EP28 - Food Allergy Series Part 2 – “RAISE” Awareness with The Allergy Chef™

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Hello, and welcome back to our series on food out ajiz. Last week, we gave a brief introduction to food allergies and intolerances. Today, we're going to get into it a lot deeper. Not only are we going to discuss common allergies, such as dairy nuts, or gluten, but also less common allergies, some that will shock you. Our guest today is known as the allergy shots. Together, we will explore her different allergies, and hear how she navigates the world with conviction, inspiration and courage.

Catalina has a remarkable story to share with all of us today. And she has over 200 food allergies and intolerances. And she cannot drink most water. Not only the she have these allergy challenges, but the members of her household also have food allergies and special diets. None of them are the same. And so she has to cook different meals and also provides so much information to the Food Allergy community to help them navigate food allergies. After being told she has 30 days to live. She made it her mission to help the food allergy and special diet communities thrive. And in five years, she's published several cookbooks, she started a bakery. She's done local and national national wide outreach, developing hundreds of free recipes and resources and so much more. Her website, allergy chef.com has so many resources allows you to search recipes by over 70 different filters based on allergies. So welcome, Catalina. We are so excited to have you here. I know there's so much to talk about. And how about we start with what got you into this journey and a little bit about your story. Alright, thank you for joining us.

Yeah, it's a pleasure to be here. And for those of us it's the allergy chef calm. We have to have the word on the front. But yes, I would say probably our second child, so Okay, well, I, I mean, technically, I've been sick my whole life, right. But in terms of awareness, what made me see the connections of you know, food, and people would definitely be our second kid, he was born allergic to dairy. And that was pretty obvious when he was young. And from there, it just kind of kept going. Right? It was something with each of the kids. You know, one of the things I tell people is there was a year I actually tracked it. between the four of them. They went to more than 300 doctor's appointments in one year. And I was really fed up. I had been doing research, a lot of things kind of all happened at the same time. And so made a lot of changes the following year, combined, it was less than 10. So it was a huge difference. That's why anytime I hear people say like, oh, food is not a big deal, or you know, I've actually seen doctor say food has no impact on ADHD. I'm like, well, then, clearly we're on two different pages like either you're talking about true ADHD, right? Or I'm talking about the fact that we hyper diagnose these kids, and we don't even stop to look at what are they eating? How are they sleeping? What's the environment? Like we're not even looking at? Do they actually go outside and play like a normal child and get exercise, right? Like, there are so many underlying issues that food and lifestyle can absolutely address, whether it be allergy, which is non traditional, or intolerance, like in my case, you know, when you don't go into anaphylaxis with everything that you eat. People don't necessarily assume food allergy, right. And I think that that's something if there's nothing else they want to see change in the medical world. That's probably what I want to see changed, right? I want doctors to start thinking more like, oh, every night at six o'clock your child throws a tantrum. About six o'clock, and you eat dinner every night at 530. And you serve some more foods every night. And 30 minutes later your kid flips out. I wonder if it's the food? Not, huh. Let's get your kid in for this pill. Let's get your kid in for this therapy. Let's, let's just start with the faculty food 30 minutes ago, right? You know, like, if we can't start seeing these connections, I think we're doing ourselves just a massive disservice.

Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely, completely, completely agree with you. I am really just so shocked to hear it's still in my head the 300 appointments in one year to less than 10. Yeah, when you found out that there was more going on. And so what led to that what led to the less than 10 appointments.

So the biggest, the main thing I did is I changed everybody's diet. I swapped all their diets like basically overnight.

And it started with kids. Well, it started previous to that, in that when I was younger, I'd gotten really sick from drinking like those fufu alcohol drinks, like not hard to look or anything like that, right. But I woke up in the middle of the night with literally vomiting sugar. So I knew sugar could be a problem for a person. Right? And, and it wasn't drunk. It was just the sugar, like legit sugar issue. So years later with Kid three, when he got into trouble and Carleton took away all of his sugar for a month. And the kids thought that was like a death sentence, right? Like, because they were getting dessert just for trying a vegetable, right? Like we were doing all these fun things. And, you know, that was the worst thing that could ever happen to you. And so after 30 days, well, after two weeks, we have different trials, right? When he finally got his dessert back on day 30. He literally took one or two bites of food, walked over to the couch, threw himself against the wall, landed on the couch, got back up and did it again multiple times. So when I say he was bouncing off the wall, we actually mean it. People think we were joking, like, no, no, he literally could not handle that stimulus. And that's when we said, oh my goodness, this is what's wrong with him. Mind you. He was violent. He was in he's like five years old. And another kid, their parents wanted a restraining order on a five year old. Okay, he was trouble. He was a problem child. Okay. Now, on top of that, though, there was a lot going on with the other two boys. And yeah, I I don't want to say like, the kid. Maybe I am kind of prideful. But I love documentaries. I love learning. Right? So mind you, I was learning a lot about a lot of things all at once. And so it was all kind of just coming together. It was like the perfect storm of information really. And overnight, almost. It was like, I got rid of everybody's sugar. And we realized that he did better on organic, no process, no colors, etc. Because I was like, you know, what, if he's got a problem with sugar, based on what I already know about all these other things, let's just assume the same is true of XYZ. Let's just we're gonna do it. Let's do it. Right, let's really make the switch, right. And so we did. And we saw differences overnight, and all of the kids. That's right around the same time when kid three got his wheat allergy diagnosis. And that came because I, I've always been like obese, right? I'm not anymore. But I used like, I was always the fattest kid you'd ever meet. And I didn't eat a ton of food. And it was the same problem with him. And I'm looking at this kid going, he's not eating enough food to weigh this much. Like, it's just not possible. And he happened to have a great pediatrician. I hate that she retired because the newly who took over. I was like, nevermind, we'll we're just gonna stop going at this point, because you're not really that helpful. But the prior one was excellent. And she was like, let's figure this out. Yeah, cuz you're right. If he's not eating that much, you really shouldn't be that heavy at this point. And based on how much exercise he was getting, you know, we had the kids in gymnastics who were doing all these things. And the last thing she said, we did multiple things. She finally said, you know, since we already know he's allergic to milk, let's just do another food allergy test, like something else could have happened, right? Well, first and foremost, how many GPS make that assumption? You guys? Not many. So he really lucked out in that case. And then turns out he was actually allergic to more stuff. And then we were like, oh, took them off the stuff and suddenly he wasn't overweight anymore, right? It just sort of evened out. And so it's like, all at once. You know, so much happened. And just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, I I guess I really threw myself at the problem. And I, it made me realize as a person, like, this is what we're doing wrong in society. We are pushing people like hey, go work three jobs. You can buy this stuff, right? And I it's not that I've always I've never really been stuff oriented. But I became very focused on, this is what I need to deal with right now. It's not about working 60 hours a week, it's not about doing these other things is about, are they healthy? If not, I need to fix this. Right? And that's what I did. And I think that number one is a society. And it's almost an every at least western country, we're almost told, like, if you don't have initials after your name, you're not qualified to make these decisions, right? You're not qualified to read that paper, you're not qualified to understand this. You know, it's like, hold on, maybe we should be empowering people, right? We should be telling people, this is your body. I don't live with you. 24/7. Right. I can't be inside of you. I don't know what it feels like when you eat broccoli, or when you eat almonds, I can only go on what you're telling me. So maybe I should empower you to take notes to make some conclusions, to learn how to really take care of yourself. Like, we've missed the mark, by so far at this point that I'm like, Oh, my goodness, like, Yeah, I can't even sometimes it's crazy.

