The 5-minute Interview: Gregg Wallace, food expert and TV presenter
'I'd like to have been a rugby player, then a history professor'
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Your support makes all the difference.Wallace, 43, is an expert on fresh produce and a judge and co-host on the BBC show 'MasterChef'. He is currently helping to launch the new Milk and Strawberry Probiotic Lolly from Walls Ice Cream.
If I weren't talking to you right now I'd be...
I'd be making mayonnaise. I'm not very good at it so I want to practise. Or I would be making rounds with the lorry.
A phrase I use far too often...
All right. When we finish shooting MasterChef, they always have clips of me saying "all right".
I wish people would take more notice of...
Healthy foods, particularly probiotics. I think people should eat more healthily and probiotics are good for you and easy to make. They are very complementary to the gut and I'm very keen on them – I take them, my children take them but I know for a fact that half of the people in this country actually don't even know what probiotics do.
The most surprising thing that happened to me was...
Being a father. It really surprised me how I managed to create these two little people. It never ceases to amaze me.
A common misperception of me is....
People think that I'm a chef because I'm doing Masterchef and I evaluate food. A lot of people shout at me in the street: "Oh, look, there's that chef from the telly."
I am not a politician but...
I would make a tough law that would force all supermarkets to source at least 15 per cent of their fresh produce from a very small radius of the store. If people ate local and seasonal food they'd eat far better and cheaper foods and it would help farming in this country. There are far too many imported vegetables.
I'm good at...
I'm actually a very good rugby coach – I coach an under-15s side in Liverpool.
I'm very bad at...
Maths. There are two types of people in the world: those who can count and those who can't.
The ideal night out is...
A very good meal and then watching a rugby match. Or, an ideal night out would involve bringing someone home at the end of it.
In moments of weakness I...
Drink too much.
You know me as a vegetable grower but in another life I'd have been ...
An international rugby player. My loves in life are food, history and rugby. I'd love to be a history professor or a rugby player but I prefer rugby and my career would end by the time I was 30, leaving me enough time to go and study history.
The best age to be is...
I'm 43 right now and I've got to say the I'm happiest I've ever been. I'd like to be a little less tired, but I'd like to stay 43.
In a nutshell, my philosophy is this:
Make friends with everybody, whether you like them or not, as people who like you will help you.
Nikolina Sajn
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