Frog secretions on toast, anyone? Consuming amphibian slime is a wellness trend that even Goop goddess Gwyneth Paltrow might draw the line at.
Yet former actress Davinia Taylor recently revealed she did just that, undergoing the Amazonian ritual called Kambo in a London flat. Cue vomiting, facial swelling… and fabulous skin, darling! The frog munching will not surprise many who follow Davinia, now empress of a health empire which sells a range of supplements from bovine collagen to bone broth protein.
Davinia’s is an interesting story – less rags to riches than glad-rags to wellness riches. In the 1990s and 2000s she was a real party girl, painting London’s Primrose Hill red with friends Kate Moss and Sadie Frost.
She has been open about her struggles with alcoholism, drug abuse and food addiction, all of which culminated in her discovering ‘biohacking’ – using diet, exercise and tools to optimise her health and challenge ageing.
Though 47, Davinia claims her biological age is 20. And boy, she works hard to roll back the years.
Her day begins with a 6.30am wake-up, exposure to a full light spectrum panel (which mimics natural light), keto coffee (made with collagen and something called MCT oil) and a 7k run.
She guzzles offal because of its nutritional benefits, knocks back digestive enzymes like smarties, has icy cold showers to trigger dopamine, fasts intermittently, swigs celery juice and something called ‘chia gel drink’, eats sourdough bread and relaxes by taking some activated charcoal then sitting in an infrared sauna.
At bedtime she wears mouth tape and nose plugs to take in more nitric oxide (though how she breathes is a mystery).
Former actress Davinia Taylor recently revealed she performed an Amazonian ritual called Kambo – which involves frogs. Ms Taylor claims that, at 47, her biological age is 20
You can smear frog secretions on lettuce but you can’t fight genetics, writes Clare Foges
Just reading her daily schedule might make the average person want to decompress with a bacon sarnie, but Davinia is evangelical about this regime.
I must say she comes across as a likeable person. She has done well to turn her life around. And there’s a dollop of sense in what she says. She’s correct that inflammation is a driver of chronic illnesses and reducing it is a good thing. She’s right that exercise makes you feel good and food can affect your mood.
What’s wrong is the extreme nature of it all. It seems Davinia has swapped one set of addictions (drink and drugs) for another (health and wellness).
She’s not alone. Millions of us are now obsessed by promises of wellness and longevity, as though one more hack or herb will have us bounding around with the energy of Tigger, skin lit from within by 1,000 watts.
I confess I’m no stranger to the world of wellness woo-woo. I’ve gargled olive oil; passed out on a Bikram yoga retreat while contorting myself into a pretzel in 40C heat; submitted myself to a vitamin infusion via a drip; purchased something like a bed of nails to aid blood flow; invested in herbalist teabags which made about as much difference as PG tips; and subscribed to a daily probiotic drink which tasted like vomit.
There was my juicing phase a decade ago when – enticed by stories of juicers reversing chronic disease – I drank approximately 18 apples, 24 carrots and four peppers a day. Alas my digestive tract didn’t appreciate it as much as my greengrocer.
My husband, a doctor, used to despair of these ‘fads’. When I ate my placenta (in pill form) after the birth of my first child to give me an energy boost (didn’t work), he thought I’d lost it. I’m not even the worst offender I know. One friend employed someone – online, from the other side of the country – to cleanse the energy in her home. She enthuses that colonic irrigation ‘makes your eyes sparkle like nothing else’.
When I asked why she is endlessly trying new wellness fixes she confessed: ‘It’s really easy to make a hobby of trying to “fix” yourself… it’s sort of navel gazing gone mad.’
This is the issue. There’s nothing wrong in trying to be healthy, but wellness obsession encourages a level of self-absorption that is far from healthy.
Even though you are thinking about your vitality – which sounds far more acceptable than wellness’s vain twin, beauty – it’s still thinking about me, me, me.
You risk putting so much attention into trying to prolong your life that you forget to live it.
Plus the idea that you can biohack decades off your age ignores the lottery of genetics. My grandfather lived to 96, and it wasn’t thanks to the ‘biohacks’ of ten Henri Winterman cigars a day, but to the genetic makeup that ensured his three sisters lived to their late 90s, too. You can smear frog secretions on lettuce but you can’t fight genetics.
As I moved into my 40s, I slid off the wellness bandwagon. While researching a book about the lives of our hunter-gatherer ancestors (The Paleo Life), it became clear that we should be emulating, where possible, the patterns of our forebears.
To me that means walking miles each day, steering clear of processed food, spending lots of time outside in daylight. Like most of us, I don’t love the ageing process. But I try to remind myself of the most effective ‘hack’ for mental wellness: gratitude.
As Mark Twain once said: ‘Do not complain about growing old, it is a privilege denied to many.’
Some 60 per cent of parents believe it’s OK for kids to start school without being potty trained, according to a government poll. I don’t care how busy you are – if your child is not disabled and they are still not potty trained by the age of four, your parental laziness stinks.
The Duchess of Sussex attended Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit earlier this week
Is Meghan now a top CEO too?
Another week, another opportunity for Meghan to pose for the flashlights at a global event. This time, Fortune’s annual Most Powerful Women Summit. I’m confused about how she has earned her place at these events. Is she invited as a fashion plate? An influencer? A royal? A jam-making Martha Stewart wannabe? More confusing still is how this grandstanding is ever going to bring the Duke and Duchess the privacy they once claimed to long for.
It would have been the 100th birthday of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher this week
The day Maggie saved me
The 100th birthday of Margaret Thatcher this week brought to mind my only meeting with her.
In the late 2000s I went to a reception in Parliament, with the ex PM as guest of honour. Being young, I hovered in the corridor, intimidated by the claret-swilling Tory grandees inside.
Then came a voice from behind me. ‘You’d better go in,’ said Mrs Thatcher with twinkling eyes. ‘There are plenty of people in there who’d like to meet you.’ An Iron Lady, but in my experience a kind one, too.
Don’t let wokery ruin Austen
It is a truth universally acknowledged that when a classic is adapted these days, it is ruined by wokery
As someone still obsessed with the 1995 TV adaptation of Pride And Prejudice (yes, the one with Colin Firth), I was thrilled to hear its writer Andrew Davies is penning three more Jane Austen projects – then aghast to hear he will be probing darker themes. No! It is a truth universally acknowledged that when a classic is adapted these days, it is ruined by wokery.
