BUSINESS
hungry FOR
change
WORDS NICOLE FUGE PHOTOS RIKKI LANCASTER
I
take a sip of water and scan the open plan office. I’m in the boardroom of Food Matters, which is encased in glass walls to allow natural light to beam through, there is faux turf in lieu of carpet, and a blue table tennis table where you would expect a boardroom table to be. Laurentine ten Bosch breezes past and tells me she’ll be just a minute. It’s been a busy morning of filming cooking segments for FMTV and I can still smell the delicious aromas of the day’s efforts. What started as an attempt to improve the health of one man, has fermented over the last 10 years, to become an international
48
profilemagazine
JAMES COLQUHOUN AND LAURENTINE TEN BOSCH
Ten years ago, James Colquhoun and Laurentine ten Bosch set out to improve one person’s health through the simple philosophy of approaching food in a medical sense. Now, Food Matters is in an unprecedented league of its own, helping millions of people across the world every day.
success story, with Laurentine and her husband James Colquhoun at the helm. “Before my dad’s illness we had quite a low level of consciousness around food and what to eat,” James says. In 2003, Roy Colquhoun was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and prescribed a cocktail of drugs. But his condition worsened and his quality of life was nil. Coincidentally, Roy’s diagnosis occurred just as James and Laurentine took a personal interest in nutrition and natural healing, and having attended a few seminars and events, their interest piqued.
“We went to (philanthropist) Tony Robbins’ seminar and realised there was an underground nutrition movement going on,” says Laurentine. James adds, “What really surprised us was this was a really different skew on food and nutrition, totally different to what we thought was healthy. “We also discovered that the healthcare, food, and agricultural industries were not particularly concerned about our health. “They were primarily interested in profits. For example, we learned that the processing of many of our basic foods was not for any health or nutritional benefit. Instead, it was profilemag.com.au