The knackered chef… Jamie Oliver's next big plan is to slow down

 
Slowing down: Jamie Oliver at The Big Feastival (Picture: REX)
Alistair Foster1 September 2014

Jamie Oliver has told how he only sleeps for three and a half hours a night — but said he now plans to slow down for the sake of his health.

The 39-year-old chef runs a multi-million pound empire that includes his cook books, production of his television programmes, restaurant chains and his line of cookware.

He was speaking at The Big Feastival, the music and food festival he set up with Alex James that took place over the weekend at the Blur star’s farm in Oxfordshire, with performances from Jamie Cullum, Laura Mvula, Fatboy Slim and De La Soul.

Father-of-four: Jamie Oliver with his wife Jools and their children in 2012

Oliver told the Standard: “I want to slow down now — I’ve got four kids and I’m knocking on for 40. I get about three and a half hours’ sleep a night and it’s not getting any easier. I need to slow down for my health.

“I want to focus on fewer things and do them better.”

Oliver also revealed he used to be “roughed up” by some men early on in his TV career.

He faced the anger of men who were unhappy with the way his first show, The Naked Chef, was putting more of them under pressure to do their fair share in the kitchen.

The star chef added: “When I started The Naked Chef you’ve got to remember it was quite controversial at the time.

"I remember, we’d gone from about 12 per cent of women working to 65 per cent, and the boys of Britain were still saying, ‘What’s for dinner darling?’

“And then there was this moment of, ‘Well, what is for dinner, darling?’ And I remember men hated me for the first three years, like aggressively. I got chased, got roughed up a few times.

“But after five or six years, men, instead of abusing me, started saying, ‘Well, I’m better than you now’, and the old testosterone kicked in. And when I do a demonstration now, if anything there’s more men than women.”

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