Belinda MacDonald

In 2014 New Zealand's version of My Kitchen Rules introduced the world to Belinda McDonald, a vivacious food professional whose magnetic personality complements her ardour for vibrant, fun and flavourful cuisine.

Growing up on a lifestyle farm in Cambridge, New Zealand and taking inspiration from her parents equipped Belinda with a self-sufficient skillset, learning the origin of food by partaking in planting, foraging and even milking the house cow! From a young age, Belinda spent hours in the kitchen, trying out new recipes and igniting her flames of passion for cooking.

Exploring her passion for food, after high school, Belinda travelled, worked, and ate around the world. She absorbed the ethos that one has to taste a culture to really understand it.

After raising three daughters, the need for a job with flexible hours became apparent. Belinda decided to retrain as a secondary school teacher, specialising in food technology and hospitality. She soon realised that her gift to her children and the world would be to educate them about the importance of nutrition in promoting wellbeing, by eating locally, seasonally and sustainably. 

Co-winning series one of MKR on the back of presenting dishes offering unique, bold, flavoursome combinations, highlighted that food can be rich and indulging- but also fiercely healthy! 

Belinda's success on the show snowballed into her first cookbook, My Green Kitchen, co-authored with Neena Truscott. Her debut effort, which integrates the healing power of foods in easy-to-make family recipes that focus on restoring gut health, utilising leftovers and foraging for superfoods-was a runaway success. 

On the strength of My Green Kitchen, Belinda made several TV appearances, wrote foodie columns, did keto food vlogging, and cooked at international foodie retreats. She even opened up New Zealand's first pop-up organic bone broth bar, serving wellness shots and tinctures of healing fire cider and infused butter bombs.

Recently, she launched her new global Keto-themed book Flavourbomb.  Belinda loves creating super-fast, crowd-pleasing modern keto dishes with surprising twists! 

Flavourbomb has a wonderful selection of main meals plus a great mix of fat bombs, sweet treats, keto breads, crackers, summer party fare and a vibrant veggie section. There is a section at the back which has essential condiments, sauces, tangy pickles, zingy dressings and luscious dippy things to boost flavour. 

During Covid lockdown, she launched a new website Flavourbomb.co.nz to help people with kitchen confidence, which comes complete with clever ingredient swaps that enable dishes to be transformed to keto. Belinda says "the website is a colourful collection of home-cooked global recipes, inspiration and adventures. It’s for those with an interest in good food and seasonal cooking."

“I love my job," says Belinda." I get to cook, travel, write, style, photograph and eat while connecting people, interspersed with laughter, a pinch of kindness and a whole lot of yum. Food is everything!"