Advocate for health through cooking

A cookbook author and healthy-eating advocate from Saudi Arabia hopes her participation in the Spear Some Inspiration award will help raise awareness about healthy cooking in the region.

The traditional cooking of the Arabian Gulf may be hearty, rib-sticking dishes for long-lasting energy, but that does not mean it has to be unhealthy.

Ohood Sohail, cookbook author and healthy-eating advocate, from Saudi Arabia, has made promoting healthy cooking in the Gulf her cause.

After studying nutrition and food sciences in college, she joined a cooking academy in Jeddah and trained about 700 women during her tenure.

She appears on a cooking television show in Saudi Arabia and is also the author of a coming Arabic cookbook, Indescribable Recipes, with a Sprinkle from Ohood.

The book will feature nutritional tips and 40 healthy recipes, from soups and salads to desserts.

"The Gulf region is opening up and it is not as closed off and conservative as it once was," says Ohood, who lives in Abu Dhabi. "People now respond to advice about healthy nutrition, as they see the damage of cholesterol and diabetes and high blood pressure and all these diseases."

She hopes her participation in the Spear Some Inspiration award will help raise awareness about healthy cooking in the region.

"My goal is to spread information about good diet and then it's up to them to do whatever they want with it," Ohood says.