I'll never forget the night that I really understood the power of food. It will be forever etched into my memory. I was aged 21 and not long out of home. My flatmate, had brought home some cheese that night, which made me feel both excited and wary. Cheese had been off-limits for me for some time, as I suspected that it did not agree with me. But it was my favourite food, so I threw caution to the wind and excitedly ate a whole block in one go.

 

But that night I awoke in agony. The pains in my knee and elbow joints were excruciating. And I knew immediately that it was the cheese. I'd suffered with arthritic-like "growing pains" in my joints as a child. A chance article read by my grandma linked cheese to such pains......and I had eaten cheese like other kids ate chocolate. So, my mother reduced my cheese intake, even tying the fridge with string to keep me away from my favourite food. Yet here I was all those years later being forced to accept that cheese was indeed the source of my pain. Such was the pain, that I couldn't even walk. I had to crawl to the bathroom, negotiating the stairs on my hands and knees on the way. I popped as many paracetamols as I could, but nothing would take away the pain. And so, I cried the night away vowing there and then to learn why this was happening to me. And there began my journey in nutrition.

 

But it would be another 10 years or so before I finally took the plunge to formally study nutrition. Along the way, I discovered it wasn't just cheese. There were other foods and even environmental sensitivities such as perfume, cigarette smoke, chemicals, EMFs and mould. As my nutrition journey unfolded, I cleaned up my diet and lifestyle and corrected underlying nutrition and body system imbalances and the over-reacting stopped. I could tolerate most foods again, even a little cheese, and I no longer reacted to my environment. My IBS type symptoms resolved, my energy returned, and I became pain free. I am convinced that I would have been crippled with arthritis by now, had I not discovered the power of food. Now, I show others how they can prevent such immune over-reactivity, so that they can regain their health and vitality, live a normal life and be full of boundless energy.