It's so true. And as parents, we have the power to empower our kids at such a young age. And so you've said that you were sick your whole life, and you never had any diagnosis, but you were always eating foods that your body couldn't handle, and that breaks down the foundation of the body. So at that time, when you started learning all this information for your kids, how did the gut health come into play there? Um,

I learned about gut health, probably when I started trying to figure stuff out with them it? I mean, do I want to say there was, if I had to say, the one catalyst moment, it's going to be the sugar incident. Right? That was the one moment to just grab the bull by the horns and say, it's not all these other things I've been reading about. Because mind you, I'd already been doing a lot of research, right? You know, have your kids do this, have your kids do that? Try this, try that, like I was doing a lot of things already. But the sugar incident would be the catalyst moment where I connect food to people, and, or at least with the kids, you know, I'd already connected with myself a little bit. But then, you know, it's exhausting, right? I'm running running to the ground, because I still work and raising four kids in school and extracurricular, like, it's a lot, right. And I got to the point where, if you were just barely touched me, I was in excruciating pain. And I'd say the inability to go outside without having to take, you know, five different OTCs. Maybe that was the catalyst for myself, in a sense. You know, that's when that great chiropractor who's like, I have no idea what's wrong with you, but I really want to help you figure it out. He's probably the best person I've ever worked with, mainly because he wasn't full of himself, right? He says, upfront, I have no idea. But let's figure it out. And he also has like a degree in neurology. So it helped that, you know, he knows a lot about East and West. And he was really great, because he tapped into his network every time we would start to like, get a lead or have a clue. And he'd be like, let me reach out to these 10 guys over here, I think they might know something or, you know, let me do this, or, and I think maybe that's really when the gut health element came in. So it wasn't just about what you were eliminating. But now, what are you replacing it with? Right? I mean, because I think at an inherent level, we all know, produce is good for you, right? So of course, the kids ate fruit and veg. But did they have fermented foods? Did they have the rainbow? Did they have all these things? Not yet. Right? It was a process at that point. It was just learning more and more and more and more and more. And, you know, looking back now, in my old age wisdom, it's like, man, have we done our generation a disservice? Right? When we stopped teaching this in schools, that's when we you might as well just say, Here's your sick pass, you know, here's your future prescription for a pill for every ill because when we when we take that education away, that empowerment away. You know, one in three has this one in five has this one in 10? Is this one in 12? Has one, we're accepting this as normal now. Okay, hold on. That's not normal. In fact, I bet you if the three of us went back to our grandparents, and said, What was wrong with your generation? Well, we didn't have money, right? Like, we look at the problems of the previous generations, you know, they didn't have GMOs. They didn't have all this nonsense in the air in the water and in the food, like, they did not have the same problems that we have. They didn't have one in 10 with an autoimmune disorder. Gee, I wonder why. Right? It's like we've, we take away the education. And then it's almost like we're pointing the blame and shifting the blame and all this other stuff, like, Oh, it must be this other thing over here. Oh, it must be this other thing over here. It couldn't possibly be the giant food and agriculture industry that is pumping all these chemicals into your food? Like, it's not that you guys don't look there. It's not bad. It's everything else, right?

No, I love that. And I love how there was something you said about if my child isn't eating the most healthy things right now, what can I do to change it? Right? So it's not about like, as parents taking on this blame, right? or feeling like we're not doing good enough or, or giving the best at this moment. It's about noticing it now. Right? And if these in the school system, if it's not being taught, we have the capacity as parents to model it, and to teach it to our kids now, right? And do that repair and start small, just like you did, you took away the sugar. And notice the huge impact that came with awareness from you, and then putting it through for your children. And I think that is just so so important. I'm also really intrigued about your life story. So I'm, like, really eager to know, to know you know, your story where you've come from, so

