Bolton-on-Dearne teacher wants to spread her healthy vegan message

The singing teacher from Bolton-on-Dearne said that changing her diet changed her life, even helping combat crippling arthritis.

Belinda (47) now wants to dedicate herself to promoting a way of life which she says will enhance people’s health by boosting the quality of what they eat and develop their spirituality.

She is a committed activist against animal slaughterhouses and wants to make food consumption more humane by cutting out meat and dairy products.

Belinda, who trained as a vegan nutritionist with the British School of Yoga and attained a grade 4 diploma, now promotes her 333 Plan through workshops and hopes to have a book out by the end of the year.

She eats only grains, fruit, nuts and vegetables and made the choice after being deeply effected by a film on slaughterhouses.

She said: “I went vegan overnight and my family went vegan overnight. I did not force them but I would not buy meat or cook it.”

But it was after being diagnosed with arthritis in her hips and being given a bleak prognosis for the future by doctors that Belinda realised that what she ate could help.

Her research tracked down people who claimed to have cured stage four cancer by using a raw vegan diet, and Belinda decided it could help her more than a diet of painkillers.

She said: “They were eating an abundance of salad, raw vegetables and lots of nuts and seeds. I went to that first and I benefited straight away. The pain started to go straight away.

“It sounds extreme but I think illness is extreme and taking medication for the rest of your life is extreme. But that has become normal, hasn’t it?

“When I was taking those kinds of drugs I just could not think properly because they start removing your brain capacity.

“The option was painkillers and stop teaching yoga and not to even exercise other than gentle swimming. It was a pretty awful prognosis for my future.

“I realised that pain is your body’s alarm bell and it should not be shut off. If it’s cut off it gets louder and more angry. I believe the pain is your natural warning mechanism.”

Belinda said that she can now teach yoga again, as well as hold down a job as a singing teacher and perform with band Face The Music. She also enjoys getting out and about in her camper van.

She said: “I now understand the power of rebuilding yourself.”

Belinda said that making the blood healthy is a key to good health and that fruit is the best way of providing essential nutrients.

She believes that cancers and other ailments can be largely caused by diet and said that the government should do more to promote veganism, though she said it is in the pocket of the meat production, dairy and pharmaceutical industries.

Belinda said: “The government don’t have our best health as their major interest.”

But she believed that schools could also do more to encourage healthier eating.

She said: “Why learn about history at school? What is more important than learning about nutrition? Why are there no nutritionists in schools? What’s more important than children’s health?”

Belinda said that spreading her beliefs on nutrition is now her “life’s work”.

She would like to set up clinics to offer people an alternative to the usual medical solutions.

She said: “You are not going to get well eating animals.

“It’s the injustice of it all. A pig can live to 12 years old but it’s killed at five months. We don’t give them a right to life. If people were informed they would not like it,.

“My entire future work is going to be dedicated to giving information to make people better and to stop animal cruelty.

“It drives me, it’s exciting. I don’t see what is more important.

“I am going to embrace being 50 because I realise our own potential.

“The intention is to help people heal.

“I am so excited and prepared to take some criticism. I have nothing to hide. I have no fame or glory, it’s just pure purpose.”