Engy › Who's who in longevity › Sandra Bekkari
At a glance
- Sandra Bekkari (Ostend, 1973) is a Belgian nutrition expert and author of health books and cookbooks.
- She ran a sports and wellness centre in Ostend for ten years and took nutrition courses at the Open Universiteit in the Netherlands around 2008.
- Her breakthrough came with the Nooit meer diëten (Never diet again) series from 2015. It is based on her Sana method: seven steps towards a healthy, Mediterranean-inspired eating pattern with as little processed food as possible. The series became a bestseller in Flanders.
- Later books include the Fast Food series, Lang Leve(n) Gezond (2023) and Missie Gezond Gewicht (2024).
- From 2017 to 2019 she appeared every weekday in Open Keuken on VTM. Since 2018 she has also sold her own food products, and she runs an online coaching programme and a recipe app.
- I include her because she reaches a large audience through books, TV and Instagram. Her background is in the sports and wellness sector, not academic research.
- Takeaway: her recipes are an easy way to eat more vegetables and less ultra-processed food.