I'm just a regular person. A regular person, I don't know, I, I struggle with talking about myself Not gonna lie, it's, uh, I feel like just a regular person. I, I guess I recognize that I'm not your average person in that. I don't like being told what to do. On the bad way, but in a more like, stand up and do something about it sort of way. You know, when I was a child, I demanded that the radio be turned off because I was like, I'm not going to be told what's popular and what to listen. That was what I found is a little kid, right? Um, so I that attitude, right? Don't ever tell me I can't. You know, I was I'm a very ambitious person. When I was younger, I was like, Yeah, I want to finish high school in three years, I want to do these things. And I had a friend who was like, You're never going to do that. So just to shove it in his face. I graduated from college at 19. I was like, take that Jimmy, right. You know? And it's funny because people ask me sometimes, like, you know, what, what drives you to make these recipes and do these things and like to shove it in people's faces, and they think I'm joking, right? No, it's like, if you're gonna sit there and tell me oh, you can't have dairy free egg free, gluten free cake that tastes good. I'm like, I'm gonna shove it in your face with really good cake, huh? I did know that. I started a bakery. Right. Like to me, I, I find real joy in creating things that shouldn't exist, right? I find joy and saying, no, no, I don't care what the diagnosis is. There's still a bunch of options. There's still a lot of safe and delicious foods. That's why it gets me when people every so often someone will call the bakery and they're like, so my, my kids allergic to everything. And I'm like, hold on, are we talking everything like me or everything, like four or five items because I have 200 food allergies and food intolerances they go, oh, oh, no, he only has like four. And I'm like, okay, so what are those four, right? Like, you know, people, they they really feel like it's the end of the world with a black pepper allergy. Like I kid you not. I've had people with a black pepper allergy tell me there's nothing to eat. And I have to hold it in on the inside. But inside, I'm like screaming at this person. Just want to shake you. And I'm like, Listen, pal, let me just guide you over to the land of the plenty. There's so much to eat. Right? And I guess that's my thing. And not only that, but I am excited to show people that you don't need a laundry list of ingredients. You don't need a truck ton of chemicals. You absolutely do not need GMOs and your junk in your food. You can have regular old ingredients you can totally pronounce. It can still be delicious. And you can even freeze it for four months and have a freezer stock. Right? Like that's, that's what I'm all about. I am all about showing people. There is a much better way to do things without necessarily losing your connection to food because I know that's a big thing, right? Like, you find out you got this diagnosis, obviously for people with blackout but black pepper, it's different. But when you get like a gluten, or wheat allergy diagnosis, right? That's when people cry, because they're like pancakes and pizza and cake and cookies and muffins and, and Philo and they think about everything that they're about to lose. And for those people. I'm like, Cool. So here's the thing, I want you to feel sorry for yourself. That's step one. Because that's a real loss. You need to grieve that loss. But then step two, we're going to like feed your sweet tooth or feed your savory tooth. Whether it's even as simple as a date or a handful of salt. You're going to make sure that your brain gets the message. There are still options. Now step three, you're going to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You're going to start making these recipes. You're gonna start Filling your freezer. Because everybody says there's nothing convenient guys, you have to be your own convenience, right? Make your freezer freezer food, fill your own freezer. And then when you need it, you just pull it out, boom, that's fast food to me, right? So helping people understand like, you don't have to lose your grandma's favorite cookies, they're gonna taste a little bit different, they're gonna feel a little bit different. But you're still connected to grandma, like, we are still going to have that connection, it's just going to be a little bit different, you're going to manage your expectations. Guess what, I'm gonna blow your mind, you want donuts, great, give you donuts, you can have donuts, still, you can have refined sugar free donuts made with less sugar made with real ingredients. And you can eat three of them and not feel guilty or not feel like trash. It's totally cool. Like, that's the thing. You know, and, and you had mentioned earlier, you know about blame. You know, the funny thing is, I never thought about that till you said it out loud. Throughout all of the figuring things out with the kids, never once did I blame myself. The concept of blame, never even entered the equation, it was just always, wow, I've been sold this lie by society in grocery stores. And now I'm mad about it, and I'm gonna fix it. That was always the mentality, right? And I, that's what I want to give to people like, don't blame yourself, don't sit there and get all hung up on the guilt element. Let's just start fixing it. Because the sooner we deal with it, the better off everything's going to be like, you can turn the ship around, you really can.

Exactly. And mainstream media and agriculture has played such an important role in the way we think about this and our mindset about food, right. And there's such a huge food mood connection, every single morsel of food we eat, our body has to process, right. And I feel like sometimes parents are, even when they gain the awareness, sometimes they become resistant or fearful to make the changes, because it's hard for them, right to make the changes for their child, which means they also have to make the changes for themselves, just to keep it consistent within the household and easier so that you're not making multiple meals. But I want all parents to realize, when you eat whole foods, just eat whole foods, the body is going to fare much better, right? The inflammation will reduce your child's Exuma will get better their stuffy noses, it'll get better. And so I always tell kids just tell parents just eat whole foods and start there. Right? And so do you feel that you're making a lot of meals in a week? Or how do you how do you do this with all the multiple food allergies.

And we go through phases, right? When the kids were little, it was different. It was so different when they were little. I was really big into batch cooking, because that was the only way to really keep my sanity. And so we didn't eat like a huge variety of foods when they were little, because they had their favorites. So I would batch cook their favorites. And we'd pull it from the freezer, and they'd have it twice a week, right? And it just worked. And I started figuring out sure I'm really big into like meal planning. So I would start figuring out, you know, what's the greatest common denominator here, because this kid can't have this, this one can't do this. This one can't do that. And I was cooking for the greatest common denominator for a period of time. And just, you know, I only make small swaps, like gluten free pasta and wheat pasta would be made. But everything else was the same same veg, same topping, same whatever. And that was really done for cost reasons too. Because we all know, it's like, all I have to do is slap we're gluten free on it. You could double the price. Right? Yeah. That's a whole different story. But okay, but

just to clarify, sorry, just to clarify, you have your kids are older now you have four of them their ages 17 to early 20s. Right? Correct. Okay, so you've been following this lifestyle now for how long with the kids?

