Food is something I am incredibly passionate about. And I’m sure you will see this as our physical space comes to life in the next few years.  Food is a powerful thing to me, It can bring all kinds of different people together and share all different kinds of feelings. Food can warm your heart, give comfort & take you back to your childhood. So I try to share a little of my passion for food with other people. Like everything else in life, my relationship with food has ebbed and flowed over the years. All the way from a childhood in the kitchen with my mom and grandma to culinary school and major stadium kitchens to a career shift where I drifted away from my love of cooking, through a medical diagnoses that changed my life because it completely altered how I ate and how I cooked; food has always been an adventure for me. 

 
For a while, I gave up on cooking. With a sudden diagnosis of Systemic Lupus and Fibro Myalgia, I hit a point where I felt like I was hearing the phrase “you can’t have that.” a lot. and it destroyed my love of food for a long time. Everything I loved was on a list of foods to avoid as I was put on a low sugar, low carb, no red meat anti-inflammatory diet. Cooking was no longer fun, it was frustrating, and depressing, and a constant challenge. BUT after all the crazy dieting, and structural changes, I noticed that nothing was really changing. I wasn’t getting any better, my symptoms weren’t changing. I was still spending a crazy amount of time in doctor’s offices or in pain. So, I shifted gears again. I tracked down a rheumatologist, and spoke with a nutritionist and dietician. And again, my lifestyle changed. It became about moderation and regular exercise instead of keto/paleo/ low sugar or whatever else it was they had been trying to throw at me before. It reaffirmed my personal beliefs in nutrition. It allowed me enough wiggle room to begin to enjoy cooking again. I cannot stress enough how strongly I believe that there are no such things as bad foods…

EVERYTHING IN MODERATION

But it did allow me to educate myself a bit more thoroughly on balanced nutrition. On tracking your macro nutrients- which is incredibly important to finding balance. On the importance of having balance in your gut bacteria; and on the fact that no 2 people’s diets should really ever be the same. There is power in food science. and if you’re like me and not only have congenital terminal illnesses and therefore don’t want to spend the rest of your life on a slew of narcotic pain killers and steroids, then it is an amazingly liberating feeling to be able to take back some of your control simply by altering or supplementing your nutrition without giving up all of the things you love.  
 
I became incredibly passionate about nutrition and focused on nutrition for people with chronic illnesses. I have seen a complete shift in my attitude about food and in my overall health and happiness. This is one area of our community I am most excited to build: a place to share information, along with practical people recipes. 

I’m hoping that what I share will resonate with some of you, and even more so surprise you- both in its results but also with its simplicity. Eating well doesn’t have to be the mystery that the modern world makes it seem, and in the coming months I cannot wait to dive into more diverse and specific topics within the food/ nutrition/dietary sphere. 
 
And no, I’m not about to try and sell you some bizarre dietary supplement, vitamin or convince you to go vegan, keto, vegetarian, pescatarian or anything else. I still eat bread- yes, bread with GLUTEN in it. That word that has all of a sudden become evil in the 21st century after 2000 years of it being a building block of society. I will also never give up my cheesecake. EVER. you can pry it out of my cold dead fingers. I still enjoy sitting in my grandfather’s old chair with a glass of Scotch from time to time. I will still share cake recipes, and book reviews, and all the bread recipes you can take. But I also want to create a space to teach people about true nutrition: Balance. Little tips and tricks you can use to make eating more intelligently a heck of a lot easier. I want to break down definitions and make dietary and culinary jargon less scary for people. I want to share (dare I say it) HERBAL remedies. I strongly believe in a blend of true food nutrition, regular exercise, modern medicine (when used correctly), and old school herbology (yes, some homeopathic treatments really do work; its called grandma’s kitchen wisdom for a reason folks). 
 
This section of our community will be a place to learn and talk about shifting food paradigms on the most basic levels, and too hopefully remove many of the stigma’s surrounding certain food choices.  

 
I really hope you’ll join me on this next exciting journey, and that hopefully it will benefit someone else as much as it has helped me.  
 
Happy learning! 
Mikaela