p>\n Most comments, she tells me, would be about her appearance or her face. Surprisingly, they would come from accounts run by women in their fifties or sixties. \u201cIt\u2019s mad, isn\u2019t it? It would never be about food,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Does she think some people are snobby about her success? \u201cAbsolutely. I am a small blonde girl. And while there are so many things that I am fortunate to have had \u2014 my family, my education \u2014 I think people believe I couldn\u2019t possibly have done it myself. I must have had a leg up.\u201d<\/p>\n The most cutting comments, however, were those she got about her body, that she looks \u201ctoo skinny or ill. It\u2019s body shaming. And you never know what\u2019s going on in someone\u2019s life \u2014 if they have a health issue or just gone through extreme stress. It was horrible. I\u2019d feel really self-conscious of my body, or I\u2019d want to cover up or not post things because I look too small.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, after a stint in therapy, English is able to look past the trolls, using Instagram\u2019s safety features to automatically block aggressive messages. \u201cI feel really passionately that we need to stop commenting on women\u2019s bodies. I\u2019m disengaged [with trolls] now. And at the end of the day I cook food, make delicious free recipes, and so if you don\u2019t want to make my tuna melt toast, just f*** off. You don\u2019t have to follow me.\u201d<\/p>\n So Good Express by Emily English (Seven Dials, \u00a325) is published on May 7. To order a copy, go to timesbookshop.co.uk<\/a> or call 020 3176 2935<\/p>\n Hair and make-up: Alice Theobald at Arlington Artists using Armani Beauty and Cloud Nine. Dress and jumpsuit, self-portrait.com<\/a><\/p>\n![\"NINTCHDBPICT001075400320\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/fa6ede0f-b795-4a12-910e-7dcb5bc0b754.jpg\")
On a trip to Italyemthenutritionist\/instagram<\/p>\n![\"Emily](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1c033b5b-1eee-4a95-b27f-c40e58e86381.jpg\")
With her husband, brand consultant Aaron McFeelyemthenutritionist\/instagram<\/p>\n![\"NINTCHDBPICT001074189303\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/cfd0357c-f619-4038-b94a-dbc50fbbc6d4.jpg\")
\u201cHer recipes hit the sweet spot: high in protein and heavily reliant on air fryers\u201dTom Jackson for the times magazine.<\/p>\n