20 Years. 
20 Years ago today.
My Mother, my best friend & my inspiration in life,
passed away from breast cancer at the age of 61.
I was 22 & my little brother was 16.
My father, at the age of 53, had passed away from
heart disease 8 years prior.
Although the grief dissipates, the pain of heart never truly goes away.
And herein lies the reason why I do what I do.
My personal health revolution started in late 1998 with a man named Arnold Kauffman, owner of Arnold’s Way which was then in Manayunk, PA. My mom had called & asked me to pick her up a new supplement. My new job was down the street from this natural health store, so I said sure mom.
Arnold warmly greeted me in his crowded little shop, asking if I’d be interested in a banana whip. “Ok, I like trying new things, but first would you please point me in the direction of the CoQ10?” He was curious as to why I needed that particular supplement. I quickly explained that my mother had stage IV breast cancer & was going through chemo, so amongst many other things, she was concerned about her heart.
There began a life-changing conversation.
At first I thought Arnold was off his nut because he was so impassioned. But he was also warmhearted & kind. Plus he backed up all his explanations with references, pulling book after book off the shelf. We discussed the truth about cancer. How chemicals, processed foods, animal products, & prescription drugs are so detrimental to our system. Why certain things like dairy leeches calcium from your bones to neutralize the acid it creates when ingested. What the principles of Natural Hygiene are & why they’re so important to our health. Eventually he made me one of his famous banana whips in his industrial sized champion juicer. It was so creamy & delicious I was in total disbelief that it was just bananas.
3 hours later, I went home with a stack of photocopies & revolutionary information to share with my mom.
I grew up in a family that put their full trust in western medicine. Whatever the doctor prescribed is what we did. I was sick a whole heap when I was young with respiratory illnesses & ear infections, which meant lots of OTC & prescribed drugs year after year. Because we didn’t have much, we also survived on a typical Standard American Diet {SAD}. We spent our days eating spaghetti with a side of buttered white bread, giant glasses of milk, bowls of colorful cereal, mac & cheese with hotdogs, double stacked bologna sandwiches, boxes of donuts, heaping helpings of ice cream, soda by the liter & when my Mom was tired, which was often, we went through the Burger King, McDonalds, or Wendy’s drive-thru’s, special occasions celebrated with extra large splits at Dairy Queen. We frequented buffets like Bonanza & Ponderosa, because we could stuff ourselves for the day. Every time I went to the dentist, I seemed to always have a new cavity. And my skin as an adolescent was embarrassing to say the least.
When my Mom was diagnosed with Stage IV Breast Cancer, I looked everywhere for an answer, a cure, a way to help my mom. Doctors treated us like a number or a dollar sign. We did tons of research & tried different things, but wound up with only a feeling of helplessness. We sat together during her chemo appointments where dozens of others were doing the same. I tried to hide it from my mom, but it was all sad & terrible. Powerless to help, my brother & I watched as the chemo took it’s horrific toll on such a beautiful person, inside & out. There were days when she looked like an orange parade float because of the edema. Days where the skin on her whole body was red, raw & on fire. Other times her face was purple & sunken in. She slept alot & was depressed alot. I thought to myself, my god, if the cancer doesn’t kill her, this chemo stuff surely will.
So after meeting Arnold, as often as I could I sat at the tiny table in his shop with a banana whip & lots of books to ask more questions & find more answers. In between customers, he’d tell me about rebounding for detoxing the lymphatic system, about proper food combining for better digestion, how eating foods closest to their raw state was best for assimilating nutrients, fasting, juicing, chewing, how digestion is the most labor intensive process in the body, about how cancer & disease come from stages of toxemia, about eating produce not covered in chemicals & pesticides, how sleep helps us heal, dry skin brushing, massage, tongue scrapping, avoiding fluoride, the benefits of fermented foods, how to make raw date bars, nori wraps, & what in tarnation a Durian was.
