Every once in a while, someone asks me a simple question.
“Why are you so passionate about whole foods?”
It’s a fair question.
After all, I’ve spent years writing recipes, researching herbs, creating home remedies, and now writing books about whole health. From the outside, it probably looks like I simply chose a niche and built a career around it.
But that’s not how it happened.
If you had told me twenty-five years ago that I would one day devote so much of my life to writing about nutrition and natural wellness, I probably would have laughed. It wasn’t a career plan. It wasn’t even on my radar.
Looking back now, though, I can see a thread running through all of it.
At the time, I couldn’t.
It simply felt like life unfolding one unexpected chapter at a time.
The first chapter began with a health crisis I never saw coming.
In early September of 2001, my husband and I made a quick business trip to New York City. We flew home the next morning, never imagining how different the world would look just a few days later.
Four days after returning, we boarded another flight—this time to Tampa, Florida.
We arrived late on the evening of September 10th.
By eight o’clock the next morning, the world had changed.
Like so many people, we watched the unimaginable unfold in real time. We were stranded three thousand miles from home. Our teenage children were back in Portland, trying to make sense of everything on their own, and my oldest son, who had recently enlisted in the National Guard, called to tell me he was on red alert awaiting orders.
I did my best to stay calm.
Eventually the airports reopened, and we made it home safely.
Life slowly settled into a new rhythm.
Or at least I thought it had.
Exactly one month later, on October 10, 2001, I experienced my first spontaneous panic attack.
Until that moment, I had no idea what a panic attack even felt like.
I only knew that something inside me had broken…
…and I wanted nothing more than to fix it.
Fortunately, I hadn’t grown up believing the answer to every health problem came from a prescription bottle.
My mother had quietly planted different seeds.
If one of us came down with a cough or a cold, she reached first for things like lemon, honey, garlic, vinegar, herbs, and simple home remedies. We weren’t a family that rushed to the doctor for every little illness. More importantly, she taught me something that has stayed with me my entire life:
What we eat matters.
Looking back now, I realize what a gift that was.
Because when my own health began to unravel, it gave me permission to ask a different question.
Not simply…
“What medication do I need?”
But…
“Why is this happening in the first place?”
I eventually visited a physician, hoping for answers.
What surprised me most wasn’t what he said.
It was what he never asked.
Not once did anyone ask about my diet.
No one asked what I was eating.
No one asked how I was sleeping.
No one asked about stress.
I left that appointment with more questions than answers.
And although I couldn’t have explained it at the time, something deep inside me kept whispering that food had to be part of the story.
So I started paying attention.
I began experimenting with my own diet.
I noticed which foods left me feeling calmer…
…and which seemed to make things worse.
Over time, I removed refined sugar, refined grains, dairy, artificial sweeteners, caffeine, and many of the processed foods that had quietly become normal in my life.
I wasn’t following anyone else’s plan.
I was simply listening.
Little by little, I began feeling better.
I lost weight.
My body felt calmer.
Most importantly, I began to trust that it was capable of healing when I started giving it what it truly needed.
That realization changed everything.
Several years later, another experience deepened that conviction.
By 2007, I was watching my father’s health steadily decline.
Years earlier, he had survived a double heart attack.
Now, a series of mini-strokes was slowly stealing away the brilliant mind I had admired all my life.
My father was an aeronautical engineer. His intellect was something I had always been quietly proud of.
Watching his memory and cognitive abilities slowly fade was heartbreaking.
It also forced me to ask difficult questions about my own future.
Like many families of that generation, we believed we ate fairly well.
My mother baked with unbleached flour instead of white.
She canned fruit herself instead of buying it from the grocery store.
Dinner usually included a green salad, even if most of us ignored it.
Compared to many families, we thought we were eating healthy.
But looking back, we were still eating what has become known as the Standard American Diet—plenty of refined grains, sugar, processed foods, casseroles, canned vegetables, desserts, and convenience foods, with whole, fresh foods often playing only a supporting role.
No one knew any better.
We certainly didn’t.
Then, almost by accident, I stumbled across something I’d never heard of before.
A woman online described herself as a Raw Foodist.
The term fascinated me.
One article led to another.
Then another.
Before long, I had disappeared down a rabbit hole of nutrition, food science, and the remarkable ways whole, minimally processed foods seemed to support the body’s natural ability to thrive.
Something about it resonated deeply with me.
Not because I thought I had found a miracle diet.
But because it aligned with something I had already begun to suspect through my own experience.
Food wasn’t simply fuel.
It was information.
I decided to find out for myself.
For six weeks, I ate an almost entirely raw diet.
The results surprised me.
- I lost fifteen pounds.
- The dizzy spells that had bothered me for years disappeared.
- The dry, flaky skin on my legs cleared.
- Even an old case of athlete’s foot quietly resolved itself.
- My husband and children noticed the changes before I even mentioned them.
It felt like I had discovered something extraordinary.
But I also discovered something equally important.
Perfection can become its own kind of burden.
Many of the foods I had learned to love weren’t foods my family enjoyed. Dinner, which had always been something we shared, gradually became something we prepared separately. Eating out became complicated. What had once been joyful started feeling stressful.
Around the same time, I was participating in several online raw food communities. They were filled with wonderful people and incredible recipes, but I also noticed a growing tendency toward all-or-nothing thinking.
The goal no longer seemed to be helping people become healthier.
It seemed to be helping people become perfect.
That didn’t sit well with me.
I’ve never believed health should divide families or make people afraid to enjoy a meal together.
Somewhere along the way, I realized that choosing a salad instead of a cheeseburger was still a wonderful decision, even if the dressing wasn’t homemade.
Progress mattered more than perfection.
That simple realization became the foundation for what I eventually called the Eighty Percent Raw approach.
Not because eighty percent was somehow magical.
But because it was sustainable.
It left room for family.
For restaurants.
For celebrations.
For grace.
Most importantly, it was something people could actually live with.
Looking back now, I can see that none of these experiences happened in isolation.
The panic attacks taught me to pay attention.
Watching my father decline reminded me that our daily choices matter more than we often realize.
Discovering whole foods opened a door I never knew existed.
One step quietly led to another.
Recipes became articles.
Articles became books.
Books became conversations with readers all over the world.
Today, those conversations continue through my Whole Health Series and the condition-specific guides I’m now writing.
People sometimes ask whether I’m still as passionate about whole-food healing as I was back in 2007.
The answer is yes.
Although if I’m honest, my understanding has changed.
Back then, I was searching for the answer.
Today, I don’t believe there is one.
Health isn’t found in a single diet or one miraculous food.
It’s found in thousands of ordinary choices, repeated faithfully over time.
It’s found in nourishing our bodies with real food.
Moving a little more.
Sleeping a little better.
Managing stress.
Laughing often.
Spending time with people we love.
Listening when our bodies whisper instead of waiting until they scream.
That simple philosophy has quietly shaped every wellness book I’ve written.
The titles have changed.
My understanding has deepened.
But the heart behind them hasn’t changed at all.
I’m still following the same thread that first captured my attention all those years ago.
And somehow…
I have a feeling it’s still only the beginning.
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