And I said well , you know , you should know . Now that I'm here , you know that I have you all . I'm doing this food thing and I think that that's made the difference , because I didn't take any treatments .
Speaker 2So I think , the difference .
Speaker 1And the one doctor looked at me and he said you're so cute . Nothing that you eat has an impact on your health . Wow . And I said wait a second . When you take an aspirin or an ibuprofen when you have a headache , isn't there a chemical reaction in the body that causes the headache to go away ? And he looked at me , he rolled his eyes , he said yes , of course . And I said so . If I eat broccoli , is there not a chemical reaction that changes the pH in my blood , in my intestines , that allows my health to change ? Patted me on the hand and said come back in six months for another blood test . I never went back .
Speaker 3You're listening to the I Am Healing Strong podcast , a part of the Healing Strong organization , the number one network of holistic cancer support groups in the world . Each week we bring you stories of hope , real stories that will encourage you as you navigate your way on your own journey to health . Now here's your host stage four cancer thriver , jim Mann .
Speaker 2Welcome to another podcast . I'm excited to bring yet another guest . This one is so much smarter than me , I can tell right away I'm just meeting her and she and I would get along great because I love to eat and she loves to cook and I think that's just a wonderful , wonderful pair right there , christina , is it Pirello ?
Speaker 1Pirello yeah .
Speaker 2Look at me just the way it looks .
Speaker 1It's like an Italian .
Speaker 2Yeah , how are you doing ?
Speaker 1I'm well , thank you . How are ?
Speaker 2you Super . You're a celebrity chef , you have Christina Cooks and you won an Emmy from that right .
Speaker 1Yep , I did yeah .
Speaker 2Let me look at my shelf see if I can find mine . Nope , I don't have an Emmy anywhere .
Speaker 1I don't have mine anywhere in view either .
Speaker 2I'm sure mine's coming somewhere .
Speaker 1Hey man , you got a gold record behind you , so you know .
Speaker 2Yeah , I took that from the radio station . Okay , there you go . They were throwing it away , Anyway . You also have seven cookbooks . You wrote you have a master's in food science and nutrition from the University of Miami . You won the 2020 Philadelphia Award for health food . Wow , that sounds prestigious . You're on a gazillion boards . I came in we don't have the time to go through all the boards that you're on and also you're a professor of culinary arts and nutrition at the restaurant school at Walnut Hill College and you cut grass on the side .
Speaker 1No , I cook and clean on the side .
Speaker 2What did I miss ?
Speaker 1There's so much more I mean , I was all over your website and there's so much stuff that you have done Well . Actually , you only made one mistake , which is it's 13 cookbooks , and I'm working on my 14th . But , that's okay . That's okay , I have 13 . What's the difference ?
Speaker 2Okay , let me scratch that Seven . Oh , so much better . I didn't respect you with seven , but now , okay , what else ?
Speaker 1do we do ? We have a travel business , a boutique travel business . My husband and I . We take people on healthy , active vacations in Europe . Wow yeah , they're really fun . I do a lot of the cooking , but people do not have to be plant-based to come on one of our trips . They can eat whatever they want , unless I cooked it . If I cook it , it's going to be plant-based People can do what they like . We've been doing it since 1999 . It's been fun . If it's not fun anymore , we stop doing it .
Speaker 2It's not worth it if it's not fun . Life is too short . At my age I finally realized life is too short .
Speaker 1I realized that really early on , sadly .
Speaker 2Oh yes , Well , you had a diagnosis and we'll get to that , but give us a little background . You got Italian and Irish in you and a lot of food and a lot of people .
Speaker 1Yeah , so I'm Italian on my mother's side and Irish on my father's side . My father's side was like you they really like to eat , but nobody knew their way around the kitchen . My Italian side were the cooks . You know , they were the ones that that taught me to love food , taught me how to pick a ripe tomato .
I think I said to you earlier that my grandmother was the youngest of 17 and she and her nine sisters and my mother used to cook very often in our kitchen , and just watching them move around the kitchen was like watching a symphony . They never banged into each other , there was never any irritation . They knew their jobs . They it was . They were always singing and drinking coffee and wine and and creating these amazing meals , and so from a very young age I knew that that's where I wanted to be . I wanted to be part of that music really , and they were more than happy .
Speaker 1You know , people say who taught you how to cook ? Nobody . They would give you a job , show you how to do it . You know , do this , and then you master that job , and then you give you another job and another job , and finally you're cooking , and Finally you're cooking , and and that's how it started and I never felt out of love with the kitchen , even when it became our profession years later . There's something about the heat , the pressure , the yelling that you know that's you . You have to be a certain kind of insane , I think , to be in that profession .