We're going on 15 years of this? Okay. Wow, of like, healthy eating, like, you know, so the one diagnosed you know, as a baby, he's 20. So we've been aware of food allergies for 20 years, we've been a food allergy family that long, in terms of health and wellness. That'd be more like 15 years that we're going on. And, you know, it's really interesting, because I've learned the hard way to that, like, you know, you talk about that resistance element. You know, a lot of people like to say there's no addiction to sugar, I would say there's no addiction to organic sugar. I think there's an addiction to processed foods. And I think maybe that's the difference in the statement that we should be making. Because when you take someone from birth, basically because they're getting it, you know, through mother's milk, they're getting it from day one, take them from birth, to even say 10 years old, and you give them a diet consistent and process. You know, GMO and all this other stuff, right? The chain is hard. You know, when you go from Froot Loops to organic O's, that's a huge change on the palate. You know, when you go from Captain Crunch gummy candy pop tardy type things, to all the organic versions, just making that switch is big. You know, for us. That was the big thing, right? I bought my kids Pop Tarts, I'll say it out loud.

I ate Pop Tarts when I was like, yeah, like,

who didn't Eat up, eat a pop tart growing up. And so that was one of the big changes it was let's buy organic Pop Tarts, right? They like soda, I'm buying organic soda, right? That was the real first big shift was, let's switch everybody over to just the organic version of all these unhealthy options. Because we were a very standard American family when we first started the whole health and wellness bit. And then from there it was, did you know there are 26 grams of sugar per serving and an organic Pop Tart, right? That was what happened next. And then I'm going, I'll just make my own Pop Tarts, that'll fix it, you know, and it was just seeing these little things like it's picking up the organic packaging going, they're still putting such as this, and it says organic, I'm not buying this anymore, right? It's, it's those little things where you see these, these things and kind of go up fixing this problem, right. And it's just one item at a time, right at that point. And over the course of a year. You know, here's something crazy to think about. For people who are listening, who might be struggling, I'll throw this challenge out to you change one food a week. That's it, one small change a week, at the end of the year, that's 52 changes you've made. And let's be honest, the average household only uses something about 50 packaged products, right? You kind of have your favorite items, you always go back to by the end of the year, you've made a huge change in your family's life, you're probably eating more produce, probably eating less, you know, chemicals and additives and all these other things, you're probably naturally just gravitating towards more balanced meals. Right. You know, that's you speaking about why people might be resistant? Well, I think part of it too is nutrition education, right? A lot of don't realize if you're not feeding your child like a healthy fat with protein, not just carving them up at snack time, but giving them something that's going to time release and you know, be better for them. Your kids going to be hungry every 20 minutes and keep crashing. Right. And you're going to be like, this diet isn't working. No, it's not that it's that. We just need more balance. Yeah,

yeah, absolutely. You mentioned a little bit about in the beginning, when you were going to see doctors, and when you are going to see these doctors, there was one in particular the chiropractor I guess that told GE was, uh, you to cut

out gluten? Yeah, me personally. Yeah, he was working with me specifically. Okay.

Now, what about what the other doctors that you saw? What kinds of advice or future prospects Did you see when speaking with them?

Um, I just kind of saw a lot of lack of help in this weird sense. Like, number one, a lot of them are very full of themselves. Oh, I've seen so many people that can do this, right. But then at the same time, they be like, Oh, you're the worst person I've ever seen it with this kind of condition, right? I've had doctors prescribe medication I was clearly allergic to, I'm like, Hey, so I'm allergic to this now. Like, don't worry, just take it. And I'm like, But and they're like, listen, we have a process we have to go through. And if you don't take this medication to rule out that it could help you, we can't move on to the next step, you have to take this fine, take the medication get gravely ill get really pissed off, and just be like, I'm not going back. They're just looking at give me more junk, right. And it was kind of a lot of that was a lot of hit and miss. I think I just kind of ended up at the point where I, you know, started doing a lot of testing on my own out of pocket, because you can do that. They won't tell you this up front. But you can if you want to, if you want to do the research, if you want to learn how to interpret tests and all that stuff, if you want to do the research and understand what foods can cause this and what can cause that, you know, I did all that. I took the time to educate myself and empower myself. And I think I'm better off because of it. What's interesting is eyes a lot, I basically stopped going to doctors and specialists for quite a long time. And then I had read about a camera pill, which I think is really cool. And I thought you know, that could help. And so I found a specialist in the city and went to see them and pretty much laid out everything that I have come to the conclusion of on my own. And they said, here's the thing. I think you've already figured it out on your own. I am not going to tell you to do this expensive procedure because I don't know that it's going to help you based on what you already know. You're already doing everything right. And like if you want I can give you this other test and we'll give you a discount on it but even then then, you know, I don't know that you really need all this. And I was like, Thank you for your honesty, that was really nice. In fact, that was the last specialist I ever went to. Because, I mean, they, they with all their all the initials after their name basically said, you already figured it out, right? Just keep doing what you're doing and and that's the thing maybe I think the wisdom in that is knowing when to understand that you made it. Like maybe there's nothing else to keep digging for maybe you've made it in now you just got to move forward, right? You know. And then of course, you get people saying, Hey, I did this one treatment, and they cured my food allergies. And I'm like, Cool, that's for you. I'm not going to go down that road. It's not for me, nothing. I respect all the different types of East and West options and all the different types of treatments. I think it's really cool. And I think when it works for you, it's awesome. I know, for me, I've been so burned by the system that it's like, Look, man, I finally got something that works for me. I'm not gonna poke the bear. I just want to leave it like, exactly, I just want to leave it because, um, you know, at one point we had, we thought about doing some crazy treatment. I don't recall which one it was. And you know, Carlton was like, Yeah, we could do that. Or you could just enjoy what time that you might have left, you know, and that was, that's really what a lot of our decisions became about. It's like, if I do this, and it makes me so sick that I can't function. What quality of life is that? Right? And so, for me, the quality of life just comes from avoiding the foods and embracing what I have, and being grateful and moving on, right. Which is why sometimes I think I don't understand when people are like, my kids allergic to eggs, we need to make sure that kid can eat eggs. I'm like, you realize there's like 199 Other ingredients to choose from, right? Like, you can do so much without eggs. I know. But they need to be able to eat eggs, I need to do treatment, I need to do this, I need to do that and figure out why they can't have these eggs. And I'm like, okay, but But you know, there's like all these other things. Yeah, I know, in my mind, where people are willing to do to get a food back, as compared to just avoiding the food and driving like blows my mind every time.