Food, Water, Air, Sunshine, Exercise, Digestive Rest…
I vividly remember the day I walked into his shop, & there was an interesting man sitting at my tiny table eating half an avocado with squeezed lemon & a spoon. During our brief conversation, I remember how his skin glowed & his energy was contagious, spirals of hair bouncing around as he chatted. Unbeknownst to me, that man was David Wolfe there to talk to Arnold about his new book, “The Sunfood Diet.” Arnold told me later he had helped write “Nature’s First Law” {a book I still have on my shelf} & that David was one of the biggest promoters of a natural lifestyle.
I met all sorts of enlightening people in Arnolds shop. A man named Paul Nison who healed his IBS through a raw food diet. A man who beat back full blown AIDS by strictly adhering to the principles of natural hygiene. A woman named Victoria Boutenko who helped her whole family heal all their ailments through herbs, wild grasses, & raw organic foods.
The curtain had been ripped back to reveal the truth
About disease & how it’s connected to our food & our medical systems, Big Pharma, Big Farming, & Big Food.
After a conversation with Arnold, my mom was ok with trying juicing & some coffee enemas for detox. We bought a rebounder & started taking long walks in the park. Ultimately though, being too far past the tipping point of her bodily systems & too tired to completely overhaul her lifestyle, my mom finally succumbed to her disease.
The same questions kept haunting me; Why was this information so hidden? Why was it so ridiculed & criticized as bizarro quackery? Why doesn’t everyone know about these things? If my family would have discovered this sooner, would my parents still be alive?
I was outraged, yet also ignited.
Holistic Health became my obsession. I spent my last college-girl dollar on health books & fresh produce. I experimented with my own body, changing around my diet & my lifestyle. I started paying attention to how my body was feeling. I hydrated, juice fasted, slept more, ran outside more, my skin cleared up, I stopped getting cavities & I never felt better. I vowed to shout this information out to as many people as would listen. I drove my family insane reiterating everything I was learning.
But NO ONE believed it.
No one wanted to listen. Eyes would glaze over or emphatically roll back because they thought I was a looney. In my speech class, I presented “Dairy is the Devil” with what I thought were momentous statistics. It was a snore-fest. At a graduation picnic for my niece, I told everyone how the white bread they were eating was going to get stuck in their gut, putrefy, & cause all kinds of havoc. Yeah, that one didn’t go over so well either.
Now though, 20 years later, this Holistic Health Revolution has gained enough momentum that it cannot be silenced. There has been enough research conducted that it is undeniable. More & more people are adopting a plant-based lifestyle because of it’s indisputable health benefits. Medical Doctors all over the world have stood up & incorporated alternative methods of care. TCM & Herbs are resurfacing & Certified Pure Tested Grade Essential Oils are finally gaining acceptance as Natural Plant Medicine. People are beginning to understand what actually creates true wellness, why our health needs to be protected & prioritized, & illuminating themselves with accurate information.
Healthy can be simple.
It is not elusive or something that is outside of you. It does not need to be pounded in with external forces. The body in its own intelligent wisdom, when treated properly & given the right tools to work with, inherently knows how to heal itself. We just have to listen to what it’s saying.
We don’t always have a choice about our what’s in our air, water & soil. But what we choose to consume with our bodies & with our brains is directly under our control. We choose by our daily habits what we will become in the future. We can choose to take proactive steps to improve our health before our body ever gets to that point of no return.
Both of my parents’ deaths were preventable.
The devastation & helplessness I felt at their premature passing motivates me to continue leading a Holistic Lifestyle. And it’s the continued void of their absence that propels me to try to help others avoid such loss by empowering them with the information & tools necessary to improve their overall state of wellness.
Writing down my goals back in 2006, close to the top of the list was this:
“Make a difference in someone’s life. Share what I’ve been through so it can help someone else.”
The journey I set out on 20 years ago sprung me into the life I lead now. Into a life of supporting others as they walk down this road too. Guiding them as they make healthier choices & encouraging them as they develop sustainable health habits. Cheering them on as they heal their bodies & their minds.
Little did I know then, that simple goal would become my why.
And it all started with a banana whip & a nutty guy named Arnold. 😁