Smug Health and Lifestyle School
Connecting people, land and food for better health, vitality and joy in life.
Smug Health and Lifestyle School is a library of health & cooking education led by a teacher and a nutritionist.
Designed to educate and inspire those interested in self-reliance and wellbeing (for you and the earth), Smug shares learnings around how to eat, cook and create connections with the land in a way that improves health and increases vitality and joy in life.
This evergreen digital library has been intentionally created for community and education and is absolutely packed with live classes, live Q&As and enriching conversations with remarkable guests. We cultivate connective tissue between what is within us and what encompasses us through lessons, experiences and conversations about food, family, land and the memories and ties that bind us to our earth-based experiences.
And we’ve packaged it all up in an exclusive members area just for you.
Who we are
We are identical twins who've been cooking and gardening together since we were three years old (and plonked in the garden to crawl, eat worms and explore well before that!).
Now we're also chief meal-creators, home-shapers, mini land-tenders and life-guides to the four little people we have between us. We're focussed on creating foundational health and a connection to earth and the 'nourishment-chain', minus any diet dogma and disconnection from personal autonomy.
Hayley Bunting
Though we both hail from South Gippsland in Victoria, Hayley now lives on Bundjalung Country in the Northern Rivers Region of New South Wales, Australia.
Hayley's favourite lunchbox foods growing up were grated carrot and peanut butter sandwiches, or skewers with cheese and vegetable cubes (and she loved her fortnightly '2 Party Pies and a chocolate Big M' canteen order). When at 'adult' parties, Hayley loved eating intensely coloured miniature pickled onions, and cabana.
At the time of writing this, she's the mother of a 1 year old boy and a 3.5yo girl.
Alice Nicholls
Alice also grew up in country Victoria, and now lives on Gubbi Gubbi Country on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, Australia.
Alice loved finding cream cheese and gherkin sandwiches in her lunchbox, but her favourite school lunch was also vegetable and tasty cheese skewers. The novelty of the ol' 'food on a stick'... When staying at her dad's house, Al made up a mean strasburg, cheese and tomato sauce (ketchup) sandwich.
At the time of writing this, she has two daughters who are 8 and 11 years old.
Origin Stories
Within Smug Health and Lifestyle School, we have sat in conversation with glorious people who share a passion for a range of fields related to self-reliance and personal autonomy, food, health, sustainability, farming, nature and the environment.
You will love diving into our library of Origin Stories, and conversations we have in the future will all be yours to share in - live!- too.
We have sought out edifying, connective-tissue stories and explore the foundational experiences - the ‘Origin Stories’ - that have brought our guests to the spaces they exist within today. You will hear about our guests’ challenges, realisations, lows and ‘Aha!’ moments within these stories - we feel many of these will resonate with you as much as they have with us.
Based on the majority of our conversations (where applicable), we pick up recipes, projects, or immersive activities and have facilitated learning within that sphere. These learnings are multi-dimensional and reach far beyond the ‘recipe’ itself, whether the ‘recipe’ was for a meal, a way of seeing self, others and the world, or a step-by-step guide of how to plant the seeds (literal and figurative) to enjoy a better life today.
We wind right back to the origins of passion, experience, love and connection to any of the above subjects with our guests. Stories of childhood meals and experiences, things that have or haven't changed, rituals and processes that are passed from generation to generation.
We have sought out these beautiful connective-tissue stories and the foundations of the life that brings our guests to the place they are today.
What people are saying…
“Smug helped me reconnect with my love of cooking and reminded me of the joy of simple, nourishing foods made with love, just like my Nanna used to cook for me. I’ve been inspired to create my own kitchen garden and it has been one of the most JOY FILLED experiences of my adult hood. My 12 year old loves cooking Smug recipes by herself and I feel so grateful that she is learning ways to nourish herself while she’s still at home. Smug has been and will continue to be the foundations that my family build their health on. This community is the cheapest and most impactful health investment you’ll ever make. Thank you Alice and Hayley for creating such a beautiful legacy for me to hand to my kids xo”
“Smug School brought me home. It brought me back to messy, intuitive, home made cooking like my mama used to make. It gave us bowls and bowls of nourishing dishes on the table. It reminded me that simple is best, simple is enough and simple is achievable. I still rewatch the cooking videos and cook alongside you Alice - I love the feeling of communal cooking and your videos help me achieve that in my little family kitchen. Love love love Smug and I’ll race anyone to sign up again first! ”
“I LOVE you gals and the community so much!!! There’s always someone ready to answer a question and offer advice and the content and meals and prep/planning just basically all of it is epic. I feel so confident and empowered to prepare healthy, delicious, easy meals and am excited for what’s to come … love all the lives especially!!”