Because we have such an emotional connection to food, right? Like eggs. People think oh, my gosh, eggs are my life. Right? You'll hear people say that eggs are my life. I can't get rid of eggs. They're the only breakfast food I've ever had.

Which is why you know they had a pop tart the other day. Yeah.

As if their mom never gave them oatmeal at one point. But yeah, and but you say that you had 30 days to live at one point or you were given that? Yeah, diagnosis. Tell us about that.

So that really looking back, it boiled down to the inability to drink water. When I would drink water was like swallowing a pack of razor blades. It was awful. So on a good day, it was like I had two ounces of water to drink that day. Around the same time, I had experienced like massive wasting, I lost something like 30% No 10%. Basically, I lost way too much weight, like in a 30 day period, I got really sick. And then it just I lost like I was losing a pound a day or more. And and then there was the water problem. And what was interesting is I found a place in Washington state where there's a mountain up there and they literally take the melted snowcaps and they bottle it. I was like, Whoa, I bet you I could drink that, right? Because we knew about the corn allergy. And we knew about like corn and all this other stuff. But at the time we had where we had made the connection of corn and tap water. Even people in the corn free community who were like, Oh, I can have this brand bottle of water, you know, every brand that everybody said they could have failed for me. I tried water from literally almost every country in the world. Everything anything we could import we did. In fact, we worked with an importer who specializes in water. And she was getting us water from everywhere. Every bottle failed, okay, could not drink any of it. And so find the place in Washington. But it turns out, it's a seasonal product. And I had just missed the cutoff for their season, there was no more water. And I was like, oh, that's sad. And by chance on the search results. The next thing down was raw water, which is who I get my water from now. So I call them up, Brian, nicest guy you'll ever talk to you. Well, I said that about some of the people but he's really nice, and told him what was going on. And he's like, Listen, I'm gonna send you a bottle in plastic and in glass, just in case that's a problem. But as it turns out, they have the only exemption in the name in the United States to not treat the water. Here's the dirty secret about food. There's so much going on. Nobody tells you. There's so much going on. Even if you call them. They won't tell you. There's so much going on that if you don't have a food science degree, and you don't know Oh, you have to ask this question and that question. Oh, in this other convoluted question, you won't get the answers that you need. Right. Brian was super transparent and told me everything. They do not treat the water at all. Even bottled water that says untreated, it's treated, he literally has the only exemption in the country. Okay. Sure enough, get his water. It was the first time and so long that I could just take a sip of water and not feel like I'm dying, right. And that was really the turning point for the diagnosis. Because then I was able to start getting up to like 10 ounces a day, 20 ounces a day like it took time, though it was not an overnight thing. Because I was at the point where just you know, you, you take on too much and like you feel sick just from taking a few steps at that point, right? Because your body is like totally in shutdown mode. Like we're not doing this anymore. So it was a process on its own. But yeah, Brian summit spring, raw water cannot vouch for them enough. They're like the coolest and coolest. And what's interesting is myself and one other customer. If the flow rate in the spring gets a little bit too low, we start to have mild reactions to the water just from the sediment that gets picked up. But beyond that, it's the only water literally in the world that I've been able to drink without being in pain.

Wow. Now what about in terms of like bathing or hand washing? Can you so okay,

that's an interesting story. That's where a traditional water allergy is usually skin skin based. Mind you, I've had skin issues my whole life, okay. And I was at the point where before the foods were eliminated. And you know, hindsight is always 2020. I feel like I'm a really cool science experiment. hindsight was going through it not cool. But afterwards, it's fun to look at the data, the data and kind of go, oh, this was connected the whole time that was connected the whole, like, it's so fascinating. I kid you not like, I know that sounds a little bit weird, but it was really fascinating. And so when I would take a shower, I would feel like I was being pelted with needles. It was awful. Like, and I'm not talking like pins and needles. I mean, it feels like someone's like, like literally throwing sharp objects at you. It's awful. Okay, so then I started experimenting? Well, number one, we were like, this has got to be a water allergy, right? At the same time, though, drinking the water was a problem, too. And so that's when that same chiropractor, he actually reached out to his network of people like, has anybody ever heard of this, because this is not a traditional water allergy. And no one had ever heard of it. No one had ever heard of someone who had the skin reaction, but also could not drink water. This was like the connection that nobody had seen before. And so then we got a filter for my shower. And it got better, but did not improve completely. Then I started experimenting with when I showered. And I found that I was in less pain if I showered in the mornings. And mind you I hated showering in the mornings, because you know, you got to get kids up at school football, do the whole thing, right? I always had time at night when they were in bed. And so by the end of the day, though, if you understand like bucket theory and all that sort of stuff, and just what you've been exposed to by the end of the day, my exposure to everything is already off the charts, you take that shower, and it's just it's the tipping point, right. Whereas a shower first thing in the morning, when your body's had some time to cool off, it's like, this doesn't hurt as much. There's a connection here, right? And then of course, at the same time foods, foods are being eliminated, etc. Well, now, all my wisdom all these years later, what I eat, and when I shower has a direct correlation to how painful it is, right? Because if my body is already internally responding to stuff and dealing with stuff, that stimulus from that water, which already you know, is contaminated with stuff that I really should not be touching. It just it's the icing on the cake at that point for me, right. It's just It's fascinating. The whole water connection, and it is a water is processed. It's it you know, a lot of people that I've met in this space, they talked to me, they're like, you're the canary. I'm like, Yeah, I am. And nobody's listening to me sing my beautiful song. Right. And that's, that's the greater issue is that, as a society, we keep doing these things that, like, we know, we don't have to do there are better ways to treat the water without introducing all these allergens and other chemicals. You know, there are other ways we know this. You know, there are other ways to produce food that, you know, aren't full of all these things, but we're not. Why most likely greed. Like profits. Yeah, exactly. Like it's comes down to money. And when we put profit over people, like here's the thing, I'm all for capitalism. I just think we should have better for you capitalism,