Speaker 2But I loved every second of it when I did . I loved every second of it when I did it . Yeah , we've all seen Italian . I mean , even if we don't have an Italian , family .
Speaker 1We've seen it in the movies . I think it's just like that , isn't it ? It's pretty much like that . I mean not always , sometimes there's more yelling at the table than you know you see in movies , but there's pretty much that , that very of familial everybody's together . Family's the most important thing , family's the most important thing . It's drilled into you from the youngest age . No matter what you do in your life , never forget your family , and that has always paid off for me and pays off for so many Italians that I know that you can always rely on . You may not like them all the time . Yes , that I know that you can always rely on . You may not like them all the time .
Speaker 2You can always rely on them . Yes , now your mom . She was into healthy eating from the start , right ?
Speaker 1My mother was a certified hippie back in the day when I was a little girl and she was always in what we called the health food stores back then , buying vitamins and unmarked brown bottles and sold to her by people with names like Segal and Free . And you know she burned her bra with the other mothers during that time and I have photos of me as a little girl somewhere with sandwich boards . You know , don't drop bombs on me , don't pollute my water . And I always thought we were at a parade . I had no idea , but her sort of social activism like worked its way into my DNA .
Speaker 1You know I can remember as a little kid . You know , turn off the water when you brush your teeth . What are you doing ? Wasting water ? Do you think there's water forever ? And as a kid you're thinking , yeah , and we drive 30 minutes to take the newspaper that my father read every day to the recycling plant .
Speaker 1And she was way ahead of her time . She used to read Prevention Magazine and walk into the kitchen and say do you know ? We cook broccoli for too long , okay , ma . And she was always expanding her horizons when it came to health and wellness and lived a very paradoxical life because my mother passed away at 49 from colon cancer because while she knew all this stuff and we had to eat the vegetables from the garden , we had to cook from scratch , we had to eat , take whole wheat bread to school that she baked she basically lived on coffee , cigarettes and whatever chocolate was in the house , what it was . So it was so bizarre to me as a kid she suffered I would say she suffered from the arrogance of knowing stuff but didn't ever put it into practice wow she would eat pizza when we made pizza .
Speaker 1But you know you couldn't get her to like eat the plate of brussels sprouts that we had to eat that we picked out of the garden . It was . She was not . She did a salad now and then , but she really was not a healthy eater , she was a healthy thinker . I don't know if that makes any sense , but yeah .
Speaker 1So when I left home at 18 to go to college , I was so over it . I was like I'm done with this , I'm gonna . I'm gonna live a single woman vegetarian lifestyle . Because I became a vegetarian at 14 because my father's a butcher and he had the opportunity to work in a slaughterhouse and make a ton of money for the time . And my dad was six foot two , pure Irish muscle , and he left , came back within an hour , sat at the kitchen table weeping and said to my mother I know we need the money , but I couldn't do it . And that was it for me . I haven't touched meat since that day . If my father , my strong father , couldn't do what it took to put meat on the table , I was done . He said I couldn't look in their eyes and do it .
Speaker 2Wow .
Speaker 1So when I left home I became a general food vegetarian . By Dr Pepper , the cream in Oreos is vegan . Who knew no cream in it ? Wow , it was that kind of and I was working as a chef . So later in years , when I studied with my Asian teacher , he used to say the unhealthiest profession was chef . We never sat down to eat . We , you know , ate whatever we could get our hands on . It's kind of like this constant catch-22 of not being healthy and your day off you didn't really want to cook .
Speaker 1So , yeah , it was interesting .
Speaker 2Wow .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2Okay , so you were a rebel eating junk food .
Speaker 1Oh , tons , yeah , Tons of it , and it's really delicious , by the way .
Speaker 2Yeah , it's amazing .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2And of course I'm sure you've heard the analogy , might have used it yourself . But you know people think you know they wouldn't put anything but gasoline or diesel in their car , yet in their body , which is so much more complicated than an automobile . In fact , you know , compared to the human body , an automobile is about as complicated as a toothpick . Yeah , but yet we'll put anything , anything that tastes good . You gotta get past that tongue and that palate .
Speaker 1So yeah , we take way better care of our , of our cars than our bodies yeah , and some people still don't make that connection and I didn't amazing , isn't it ? I I find that so uh . In the work that I do , I still find myself scratching my head some days like , wow , okay , if I hear it once , I hear it a million times . Well , if I was sick I would do this . My answer is always why wait ?
Speaker 2Yeah , that's true . So you're going towards sickness and once you get there , then you'll change right .