Join an educational and inspirational community focused on enabling you to thrive.
Within Smug Health and Lifestyle School you receive
A cooking class library of over 20 hours of videos of us in the kitchen, walking through multiple genres of cooking and bringing you real-life examples of how to amplify flavour and nutrient density in your food.
Over 15 booklets of recipes aligned with soul food cookery and flexible, nutrient-dense meals allowing you to create all of the meals ‘taught’ during video cooking classes (that are about sooooo much more than ‘cooking’).
Over 100 health-supporting recipes that are simple to create and taste incredible too!
Supplementary Recipes and Information for those who follow eating plans ‘free’ of particular foods (e.g. gluten-free, AIP-friendly, nightshade-free).
3.5 hours of bonus video classes: Immunity; Fatigue, Diet & Lifestyle; Health & Vitality vs Weight-loss and Women & Cravings.
16 hours of Origin Stories (video interviews) and associated Video Education Sessions with inspirational guests such as Helen Padarin, Paul West, Jo Whitton, Alice Zaslavsky, Danyel Waters and Cyndi O’Meara.
Access to an exclusive Facebook Group for Q&A and community conversation.
Meet our Origin ‘Story-tellers’ for this season
Danyel Waters
Clinical Nutritionist & Functional Medicine Practitioner
Danyel has worked in the health & wellbeing space for over 15 years. Her drive to get to the bottom of your health challenges is relentless and her ability to join the dots connecting symptoms to cause is exceptional. This woman reads medical journals for the fun of it and is constantly building on her knowledge bank of functional testing and clinically relevant data. Buoyed by the belief that better health is achievable for all if you just know where to look and what tools to use, she makes it her business to help her patients feel seen and heard in their time with her.
Jo Whitton
Jo Whitton lives in Far North Queensland where she runs her business, Quirky Cooking, from home and enjoys the country life. Due to food intolerances in her family (herself and her four children), Jo began researching ways to improve their health through diet from the time her kids were very young.
Jo runs health seminars, retreats and other events both in Australia and overseas, sharing how to transition to a healing, whole food diet without the overwhelm. She also facilitates online programs and workshops to support people working through healing with food, is always working on developing new recipes for her audience, shares daily cooking videos from her kitchen, and has some exciting new projects in the pipeline for 2020 including cookbook no. 3!
Jenna Oakley
Jenna Oakley is a Clinical Nutrition student (BHSc) and the co-creator of Meat Club Noosa, a co-op of free-range and ethically sourced meats to the local Noosa area. She is passionate about eating and living mindfully, and has worked within the GAPS framework to support healing within her children.
Join an educational and inspirational community focused on enabling you to thrive.
What people are saying…
“A beautiful community with so much info guidance and pure food joy. I’m still making my way through my smug files. Food is a connection with others and I look forward to more smug ”
“Smug gave me the power to look at a meal and think “how can I make this MORE nutrient dense or flavour some” and it gave me my cooking mojo back ”
“I loved everything about Smug! I learnt how to constantly think about about upping the nutrient in everything I cooked. I loved the lives and how they all always inspired me to try different meals. And I really loved all the yummy recipes which are now on regularly rotation in our house! ”
“Absolutely loving the shift in our cooking at home. Having a toddler I have always been worried that he’s eating. It’s then so easy to fall into the trap of giving anything out of fear they’re not eating. But no more! Thanks to Smug Cooking School (which is the BEST investment you’ll EVA make) we’ve simplified things right down. More real food. More focus on eating what’s on our plates. Less focus on how ‘healthy’ it is, but knowing there’s goodness all around. Thanks Hayley and Al for easing the stress on this home!”
Join an educational and inspirational community focused on enabling you to thrive.