you know, exactly and healthier. Yeah. Like,

the people aren't like something to be abused. And, like, I don't know, taken advantage of and, you know, and sometimes I get frustrated with consumers, but then at the same time, I feel sorry for them, because here's the thing, we should be able to walk into a grocery store and trust that what's being presented won't harm us. I think that we should be able to trust that you know what I mean? It's like, the trust is very much there at a farmers market. You know, when you go to the farmers market, they're selling you like produce from the ground. It's dirty, right? It's cool. It's it's the real thing. We should have that same trust at a grocery store.

Yes, and the same Trust in all the the people that we work with on our journeys, right for health, even even with mainstream medicine I do I can relate to the being shifted from doctor to doctor and not knowing nobody knowing what's wrong, right. I've had doctors let me go at times when I was sicker. But you know, it's interesting, I'm so interested in this water allergy that you spoke about, because I wrote a wrote a chapter of my story in this book called simply woman. And I used to have very painful showers with the water. And I wrote that in the book, and I had no idea that that was related to water allergy, but I don't have it anymore. But that's was part of the fibromyalgia and the pain on the skin. So I just thought that was so fascinating when you said is

it you know, I think more than anything, when we dig deeper, I like to say there's true water allergy, which is a different condition, which is what we were always trying to figure out like, Do you have a true water allergy, we need to figure this out, it's so important, right? versus the rest of us. I think with the rest of us, you're dealing with histamine intolerance, bucket overload, undiagnosed food, allergy, food, intolerance, all that sort of stuff, where you're dealing with the breakdown of the body, and the body's inability to just handle stimulus at all. And I think when you start rebuilding your body, you know, it's like, now I take a shower without turning beet red, I can take a shower without, you know, feeling like 1000 needles are coming at me, you know, and, I mean, there were times where it was like, I was on the verge of tears trying to take a shower, right? Like, it is not pleasant. People don't get that. Like, it's so painful. And so, you know, it's, it changes you Right? Like it. I mean, come on, that's like a basic human thing. Taking a shower, when you're like sitting there contemplating. Hmm, can I go another day without a shower? Because like, I'm not really up for all that pain right now. Like when that's your thought process. It messes with you over time, you know, and, and that's why I think it's just so important to help people see, there's an absolute connection to food and not every reaction is anaphylaxis. Right. That's, that's one of the greatest lies we've been told is, if you don't have anaphylaxis, it's not a food allergy. Yeah, no, that's not true.

So how are the kids doing? Now tell us about what are other.

The oldest, he likes to be an American. He hates living the life he knows that he should. And I totally respect that. I'm like, you, do you. I gave you the information. And he is living proof that, you know, you can do as much for your child and invest a lot of money in your child. And they still go the American way. Right? That's what it is. Our second oldest, he still struggles with a lot of things. And I still think there's more going on with food. But he's at an age where I'm like, Dude, you have to be the driver on this one. I'm not gonna sit here and baby you and do it all for you. Right? You're in what were his allergies. So he's wheat, dairy, egg, beef, red meat, bovine material. So he he's got quite a few things going on. But I would not be surprised. The sugar is this the same donor? So that's kid three Mr. Low, no sugar. He is a newly minted adult. And well, not newly. It's been a while now. But he's finally at a better place. It's kind of funny where, you know, kid, one went the way of the Americans, Kid three kind of finally said, I think I get it now. I'm like, You mean to tell me you put me through hell, and wind and piston moaned for all those years. And now you want to say you get it like, what that is. So now cool, man. You could have said this years ago, it made my life easier, you know? And it just it is what it is. He still likes to pretend, though, that he can have wheat and gluten and dairy. Like he loves to pretend. And I'm like, Yes, I'm so bad for you. Like he, he is so sickly. Like he, he's he's a sickly person and that he eats the wrong foods for long enough, you know, he can't get out of bed and he doesn't feel well and he's gonna vomit. And he's this and he's that and I'm like, What have you been eating? Well, I have mac and cheese and I had this and he'll give me the list of everything. And I'm like, you see the connection? Right? It's not that bad. Okay. So, you know, but again, he's an adult, right? I am very much the type of parent where it's like, when you turn 18 I give you the keys keys to the kingdom. It's yours now. I did my part. Now it's your turn. Our youngest is it's a very interesting story because everybody always thought there was nothing wrong with her. And it was really cute. It was cute. Funny, funny when she was little because the boys all had special diets and they didn't have special foods she she says to them one day. You guys are so lucky. I wish I had special food like you. And they all said, No, we wish we could have your food right like as a child she felt left out

of the allergy world. Yeah,

like she was left out. And it's so it's funny to me because that's really how kids view the world right? And so, but as she got older, we found that if you ever too much sugar, she will flip out and start cursing like a sailor kind of thing. I mean, like she flips out. And that's even on natural sugars. Like one time she had a package of sugarfree gummy bears and I'm not talking like Hasbro or sugar free I'm talking like, better power you I won't I won't name drop the brand because I don't want to throw them under the bus but just know. It was a very quality sugarfree gummy bear wink wink, okay. And it cetera, because she ate it on an empty stomach. She hadn't eaten in a long time. And she just filled up on these sugars, sugar alcohols and she was gone. And we found that there was a lot of depression, a lot of hormonal issues. And for her she does really well like keto ish, Paleo ish, light dairy, low wheat, very nutritionally dense. Like it's, it's a very specific set of foods for her.