Speaker 1Yeah , it's like OK , it might be too late then , but OK , whatever .
Speaker 2Yeah , so you were diagnosed at a young age , right ? Yeah , so you were diagnosed at a young age , right .
Speaker 1Yeah , my mother passed away at 49 . I was 24 at the time , 25 at the time . I moved to Philadelphia to get a new start in life and six months after I moved there I was diagnosed with terminal leukemia . What they consider terminal leukemia would be they don't really do stages in leukemia , but it would be considered like stage four . They said you have six to nine months . And I said to them , because I was 20 , I was almost 26 . I sat there and I said but what do we do ? And they said we don't think . You're understanding us . You're terminal . And I said to them yeah , that's a big building at the airport . What do we do ? And they said well , we can try a few things , but you'll probably just be sick and we can extend your life by a couple months . And I said and I'll be bald and sick ? And they said yeah . So I said no , thank you . And I left petrified , not knowing anything Like what would I do . And then ? So then I thought , well , maybe I'll move back to Italy . I lived there for a year . I'll just go back and when it's over , it's over . You know , they'll always remember me as young You're so stupid at that age and they'll always remember me young and you know that'll be
it .
Speaker 1And then a friend of mine introduced me to Robert , who I am married to for 41 years , and Robert said well , why do you think you have to die from this ? Do you know you can change your blood quality in as little as seven months ? And I said , well , I only have nine . And he started to talk about macrobiotics and eating . Well , and he said you know how do you eat now ? And I said , well , I'm already a vegetarian , so duh . And he said , well , do you eat sugar ? And I said , well , everybody eats sugar . And he said do you drink soda ? Everybody drinks soda . And I realized I didn't know a thing about nutrition , nothing . I just knew that I wasn't eating animals . So he introduced me to macrobiotics , which I started eating , and I remember the first meal I ate that was macrobiotic .
Speaker 1He had made brown rice , corn on the cob that had pickled Japanese plum paste on it , he had made sea vegetables , kale and tempeh , which is a fermented soy product . And I looked at the plate and I thought I don't know . So I ate a bit of rice . And I thought , well , this is boring . And then I looked at the black sea vegetables and thought I was being pumped . So I wouldn't even touch that . I thought there was mold on my corn because it was pink . The kale I looked at him and said this is the garnish on a salad bar and you think we're going to eat this . And then the tempeh I thought was awful and it turns out he's a really good cook and I just had so much sugar in my palate that I had no idea how to taste food . So he said why don't you give it a month ? And I thought , all right , I'm not living for a month , I'll give it a month . So I went back to my doctors . They agreed to monitor my blood .
Speaker 1And in a month I was in remission and I was , when I tell you , jim , I was cooking rice , but I gave up sugar completely , I gave up soda , all junk food , cold turkey completely . So I was eating brown rice , sometimes badly cooked . Sometimes I made miso soup . I would eat , you know , vegetables , but it all was disgusting to me . And I didn't . I was not , I was not one of those people who said , oh , this is going to save my life . I was like , well , he's adorable , and in six months I'll be dead . You know he'll move on . So I went back to the doctor , had my blood test and they said , um , you are in remission . And I said , great , shouldn't you be happier ? And they said , well , it won't last . And they were right .
Speaker 1I went in and out of remission for about seven months , but at seven months I was supposed to be coming up on like the end and I was anything but close to my deathbed . I was healthy , I felt good , I had lost weight , but I had muscle , I had energy . So I kept going back every other month and after 14 months they took blood , took it again again , took it again . And finally I said to the technician I'll never forget her , janine . I said are we feeding every vampire in Philly , like what's happening here ? And she said well , the doctors need to speak to you . There's a problem .
Speaker 1And I thought okay'm sitting down across from five oncologists and they said we can't seem to find any leukemia in your blood . And again I said to them well , shouldn't you be happier ? And they said well , we don't really know what happened here . We think it's spontaneous regression , but don't get too excited , it's not going to last . And I thought okay , see ya . And I was in rage and I said well , you know , you should know . Now that I'm here , you know that I have you all . I'm doing this food thing and I think that that's made the difference , because I didn't take any treatments .
Speaker 1So I think the difference . And the one doctor looked at me and he said you're so cute . Nothing that you eat has an impact on your health . Wow . And I said wait a second . When you take an aspirin or an ibuprofen when you have a headache , isn't there a chemical reaction in the body that causes the headache to go away ? And he looked at me , he rolled his eyes , he said yes , of course . And I said so . If I eat broccoli , is there not a chemical reaction that changes the ph in my blood , in my intestines , that allows my health to change ? Patted me on the hand and said come back in six months for another blood test . I never went back .
