You can find the book launch details by signing up here - it will be available on Amazon and my Payhip Store - by October 2025.

At the heart of GULP is the Mind Food Body System - the practical framework designed to help individuals eat safely and live socially after head and neck cancer. But behind the system lies a deeper philosophy: the Commensality Comeback. This model represents the emotional and social restoration that occurs when eating becomes more than nutrition-it becomes connection. GULP brings them together, offering both the strategy and the soul to navigate life after radiated dysphagia.

* GULP = the full package

* Mind Food Body = the “how” (system/process)

* Commensality Comeback = the “why” (philosophy/purpose)

I developed the Mind Food Body System based on my own experience recovering from head and neck cancer and learning to eat again after a PEG tube. During that time, I noticed significant gaps- especially in how information was shared between patients, carers, and the clinical team. This system was created to close those gaps with a practical, structured approach that supports safer eating and better communication.

The Commensality Comeback isn’t a concept I invented-it’s the bigger picture. It reflects the return to shared meals and social eating after medical treatment. GULP supports that comeback by combining the system with easy-to-use tools.

Here’s how it all fits together:

* Philosophy – The Commensality ComebackA shift toward restoring shared meals and connection after treatment

* System – The Mind Food Body SystemA practical framework to guide patients and clinicians through the return to oral eating

* Tools – GULPA set of resources (book, app, and toolkit) to support learning, planning, and implementation

GULP. Is my story, my challenges and how I went about creating my best food life and new life having had a PEG tube for 15 months. It is intended as a story but an educational story, built with layers of experience in food, cooking, hiking, strategy and an unwavering belief in oneself.

It’s all designed and created to ensure that you..

Eat Well.

If cancer gave me anything it was a hot cup of tea and a good talking to.

I wanted to read stories from people who had a clue.

I wanted to get some sort of idea about what it was I was going through and what others had experienced.

I didn’t want to get unsolicited advice from a thousand people on social media about the dodgy looking ulcer on their tongue.

Not helpful, non of it.

…and so GAG.| eating life was born.

This is a documented life journal told in story format of my setbacks and comebacks after surviving head and neck cancer.

Now I am a writer and international hiker.

A story teller and still, after everything a foodie at heart.

May it provide the inspiration and clarity you need.

Eat Well.

Wow survivorship. The second battle - I didn’t see it coming.

There are people who actually do their PhD’s in this so I’ll leave the details to them.

I guess the nuance of what I write is now based on “survivorship” and as I have documented my journey from day 1 - it’s becomes a useful resource, for not only me but those that unfortunately are coming up the rear of which there are many.

This next stage is where I need your help. Your thoughts, comments and ideas publicly written if possible, that way it doesn’t just become because “I said”.

You know what I mean, so if you can make a comment here on Substack, Linkedin, social media or even just send me an email - and being comfortable with me using your words in the public arena is all super helpful.

Please share this publication - it helps get the message out there …

Becoming a paid subscriber also super helpful. 😉

GAG.| eating life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Eat Well.

I don’t often eat ice cream anymore, I find the melt point a little bit difficult to manage, back when I first had treatment for Oropharyngeal stage four cancer, the ice cream use to burn my throat, it felt gritty and as a result, unless it’s top shelf (high fat content) and expensive, I don’t enjoy it.

I started making my own “ice cream” with just frozen bananas and that with some seeded strawberry puree is the bomb.

You’d think this would be relatively easy to eat in public and it was, except I was sitting in my car and not having to talk to anyone. I avoid eating in public quite a bit now unless I absolutely have to. In part because I can’t tolerate having food stuck to my teeth and or gums and I get so tired trying to eat, converse, keep myself looking like an adult and managing dental hygiene. It all just has too many moving parts.

Today, quite uncharacteristically I bought an ice cream (its dead of winter here) and ate it in the carpark whilst I waited for my meeting. Cones made of wafer are pretty good as I still can’t tolerate wooden sticks in my mouth.

Nope, can’t stand the ‘feel’ of them any more, I often tell my surgeon when he’s giving me an endoscopy and checking my throat - please rinse that wooden tongue depressor under running water before putting it any where near my mouth.

Wooden cutlery / bamboo cutlery I’ll have none of it thank you very much.

Airlines and on board cutlery is my next challenge.

Eat Well.

For those of you who have been here with me for a while, know that I hike, and when I say hike, I mean hundreds of kilometres. It saved my sanity, my life whilst healing from Stage 4 Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

This will be my third hike in Europe in as many years. This will be the longest one yet.

The Camino Frances which will test my food confidence and my early ORN just enough to make it really annoying.

I have a fundraiser with Head and Neck Cancer Australia so If you can afford to, please consider donating which will motivate me to continue to train and bring you updates.

I’ll be honest I am still working out how I am going to record this trip but if you feel as though you want to know more about my hiking life - I have a You Tube channel which I created to document my hikes for my personal record and enjoyment.

Copy eat and travel write

Other hikes about food confidence can be found here and living in Vietnam when it all went horribly wrong here

or my first Camino Portuguese here

I plan on writing and sketching this hike in memory of my artist mother, Moira McClaren.

I am taking her sketching pencils so that a little bit of her comes with me, mum loved Spain and she and dad never had a chance to go back so I am making up lost time and opportunities.

More to follow.

Eat Well.