This is about food, health, me. And of course plant based recipes because that is why you are here.
Food is love. It is also personal, emotional, triggering, pleasurable, nourishment and so much more. And that is why I want you to get to know me because the more comfortable you are with me, the more likely you will consider pushing yourself out of your comfort zone to try something different.
I am a published and well trained scientist with a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular biology that comes from a family of medical doctors (Hey, I’m Indian. Everyone is a doctor). I also have an MBA in pharmaceutical marketing and worked as a medical director in public relations firms in the field of scientific communications for over a decade before I gave it all up to pursue my passion – health and wellness.
Yep, I left a career in healthcare (AHEM sickcare) to find health and wellness. I am not here to put down the pharmaceutical industry or western medicine. They have their place. I am grateful for pharma. I had a brother and sister that were younger than me that lived for nearly 10 years and passed away of genetic diseases in my early childhood. Western Medicine was essential for them to live a life with a lot less pain than they would have had without it; I am certain that the reduced pain and inflammation extended their lives. Western Medicine is essential when used correctly.
However, coming from a family of doctors and with a lot of fear around two children with immunocompromised systems, western medicine was also abused. I was fed a lot of antibiotics growing up and that along with the food I was eating destroyed my gut.
As I healed myself inside and out, I began to understand the various components of health and wellness – from a scientific perspective, a psychological perspective and spiritual perspective.
Food is sacred. Food is love. Food is the relationship between our inner and outer worlds. There is no way to deny it – we are literally made from what we eat.
I’ve always been attracted to food, for good and bad. Over the years I have begun to understand the cycles of food and self love – how we deprive ourselves of nourishment and destroy our outer environment around us by destroying our inner environment of microbes that are essential for our health.
I will never tell anyone what to eat. As I said, food is personal. We are born with our own genetic makeups, our own experiences, our unique fingerprint of life. There is no one size fits all when it comes to diet and nutrition. Only you know what is the right food for you.
What are you nourishing yourself with?
It took a longtime for me to wake up to what I was feeding myself. Food served on a bed of rules, sprinkled with guilt, and a side of emotions.
Through service to others, I was able to serve myself.
I come alive when I can make food for family, friends and those in need. I cooked for others and as a result, I found myself. The empty plate became my blank canvas. I consciously played with ingredients and let Mother Earth guide me as I unleashed creativity that was dormant inside me. I learned how to stretch out of my comfort zone to create a new reality for myself in life beyond food. But it was food that led me there.
This is about me and my journey and plant based whole food recipes. I will not tell you what to eat, that is your choice but the one thing I know for humanity in general is that we need to eat more plants.
Because we are not only feeding ourselves, we are feeding the microbiome in our gut and in our body. We think that we eat for fuel – it is actually the gut microbiome that provides that fuel. They also provide us with the happy molecules of dopamine and serotonin because 80% of these neurotransmitters are produced in the gut, and not the brain. And they also provide us with immunity.
So when we nourish ourselves, we are actually nourishing our gut microbiome. And what they need are insoluable fiber which comes from plants.
Don’t worry – plants are exciting. They can be sweet.
They can be savory, light and filling.
They can be cheesy.
And you can even have chicken and waffles without meat, dairy, refined flour or processed sugar.
These are plant based recipes – focused on whole ingredients designed to give you mouthgasmic experiences that stimulate your senses, feed your gut microbes and nourish your mind, body and soul without the use of refined flours and sugars. You feel good, before, during and after a meal.
I love food. But I also love my health. For those of you that know me, this was born out of my quest to create food I want to eat as a vegetarian. I love a good salad or a smoothie and have them weekly, but that is the easy food. I wanted to create food that makes people want to gather at the table and share an experience together.
I may not have the prettiest pictures or the perfect posts. Often I am rushing to take pictures and compete a post. This is a hobby and a passion, and right now life affords me little time to dedicate myself to it. But the recipes are tasty, satisfying, healthy and composed of whole foods. The results in taste will speak for themselves.
Read. Cook. Share. Adapt and make it your own.
Eat with those you love. Nourish the most important soul in your life – you.