Food not Meds
5/5
()
About this ebook
Carol tells a compelling story (her own story) of wellness & healing using our lowest cost healthcare systems – friendship, family and food. As a clinical psychologist working to increase client’s well-being and finding wisdom in their own life journeys
“I find Carol’s viewpoint abundantly useful and easily applied. She provides alternatives that will increase your wellness options and it is a ve
Carol Amendola D'anca
Carol D’Anca is a board certified nutritionist combining scientific and fact based research with practical application for improving clients’ nutritional status. Her broadly based approach to helping others includes monthly meetings with a large urban group dedicated to preventing and reversing heart disease, educational webinars, cooking demos and private consultations. For those wanting to immerse themselves in the lifestyle, cooking and community of an ancient culture promoting longevity, Carol regularly hosts culinary trips to Italy. These tours allow individuals the unparalleled experience of briefly living the healthy “Mediterranean Way of Life.” After graduating with honors from the University of Wisconsin, Carol attended graduate school at Lake Forest Graduate School of Management, and then earned a Master of Science Degree in Clinical Nutrition from Rosalind Franklin University of Science and Medicine/The Chicago Medical School. Carol has over 20 years of experience in the healthcare field including an executive position with an international medical device company based in Austria. Her professional associations include the American Nutrition Association, a task force committee member of the Certification board for Nutrition Specialists and the Institute for Functional Medicine.
Related to Food not Meds
Related ebooks
Naked Nutrition: Whole Foods Revealed Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Grand Food Bargain: and the Mindless Drive for More Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Phyllis D. Light's Southern Folk Medicine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Holistic Gardener: Natural Cures for Common Ailments Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Good Season: Easy Recipes for Wild Edibles Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDinner at the New Gene Café: How Genetic Engineering Is Changing What We Eat, How We Live, and the Global Politics of Food Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsP is for Parsley Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEcotarian Diet: A sustainable way of eating for your body and your planet Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsManagement of Celiac Disease Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEmergent: Rewilding Nature, Regenerating Food and Healing the World by Restoring the Connection Between People and the Wild Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings90% Vegetarian: Plant-strong, Gluten-free, and Dairy-free Meals and Snacks Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiving an Alzheimer's Free Life: The Why We Eat Series, #6 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIncurable Me: Why the Best Medical Research Does Not Make It into Clinical Practice Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCandy-Making Revolutionized Confectionery from Vegetables Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Farm on Every Corner: Reimagining America's Food System for the Twenty-First Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ultimate Betrayal: Is There Happy Meat? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGod's Diet for Healthy Living: Living Long, Healthy, and Prosperous Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings21 Secret Remedies for Colds and Flu: Build Your Immune System and Stay Healthy—Naturally! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary, Analysis & Review of Amy Myers's The Thyroid Connection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBest Person Rural: Essays of a Sometime Farmer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Growing Corn - With Information on Selection, Sowing, Growing and Pest Control of Corn Crops Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGot Guts! A Guide to Prevent and Beat Colon Cancer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Good Fat Cookbook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of T. Colin Campbell & Nelson Disla's The Future of Nutrition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFood, Genes, and Culture: Eating Right for Your Origins Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Conquer Menopause: Get Your Life Back On Track Today! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlue Chair Cooks with Jam & Marmalade Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHoly Basil (Oscimum Sanctum) - Just One Herb: One Natural Medicine to Keep You healthy Throughout Your Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLove Your Liver: How to Keep Your Liver Healthy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Wellness For You
The Big Book of 30-Day Challenges: 60 Habit-Forming Programs to Live an Infinitely Better Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Lindsay C. Gibson's Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Glucose Revolution: The Life-Changing Power of Balancing Your Blood Sugar Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5When the Body Says No Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hormone Cure: Reclaim Balance, Sleep, Sex Drive and Vitality Naturally with the Gottfried Protocol Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thinner Leaner Stronger: The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Female Body Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lifting Heavy Things: Healing Trauma One Rep at a Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Diabetes Code: Prevent and Reverse Type 2 Diabetes Naturally Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Not to Diet: The Groundbreaking Science of Healthy, Permanent Weight Loss Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bigger Leaner Stronger: The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Male Body Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Anna Lembke's Dopamine Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Illustrated Easy Way to Stop Drinking: Free At Last! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Happiness Makeover: Overcome Stress and Negativity to Become a Hopeful, Happy Person Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Am I Doing?: 40 Conversations to Have with Yourself Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In the FLO: Unlock Your Hormonal Advantage and Revolutionize Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Food not Meds
1 rating0 reviews
Book preview
Food not Meds - Carol Amendola D'anca
Chapter One: Roots
The first supermarket supposedly appeared on the American landscape in 1946. That is not very long ago. Until then, where was all the food? Dear folks, the food was in homes, gardens, local fields, and forests. It was near kitchens, near tables, near bedsides. It was in the pantry, the cellar, the backyard.
~ Joel Salatin, Author
"Folks, This Ain’t Normal: A Farmer’s Advice for
Happier Hens, Healthier People and a Better World.