She that she has a thin, thinner frame. Um,

I'd like to think she's average. Yeah. Well, when we first started kind of switching things around, she did lose a little bit of weight. But she wasn't like obese or anything like that. She's never been large child. The only one who ever struggled with weight was kid two. Yeah. And he had the Undiagnosed food allergy for the longest. The other three have never been never been big. Yeah, actually take that back. Kid one gained a lot of weight eating like an American. Okay, yeah. Then We sent him off to do six months at an orphanage to be like, a missionary helper type person thing. You asked a bunch, we were like, This is great. You should go there more often. He was and he was just like, he was sour the whole time. We were like, whatever. And he basically gained it all back because he wants to be an American, right? And you can't stop them. It's not like they get they have a job. They do their own thing. So it is

when the pain gets great enough, right? That's when they decide they need to make a change. And you know, it's funny, because

when I first lost all the weight, you know, a lot of people who knew me, they were like, Oh, my goodness, would you do? Tell me your secrets? I'll pay you to coach me, like, helped me lose weight, right? And I was convinced for a hot minute that I was going to save the world. I kid you not. And the kids, their grandmother, she was like, you can't help people. And I was like, don't say that I can help people. She's like, No, you don't get it. If it doesn't hurt, they're not going to change. And I'm like, Nah, they're gonna change, right? That's that whole? Don't tell me no kind of mentality. Sure enough person after person. They just wouldn't listen, I would tell them what to do. And they wouldn't do it. And it was like, she was right. Change, they would not change.

They wouldn't they would. And this is why I left working as a nutritionist and went more into emotional coaching. Because they don't listen. They really don't. Right. So but tell us about what you do. Now you have the bakery, where is the bakery.

So we have caught a cottage law bakery, which means in a residential space. But we're actually in the process of closing it down. Just because California regulations like with all the lockdowns and all that stuff. You know, we've lost most of our customers at this point. Like, it's just it's changed the landscape. And, you know, supply chain stuff. And quite frankly, it what people are buying when they come to our bakery is safety. Right? We've Ouch, we investigate every product and we jumped through all the hoops to serve you safely. And some key products, you know, manufacturers are going down, right? So it's getting harder and harder to serve people safely. And for me, I can't have that on my conscience. I cannot stand the idea that I you know, contributed to someone's illness. So I think it's better just to say that take a step back. So instead, what we're doing is we are kind of digitizing our bakery, and we're creating some cool how to videos and recipes and you can purchase like recipe bundles and get recipes from our bakery and stuff. You know, for the longest time we didn't share the recipes because I was convinced I was gonna go on like, Cupcake Wars or something. Now the show's not really filming anymore. I'm like, Yeah, I guess we could sell the recipe. So we have the bakery. But honestly, RES is what it's all about. You know, we did the cookbook route. And our cookbook was groundbreaking in that we have this chart at the beginning of every cookbook, and so it listed like major allergens It listed specialty diets like paleo and gaps in the AIP. And it had a chart where it would just kind of say yes or no, if you could have this recipe, no one else had ever done it before. Quite frankly, I don't think anybody's really done it yet, at least not the way it was. So like, you could open the book. And you could just highlight the recipes that would work for you based on the checkmark, so it was really cool. So Reyes has what's called the Advanced recipe search. And it's basically that on steroids. So with a book, you only have so much face. With raise, we have the ability to have over 85 filters at this point. And you can go through, you can put in major allergens, all the majors are there, you can put in so many less comments, you can put in whole families. So if you're like all night shade, or all alliums, that kind of thing. And then you can also put in specialty filters that we've added. So like 30 minutes or less or freezer friendly, budget friendly, that sort of thing. And then you can also choose like a meal type, like breakfast, lunch, dinner snack. I think there's a couple more and then a new thing that we've added. Because we always had like pizza and pasta. And I realized, you know, sometimes you just want a muffin, you don't want to have to filter through everything to get too often. And I actually learned the hard way that sometimes when you search for like muffin recipe, not everything comes up properly. So we added these collection buttons, so you can put in all your restrictions. And then at the bottom say show me only muffins. So only the muffins that meet your needs are shown for show me only pizza, or only pasta or only pancakes, right. So we've created these collections where you've got that look, you get it, you absolutely get it. And then on top of that we have a favorite button. So you can basically make your own recipe box collection thing. So I always tell people use it one of two ways or combo, either a the recipes you actually like or be the ones you want to try. So that way when you log in, you push this button, and then it brings you to your collection. And so it's I like to say that, you know, it's it's literally the most powerful search engine for food for people with food allergies anywhere on the internet, because there's a couple that are close, because they literally list out every single possible ingredient. And then you just tick some boxes to say what you can have, and it kicks out recipes. But the fault in that is number one, it doesn't do special diets. So it doesn't do vegan paleo. gappsi AIP, SCD low histamine, all those things, fructose intolerance, we cover all the specialty diets as part of what makes us special. But number two, those functions on there's only two websites that do it. They don't include substitutions, they take you at face value. So we have three statements, we have our allergy status, we say it's free from friendly to and that's like datatypes. And then I say compatible with if I know I can get this recipe to work for you. I will still list it as free from for you. So like let's say you are free from cinnamon, right? That's one of the filtering options.

