Meet Camilla Honeyleaf, who runs the ‘Sugar is Poison’ YouTube channel that, she’ll proudly tell you, ‘has given thousands of people the eating disorder they so badly need’. An entrepreneur and an activist, Camilla has a calling: to bring health to the masses, or at least the massive. She won’t rest until friends and strangers alike discover the joys of a cupcake made entirely from avocado, burnt quinoa husks and a semi-organic sweetener that has definitely not caused tumours in laboratory rats.
Healthy living, she says, is not an option but a calling. She is fond of a pithy bon mot (‘They’re like sentences trimmed of fat!’), including ‘Life began when I became vegan’ and ‘Treat your colon like your closest friend.’ She lives by the latter dictum in particular, and has been named Customer of the Month at her local high-colonic clinic three years on the trot.
Camilla’s latest venture, a beetroot smoothie purportedly made from an ancient Roman recipe beloved by the Caesars, claims to boost both gut health and feminine hygiene. (Slogan: ‘Veggie vaggy meat-free!’) She is in talks to supply the smoothie to women’s prisons, a project she views as deeply charitable. Jail, she explains, is bad enough without adding thrush into the mix. At times, Camilla will admit that her constant business acumen feels like both a blessing and a curse. She is addicted to coming up with marketable ideas, and not just because creative brainstorming burns calories. Currently under development is her crash-course weight loss service that delivers a single ingredient to the door, whereupon customers are forced to wrestle the delivery man for their meal. Camilla hopes that ‘Too Fat? Tofu!’ will be live by Q1 of next year.
Her exercise routine is equally varied and rich. On any given afternoon you might find her Jazzercising, running marathons or slapping whatever she suspects contains gluten out of her husband’s hand. She is passionate about getting everyone to exercise anywhere, anytime. The world is our gym, she is fond of saying, and you’re never to old to make use of it. As proof, she’ll often leave her wheelchair-bound mother’s insulin just out of reach. She pooh-poohs any notion that this ritual is cruel, calling it ‘the perfect shoulder-lift routine. Mummy’s triceps have never looked better.’
Asked what her greatest fear is, she replies instantly: ‘A repeat of the Covid pandemic – such a horrifying global tragedy.’ Pressed for more details, she bites back tears and explains: ‘Due to logistical issues Oslo-side, I was unable to receive the only brand of Norwegian yoghurt I really trust. I went months without my punnets of Hvit-Snø GladKu.’ At her lowest point mid-pandemic, Camilla reveals, she considered buying Tesco own-brand peanut butter, ‘but fortunately I came to my senses.’
Despite her love of foreign snacks, Camilla is no fan of going abroad. Wander too far from the Anglosphere, and many elements stray dangerously out of your control, she cautions. Ingredient lists are frequently illegible, as manufacturers insist on printing them in the local language; F&B hygiene is often suspect at best; and foreign waiters grow notoriously snippy when you ask them for the calorie count of each dish.
And don’t get Camilla started about international air travel. She once was trapped on a red-eye to New York with a broken in-flight entertainment system. The sole working channel played nothing but that year’s North American pancake-eating championships, and could not be shut off. ‘I was travelling to a health conference as a keynote speaker (ironically speaking about the dangers of carbs) and I was a mess the next morning,’ she reports. Memories of that fateful pancake broadcast haunt her to this day. ‘I can still see all that butter. And those chins – three to a person, sometimes – chewing, on and on…’ She is currently suing British Airways for emotional distress.
Some friends, concerned about her punishing routine and drive to succeed, have called Camilla’s crusade for wellness an obsession. It’s an accusation she laughs off. She is perfectly able to live a life outside of food. She loves playing, for example, with her two dogs, Quinoa and Ozempic. The latter is ‘a darling pup, named after a bothersome drug — it’s lost me so many customers.’ Sadly, both terriers are prone to frequent bouts of illness. Just last week, the vet diagnosed both animals with severe calcium deficiencies. ‘It’s mystifying,’ their worried owner sighs. ‘They eat nothing but pints of the most frightfully expensive clear nut-broth every day.’
While Camilla broadcasts much of her life on her 14 social channels, the entrepreneur hosts some skeletons in the closet. Her darkest secret? Camilla’s real name is Gertrude Weinerslav, a moniker she changed the minute she was legally able. (‘Too many guttural fricatives, darling. And the uppercase ‘W’ is the fatty of the alphabet.’) Her second-darkest secret: once a year she gets blackout drunk on a magnum of Blue Nun and eats seven Happy Meals in her car. She calls it her shameful cleanse.
‘I’m not perfect,’ she happily admits. ‘But at least I look perfect.’ And with that, Camilla sprints off for a six-mile power walk and a pre-emptive high-colonic. Just talking about fried food, she says, can knock a colon as sensitive as hers out of kilter.
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