I’m a great believer in fat, says Nigella Lawson

London - Nigella Lawson has credited her increasingly glamorous appearance to eating fat, insisting that it helps her maintain her youthful looks.

During a promotional appearance for her latest book, ‘Nigellissima,’ the television chef was asked to name the “ingredients” that have enabled her to look so well-preserved at 52.

“I’m a great believer in fat. My view is, it’s a moisturiser from the inside,” the Telegraph quoted her as saying.

“I’m also a bit of an aquaholic - my doctor once told me I was drinking too much water, at least three litres a day. But I think eating proper food is very important. I don’t like this habit of demonising some foodstuffs and venerating others, but I do think on the whole that your skin and your body and your mind are happier with real food and not processed bits of cardboard.

“There’s always room for a bit of junk food from time to time, but I think you really need proper food to feel properly alive,” she said.

Lawson added that she looked after her skin by being “sunphobic”, a fact illustrated last year by her appearance on Australia’s Bondi Beach in a head-to-toe burkini.

She also drinks very little alcohol, explaining that she uses a splash of vermouth in her recipes rather than open a bottle of white wine because she is “an eater not a drinker.”