If the recipe doesn't hinge on the cinnamon, right, this is me using you know your chef brain and knowing like how much can I get away with here, without over overly changing the recipe too much. If I know you can leave out the cinnamon, I'll let you leave it out. Right if I think this is a key flavor, I'm not gonna say it's cinnamon free, right. But if I say it's compatible with that means I either have a solution for you. Or you can actually leave this ingredient out. It's really not a big deal. You're not going to die or anything. So that's what makes it so powerful. It's that we give you the substitutions, right? Like nobody's doing this like nobody

else. It's incredible and writeable at the same

time, I know why nobody's doing it. Do you know how much work goes into this platform? Its credit

is and and raise is your membership site for our listeners and raise a stands for what?

Oh, the best part of the story. Okay, here's what's so funny about rays. I gotta tell you when we started because Okay, first and foremost, every time we do anything, Carl's and I we always sit around and we never agree on a name. And so then we don't start because I'm always like, it doesn't have a name and we can't buy a website. And I can't start right we need a name first. And so when we first started free and friendly foods, which is the umbrella company for everything in the name of the bakery, I was like I don't want to do it because we can't say gluten free bakery. We can't say nut free bakery. We're gonna leave out so many people. And he says to me, tell me everything. The bakery should be like if you had to call it the actual name what would be called? I said it would be called gluten free, dairy free, egg free soy free tree nut free, coconut free, peanut free yeast free. And I listed off all this stuff. And then I said paleo friendly, vegan friendly, and we could technically make you a gapps thing if you needed it. And he said, Okay. Free and friendly foods. Well, that's genius. I love it. And so that was how free instantly foods got its name and its start right. That's when I finally said we can publish a cookbook because you wanted a cookbook and I basically refused to do it. anything till we had an aim. So And what's funny is we have some customers that don't make the connection. Some people think we give out free food, which I think is really funny. Yeah. Which we don't, oh, they think it's free and you're friendly. And then we actually had a friend in the food manufacturing world, and their child has a corn allergy. And they said to their kid, one day after getting some bakery stuff from us, you know, I don't get the name. And the kid says, Mom, don't you get it? It's free from gluten in this and this. And the mom goes, Oh, that's genius. What did I realize that's what she had done? And I'm like, You didn't notice the whole time? Yeah. So free to

when you get it when you get it. It's so genius new.

Groundbreaking. Now, Grace has a similar story. I did not want anyone and I already feel bad about the allergy chef, right? I feel like when people hear me they think, Oh, well, I'm celiac. She can't help me. Oh, this she cannot be No, no, no, I got your back, don't worry. But with raise, I didn't want a platform that was only for the gluten free or celiac disease community, I did not want something that was only for the food allergy community. Because at the end of the day, there's an overlap so big, it's so big, you can drive a train through it. But most people just don't see it. And I think the only reason I see it, and that's the silver lining of my diagnosis is my diagnosis. I've literally walked through all of their shoes, you know, because I have such a wide range of symptoms, and I mimic all these major and rare diseases. If you tell me your job's disease, I'm like, Oh, I know what that feels like. And they're like, wait, you do? Like, yeah, I have these 10 symptoms that actually overlap with your disease. We're like, besties, right. Like, I literally understand you. And so I didn't want anyone left out. That was such a big deal for me. And so once again, Carlson's, like tell me, everybody that has to be met by this, right. And I'm like, Well, anybody with a food intolerance, anybody with a food allergy anybody would like and I'm listing all these things off. So he just started picking out letters, and he was getting words, you know, wasn't quite getting there. And that's when I said, Well, what if we grouped special diets? So paleo gappsi, AIP, sed, etc. We'll give that the letter s. And I said, Let's just add the word restricted diet, right? Because I mean, everybody's restricted in one way or another. And suddenly you had the word race. And that's where it all came from. So race is for restricted diet food allergy is the A is for food intolerance. S is for special diet. So paleo gappsi, AIP, sed, low histamine, fructose intolerance, all of you people, and nickel allergy, Bama. Persada, Peru, everybody, right? And then he is for IUI. So literally, I gripped everybody with the one word, because I never want anybody to be left out.

I love it. You what you've created is a place where people will listen. And the reason they will listen is because all of a sudden, you've taken out the uncertainty and the anxiety around change. Right? It's absolutely beautiful. Now, oh my gosh, what an incredible conversation this was. How can people find you? How can people connect with you,

so are the website if you so if you go to the allergy chef.com That'll take you everywhere, it'll get you to the free and friendly foods website with the books and the bundles and all that stuff. It'll take you to the rays website, there's literally links for everything. If you're newly diagnosed, we actually have a free program for the newly diagnosed as well. Where you get like a webinar and we send you like, some food info and lots of great things that you just need. Like right now you literally just got your diagnosis, we have that two raises raised archaeology chef.com, you can also go to go raise dotnet. Same place, but I hate dotnet. Don't tell Carlton, I said that. That was his idea. And Instagram at the allergy chef, that's the platform we're most active on we do stories and posts and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. That's

amazing. Thank you so much for joining us. We could talk for days and hours. And weeks, I I'm so passionate. And we're we're we're all on the same page. And we're so excited to bring this information to our listeners. And for our listeners. For anybody who wants to benefit from your membership program. We actually have a coupon code for the membership and we're going to put that in the show notes. And it is valid for one year. So look for that. And we'll also post it on social media and in our Facebook group. But thank you so much Catalina you have enlightened all of us. You're an inspiration. You are on an incredible mission to making everyone feel safe and nourished, nourished in mind, body and soul because that's what it's about. So thank you and we appreciate you and we hope that we can stay in touch because yeah, there's So much awesomeness.

Oh no, not to stay in touch later. Exactly.

So thank you so much and have an amazing rest of your day.

Thank you so much in the same view, it's been such a pleasure

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