After 12 years as the New York Times’ restaurant critic, Pete Wells announced last week that he was leaving the role due to ill health – largely a side-effect of dining out decadently on a regular basis. “My cholesterol, blood sugar and hypertension were worse than I’d expected even in my doomiest moments,” he wrote after a medical checkup. “The terms pre-diabetes, fatty liver disease and metabolic syndrome were thrown around.” He had become obese, he says, and knew something needed to change.
With this in mind, we asked four leading restaurant critics how they mitigate the health risks posed by working in what is often deemed “the best job in the world”.
