Dr. Anneline Padayachee

12/04/2026

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07/04/2026

07/03/2026

There’s a 90-year-old woman somewhere in South Africa who prays for me every day.

She is tiny. Fierce. Sharp as a tack.
And she is the reason I exist.

My grandmother was born in 1936 in Natal, South Africa.

She wanted to be a biologist or archaeologist.
But she had to leave school around age 10. Poverty has a way of prioritising survival over dreams.
She started working on farms, picking crops by hand.

At 13, during the 1949 Anti-Indian Pogrom in Natal, local Zulu families hid her in their rondavels to save her life.
Thankfully, it worked.

At 16, she was expected to enter an arranged marriage.
Instead, she locked herself in a cupboard & refused.
For her, it was love or nothing.

At 19, she married my grandfather — a love marriage — even though he was from a caste below her Brahmin caste.

At 27, she chose to follow Jesus even though she knew it would make her an outcast.
Not as a Western religious conversion, but as she describes it:
"It was my own choice to know a God whose teachings I liked & fit with me."

Her husband threatened divorce for three years.
Instead, he eventually sought help, sobered up, left drugs & gambling behind, & rebuilt his life on faith too. With her. For her.

In her 30s, he was diagnosed with a brain tumour.
He eventually lost his eyesight.
She became his main carer.
All while raising four children — including my dad — in apartheid South Africa.

At 47, she became a grandmother.
Me.

At 53, she became a widow.

This year she is 90.

She has seven grandchildren & five great-grandchildren.

She has travelled to Australia more times than I can count.

She is lightning-fast at mental maths.
An avid reader.
Sharp on geopolitics & property investment.
She loves museums & art galleries.
She is a carrom board champion.
And she refuses to conform to cultural or age expectations.

And the fact that her first grandchild became a scientist makes her feel like she still achieved the dreams she never had the chance to pursue.

Continues in comments 👇🏾.

24/02/2026

has a recipe wall. What a brilliant idea!
Food is so much more than nutrition.
It's also culture. History. Connection. Mum.
With Dr Agnes Mukurumbira.

20/01/2026

I was discharged last week.
44 nights. 45 days.

It’s been a long, confronting journey learning how the brain actually works — and how much there is to unlearn.

But it’s also strangely relieving when your symptoms finally make sense.
When you’re heard. When you’re understood.
And how the brain affects functionality is making sense out of a lot of chaos.

And somewhere in the least expected place, I found an unlikely friend.
An SAS Special Forces soldier.

He keeps to himself. Observant. Quiet. Never posturing. Never loud.

I’ve never met a real-life soldier before — so with the confidence of a three-year-old toddler in a playground, I introduce myself and offer the seat next to me to the 200cm tall, tattoo clad, real life GI Joe.

He sits on the wall of the raised garden bed instead. We're both sizing each other up.

Our lives could not be more different.
He's neat as a pin, my hair is all angles of Brisbane humidity chaos.
He's on time for breakfast, I never make it to breakfast at all (too early - I have a box of 2-minute oats & yoghurt in the fridge). He wears muted colours. I wear highlighter bright everything.

And yet we connect deeply over one thing: having seen the worst of humanity. My insatiable curiosity doesn't help.

He’s never met a real-life mega-nerd & finds so much of who I am (& what I've done) fascinating.
I'm surprised he doesn't find me boring, while I find him mega-interesting.

We both are trying to make sense of why humans can be so cruel to one another.

For him, peacekeeping has meant trying to protect women & children from atrocities most of us can’t imagine.
The ones he couldn’t save still haunt him.

I asked him a question.
“If you could stand on a national stage and say one thing to Australians — what would it be?”
He pauses.
His eyes drift somewhere far away — to places that teach lessons no school, university, book, or social media feed ever could.

When he finally speaks, it's low & almost a whisper:
“Australians need to understand how precious and sacred life is. Not in a cheesy, religious way — but in a real, deep way.
I’ve seen children used as bombs.
Women with their heads drilled into tables by husbands who didn’t like them having an opinion.
I’ve also seen kids savour a simple boiled lolly like it was edible heaven.
I've eaten cheeseburgers stored in my backpack for weeks: the oldest was two and a half months.
Because there was nothing else.
It makes a simple boiled egg and toast feel heavenly.

Life is sacred. Not to be wasted on frivolous vanities.
Every human is equal.
And every human is capable of great evil.
Or great kindness.
What we choose to do with our power determines who we are.
As individuals.
As people.
As a nation.”

This message should be on billboards.
At the centre of boardroom tables.
At the heart of how we design policy, business, and culture.

