(Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by Matt Cardy)
Queen Camilla was in the news lately for suffering from a chest infection due to which she had to cancel all her scheduled engagements. The news sparked a buzz online for her alleged poor lifestyle habits including her heavy drinking issue. But her son, Tom Parker Bowles, came to her rescue and defended his mother with a seven-word response. While speaking to The Times, Tom was asked if he knew about his mom’s ‘reputation of drinking gin and smoking.’
The 49-year-old set the record straight about his mother when he said, “Never drunk a glass of gin in her life. Doesn’t smoke.” Tom’s comments came a few weeks before Buckingham Palace announced that the Queen Consort was unwell and wouldn’t be able to attend the events she was scheduled to. In the short statement, a palace spokesperson informed, “Her Majesty The Queen is currently unwell with a chest infection, for which her doctors have advised a short period of rest,” reports BBC. Though nothing is alarming, Queen would still be under medical care until she recovers.
It had previously been said that Camilla was a heavy smoker, but the reports were later rubbished, especially with insiders saying she now leads a healthier lifestyle and eats local, fresh produce along with her husband King Charles. Moreover, her son Tom revealed that growing up, she ensured her children stuck to a ‘strict’ diet.
Tom, who is a food critic, recalled, “We grew up eating locally, seasonally and organically, way before they became the overused buzzwords they are today – my mother shopped in the butcher, fishmonger, bakery, and greengrocer, per Hello! Though Camilla didn’t deprive her kids of processed foods entirely, the consumption was kept to a bare minimum.
“My mother was fairly strict in what we were allowed,” Tom reiterated. The Cooking and the Crown author also revealed that scrambled eggs for breakfast and shepherd’s pie or roast chicken for dinner were some of the staples of Camilla’s kitchen.
Meanwhile, the Queen consort told students of a school during her visit to Slough, “I tell you what I really like – eating peas straight from the garden. If you take them straight from the pod they are delicious and really sweet.” She further revealed that she also takes all her grandchildren to the garden where they ‘spend hours and hours eating peas.’
Camilla, who turned 77 on July 17, has been advised to maintain a healthy lifestyle, and Dr. Tamara Alireza, a Functional Medicine Practitioner, told Hello! that to keep up with her hectic schedule, the Queen Consort has to address her immune system, which gets weaker with age. So she has to take ‘adequate nutrition, [including] zinc and vitamin D with K2 supplementation’ along with her already fine-tuned diet.
The jet-setting royal was last spotted with her husband Charles on a tour to Australia and Samoa, which began on October 18 and ended on October 26. The tour was a first since Charles had been diagnosed with cancer.