It has been said that you can find all of the answers to life’s greatest mysteries in your own backyard if you know where to look. After a lifetime of being in the world, I can now say that’s true. But I’ve learned that many of us have to go out into the world for a while to discover and gain the perspective we need to know where to look.
After college I did what so many of us do. I set out to pursue a career. Right out of school I began working in the healthcare field for some of the largest healthcare companies in the world and moved on to an international medical device company as well. I can honestly say healthcare
has been my life for my entire career.
Yet, it’s only been in the last twenty-four months that I finally glanced over my shoulder and realized that the answers about health that I’ve been seeking were literally in my own backyard, and not in the medical model where I’ve spent the last twenty-plus years. The answers to health are among the herbs and flowers. They’re seated at the table, and resting under the pergola. Yes. I discovered that the answers to the health questions I haven’t even fully formed yet are indeed in my own backyard. Well actually, they’re in several yards—plural.
First, there’s the backyard in a suburb of Chicago, the one I share with my husband of nineteen years. It’s a replica of the sort of typical backyard you’d see in Italy, complete with a pergola, a long table for family dinners and an outdoor kitchen complete with a pizza oven. Urns and pots grouped around our patio and the paths that meander through the yard grow basil, oregano, rosemary, mint and sage. Flowers overflow from pots around the yard, and my favorite piece of statuary is surrounded with blooms all summer long.
When the wind blows strong enough to move the shrubs, or when I brush past them enough to disturb them, the rosemary and basil throw their pungent oils into the breeze.
I can close my eyes, inhale deeply, and feel like I’m in the yard of my childhood again as the smell of rosemary and basil, the classic Italian herbs,
fill the air. When our outdoor pizza oven is heated and the fragrance of homemade pizza and cooking crust begins to waft through the yard, the smell takes me back to family and food and laughter and people gathered around to share stories, and to talk, and to eat.
My backyard is a lot like the other backyard, the one where my grandparents lived and where I still visit as often as I can. Like Naples, Italy, Acerra (province of Naples) and Nocelleto (province of Caserta), are all Italian. It’s like my parent’s backyard, the one I grew up in, in the United States, just as my parents had, in a small city on the border of Illinois and Wisconsin. Like I said, yards, plural.
It was in my childhood home and backyard I first became fascinated with food. Food wasn’t just something you ate. It was something you shared. If my father was sitting at the table in the back yard relaxing, or thinking, Rosie Sirocchi, a neighbor, would bring fresh, hot bread, or maybe biscotti, or whatever homemade food she made fresh that morning, over. She would offer it, and they would sit and talk, if only for a few minutes. Food was community. It was a reason to gather, to talk, to laugh, to share, to grieve, to celebrate, to connect and to mourn. It was a condiment for life, not a main course. Food seasoned our lives; it was not the focus of them.
My lunches, for instance, were not like the lunches of my classmates. I would have a piece of fresh fruit, some dried apricots, perhaps a handful of walnuts, and a homemade cookie. Lunch was not intended to stave off starvation, but to keep the metabolism burning steady and even. It was a midday snack, followed by another piece of fruit, or some nuts after school.
I didn’t have the white bread, the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or juice boxes my classmates brought. I never had meat in my lunches because meat was never part of a true Mediterranean diet.
Maybe I’d have a pepper and egg frittata, but our meals were simple, healthy and delicious. While Naples is famous for its mozzarella and cheeses and for its pizza, I admit that even though I lived in America I didn’t have pizza American style, with mozzarella on it, until I was sixteen years old! Our pizza was made with fresh dough and tomatoes we had canned from our own garden! We added a touch of fresh basil and the pizza was so much better than anything delivered in a cardboard box!
Even as a second-generation Italian-American, I’ve always embraced my culture.
Although my mother was conceived in Italy, she was born in the United States a few months after my grandparents arrived in the early 1900s. Both of my parents were first-born children of Italian immigrants, but were fortunate enough to grow up in a large Italian-American immigrant community.
I was so connected to my Italian roots I later applied for and received my Italian citizenship. I now hold dual citizenship in the U.S. and Italy. I and qualified because my parents were still considered Italian citizens when I was born.
My parents may have lived in America, but their first language was Italian, their first culture was Italian, and they raised their children as Italians. They grafted Americanisms onto their family vine later in life, but their roots were always Italian. Like the grape vines that grew thick and strong in my grandfather’s arbor, our Italian roots twisted, reached and curled deep into the soil and soul of a culture half a world away.
My grandparents were bright, beautiful people with bright, beautiful lives — especially my Nonna on my mother’s side, Carmella D’Angelo. They brought with them the three things that mattered most in Italian life: family, food and community.
My father was a public official in an American town, but he took care of Italian people. The city was heavily populated with Italian immigrants and, like us, they re-created the life they knew back in Naples. So I grew up immersed in the Italian way of life, the language, the food, the sense of community