Life is sacred.
And precious.
And difficult.
And many people around you are fighting battles you will never see.
Kindness is never wasted.
🤍

05/10/2025

Victoria Sponge Cake.
The ultimate celebration cake.
Mine came with a lemony twist — because sometimes life throws sour lemons at you, and it’s hard to celebrate.

Now, this cake — loaded with white flour (NOVA 2), sugar (NOVA 2), butter (NOVA 2), and jam (even my luscious homemade strawberry-vanilla jam, technically NOVA 3) — would be classed as the evil ultra-processed NOVA 4 food.

You know, the kind every influencer-doctor warns will cause every disease known to humankind — and maybe a few we haven’t discovered yet.

If we used a health-star rating, it might scrape 1 star… courtesy of the lemon zest and strawberries.
Because pure cream, pure icing sugar, pure caster sugar, white flour and extra-large eggs are all things to be feared, right? 🙃

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This labour of love took seven hours — not counting cooling time.
It was the birthday cake I promised a dying old man if he was still around for his 79th birthday.

We shook hands.
He told his wife, children, nurses, grandkids, cousins — even his older sister.
Everyone was surprised for ME to make him that cake (not like carrot or zucchini that would seem ok for a nutrition scientist). Someone asked,
“How could a nutrition person make cake?”

Simple: Because a veggie box, a platter of wholegrain crackers and hummus, or even a box of chocolates doesn’t anchor a grieving family the way a cake does. Also what's a birthday without cake, right?

---
Mr Dixon kept his promise until his body wouldn’t let him, passing four days before his birthday.

I still made the cake.
A gift for his family in mourning.

They celebrated his life today with a family lunch — reminiscing happy times while feeling the ache of grief.
Mrs Dixon’s hug was worth every minute.
Her smile, through wet cheeks, reminded me that food communicates what words can’t — it reaches places rationality never will.
"They'll go through photos for his funeral when they cut the cake," she said.

---
Not bad for an “ultra-processed” NOVA 4, one HSR, albeit homemade cake —
filled with love, intentionality, and the best ingredients available.

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Continued in comments ⬇️.

13/09/2025

"Plant based" has become synonymous with plant exclusive.
But it got me thinking: you could eat only one veggie or fruit, & that would be a plant exclusive diet. It would also be lacking in diversity & nutritional richness that comes from eating a variety of fruits, veggies, and wholegrains regularly.

In this meal, we have a coleslaw: carrots, two cabbages, spring onion, and celery. There's also a green salad: mixed leaves, baby pea leaves, cucumber, tomato. And some sauteed veggies: broccolini & zucchini. A dollop of hummus for flavour & texture.
Served with pan friend thingh fillet & a piece of wholegrain sourdough.

Proportions - 75% mostly plants, supplemented with 25% animal derived foods.

It is the easiest dietary technique to eat healthy enjoyment that delivers nutrients, antioxidants, polyphenols, and dietary fibre - both soluble (biome food & bowel scourer) & insoluble (cholesterol lowering & artery cleaner).

31/08/2025

🔥 Hot take: If your nutrition advice leaves out enjoyment… it’s already unsustainable.

🍦 It’s no secret: I love gelati. Real gelati. Not the frozen, taste-the-same air-filled sweet mousse kind.

Cue the awkward glances when I’m holding my cone:
“How can you eat ice cream, Anneline? You’re a nutrition scientist!”

👩🏽‍🔬 AP: Because no food is guilty or shameful. Enjoyment matters as much as macros. Without it, no diet is sustainable.

“Oh, so… moderation?”

👩🏽‍🔬 AP: No. What does moderation even mean? Nutrition isn’t about vague half-rules. It’s about:

👍🏽Total diet quality

👍🏽 Lifestyle quality

👍🏽 Personal health

👍🏽 Dose (how much?) & frequency (how often?)

And when people ask about the “latest and greatest” in nutrition?
Yes, we’re discovering new things all the time — how fibre feeds gut bacteria, how resistant starch works, how timing and dose shape outcomes.

👉🏽 But every discovery points us back to the same foundation:

🥗 Eat plenty of fibre-rich plants (colour + phytonutrients)

🦪 Choose quality proteins, 🍝 wholegrains and 🥑 healthy fats.

Chew fully, pay attention, and stop around 80% satisfied (your stomach takes 10–15 mins to signal fullness to your brain).

By the end of the cone, my friends realise: the kiddie scoop was enough. They’re satisfied. They never missed the double.

💡 Nutrition isn’t about rules. It’s about freedom, ownership, and actually enjoying your food.

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✨ If enjoyment is essential to sustainable health, why do we keep leaving it out of the nutrition conversation?