OAM for food great

By Mara Pattison-Sowden
DOROTHY Edgelow, who forged the way for Melbourne’s health food industry and dedicated her life to promoting The Gawler Foundation’s principles of health and wellbeing, was honoured on Monday with a Medal of the Order of Australia.
In true “Jamie’s School Dinners” style, Mrs Edgelow has been changing the canteens at local schools to make children’s eating healthier in the Upper Yarra.
When asked if the almost 80-year-old was going to stop soon, Mrs Edgelow replied she intended “to wear out, not rust out”.
“It’s there and I have the opportunity to do it,” she said.
Originally a Cordon Bleu chef, Mrs Edgelow left work when her eldest daughter Lynette, was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
When Lynette recovered, Mrs Edgelow became committed to the belief diet and mind were the true “medicines” for healing.
She began one of Melbourne’s first whole food restaurants, Apple A Day, at Chirnside Park Shopping Centre in 1979, which soon grew into four restaurants across Melbourne.
Mrs Edgelow joined The Gawler Foundation as a volunteer in 1982, when Ian Gawler was a customer at the restaurant.
“One of our workers told me about our customer Ian and the support group program he was running out of a spare room in Camberwell,’” she said.
“I decided maybe I could help others with keeping their families alive.”
Mrs Edgelow played a major part with keeping the foundation going, including putting down the financial deposit for the land where the foundation is today, just outside Yarra Junction.
“It’s great to see how it’s grown and changed, but the basic principles – meditation, diet and positive thinking – can still change your life,” she said.
Mrs Edgelow said her first cookbook came about after a gentleman, whose wife had passed away, asked her to write two weeks’ worth of recipes and ingredients.
She has since had four cookbooks published, including two for children’s health.
She began the Children’s Whole Health Foundation in 2004, with a tremendous amount of “hands-on” work at the local schools.
“I never had any inclination to do any of these things until I started them, but I like to make sure I’m busy,” she said.
When asked what it means to be honoured in such a way, Mrs Edgelow is more enthusiastic about what it means for everyone else.
Mrs Edgelow will be presented with her OAM in an official ceremony later in the year.