Game changers of the year 2021

HEALTHY

Rachel Ama “Knowing I have a positive impact is pretty amazing”

Vegan cook Rachel is loved on YouTube for bringing fun and unique flavours to plant-based cooking. In summer 2021, a year into being a busy and exhausted new mum, she brought out a revolutionary new cookbook

‘Veganism has gone from being seen as a gimmick, to vegan and vegetarian options taking up whole supermarket aisles. I went vegan out of a passionate choice and I shared it because I wanted more people to enjoy plants the way I was. I don’t look at veganism as restrictive. It’s a new way of enjoying flavours.

‘I didn’t know how much [work] motherhood was until I joined the club and suddenly I have zero time! People ask me about meal prep and batch cooking and it’s great but it’s also super boring – it’s more exciting to have something you can remix and roll out for the next couple of days, adding simple twists to revitalise leftovers – that’s what my new book is about.

‘I have the Caribbean side of my family, so growing up we had stews, rice and peas, and plantain, and my other grandma is Welsh, so we had more British food. I’m also African, so food was this huge variety. My grandma from St Lucia was an incredible cook – I like to think she’s passed down her cooking genius to me!

‘I started doing what I do because I wanted more people to not frown upon vegan food, but actually to enjoy it – and eat more vegetables, not animals. Knowing that the work I do has such a positive impact and actually helps create good is pretty amazing.’ One Pot: Three Ways by Rachel Ama (Yellow Kite, £22) is available now

Dame Sarah Storey “I haven’t hung up my race wheels yet”

The delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics saw Dame Sarah Storey become Team GB’s most successful Paralympian of all time, with 17 gold medals

After eight Paralympic Games – four as a swimmer, then four as a cyclist – Dame Sarah Storey has secured her place in the history books as Britain’s greatest Paralympian.

But it hasn’t been an easy road. Dame Sarah, who was born without a functioning left hand, has spoken of enduring bullies when she returned to school after winning six medals in the pool – including her first two golds – at the Barcelona Games in 1992, aged just 14. ‘One of the instigators was someone who’d been quite close to me. I knew her really well, but she didn’t like where my career was going,’ she said.

She has also revealed struggles wit