Speaker 2Yes , so they weren't your cheerleaders , is what you're saying .
Speaker 1No , oh gosh , no . If it wasn't for Robert and my family , probably no cheerleaders when you're doing something that no one really knows about . This was 1983 . It wasn't like people were using food to influence disease like they do now . This was pretty . In fact , my dad , my mom , had just died . My father said to me I can't do this again . I don't know if I can do this again Because he thought I would die . We all did , and I said well , I kind of need you now . And my father didn't talk to me for two months because he just couldn't deal . So I thought OK , I'm alone with this man I just met , who showed up every morning to help me cook breakfast and , you know , became my head cheerleader to this day , of course .
Speaker 2What's his background ?
Speaker 1Robert has a background in marketing . He's a Sicilian , grew up in a big Sicilian family . His mother was one of 15 , so he grew up in that same kind of big kitchen , family parties . Everything was about food . But everyone in his family died very young from cancer , mostly cancer . So when he moved away from home he was a runner a distance runner still is . He had a stress fracture in one of his shins was always interested in healthy food , never really liked meat or ricotta , cheese or mozzarella .
Speaker 1He was kind of a weirdo and you saw a magazine article on Dr Anthony Sadalero who cured his cancer with macrobiotics here in Philadelphia and Robert thought that sounded interesting and , while he was perfectly healthy , thought maybe he should do some prevention because his whole family , you know , was dying of cancer . So he studied macrobiotics and never looked back . In 1968 . Wow , started eating and went to study with Michio Kushi in Boston and then just never really taught . He still doesn't really teach . But just , you know , lives , the lifestyle . Now we live a little more Mediterranean than Asian , but still you know the principles are there and that's how he started was because he didn't like the way things were going with his family .
Speaker 2Okay , just like James Templeton . I think you were on his podcast also , yeah .
Speaker 1Exactly , almost exactly .
Speaker 2Okay .
Speaker 1So Robert was one of the few people you'll meet in the macrobiotic community who was preventive , not curative .
Speaker 2Right .
Speaker 1He didn't come to us as a last resort . Robert's like maybe I won't wait that long .
Speaker 2You're right , he is a weirdo . He's a little bit of a weirdo , he's small , yes , a good weirdo he is if more of us would do things just to prevent it before it happens I know , I know and I can't really .
Speaker 1You know , when I talk to people I can't really , I can't lecture them about prevention , but I can say to them I know where you are , I was , and let's not let it get to the 11th hour . Do something now , don't wait till they tell you your terminal Wait . You know , do it now . I mean , and listen , even back in 1983 , we all knew that we were not supposed to be drinking soda and eating bars for breakfast , like . We all knew that . We just did it because it tasted good and we were marketed to , and you know it tasted good and it was easy . And so nobody you know macrobiotics has the reputation . Nobody was walking down the street in Boston when Michio Kushi was teaching and thinking let me give up everything I love and go eat brown rice and seaweed , unless they had to .
Speaker 2Right .
Speaker 1You know sick or they . You know they needed some kind of intervention and the medical community had written you off . That's who started macrobiotics in this country . Really like , made it a movement .
Speaker 2Yeah , there's , there's still . The mindset is that , even though it's changing , you know lots of people . Slow , very slow . Yeah , doctors like I fortunately had a doctor who's like , hey , everything matters . Like I fortunately had a doctor who's like , hey , everything matters Exercising what you eat , your mindset , you know all these things and I thought , wow , that's incredible .
Speaker 1That's incredible .
Speaker 2Yeah , and then I had a cousin you know I mentioned this in many of our podcasts , but I just want to bring it up because his doctor said it doesn't matter what you eat . In fact , eat more donuts to get that weight back up .
Speaker 1And you know he passed away in five years of just being chemoed because he believed the doctors . I mean , that's how my family was . You know they said it was colon cancer and my , my mother started her very long two year journey , uh , with cancer , with a pain . She said . It was like she had an ice pick in the cheek of her butt .
Speaker 1And she and she was very fit . My mother exercised to Jack LaLanne when I was a little girl . Now , when I taught at Richard Simmons health club , she came to my classes . She was very fit , looked like a 1940s pinup model after having four kids . And so one day she said I think you know you're stretching . I pulled that and she pointed to it and I'm like my , you don't have a muscle there to pull , so I don't know .
Speaker 1Weeks went by and it got worse and worse and worse . And then they said it was colon cancer . They did a full colonoscopy . I mean she ended up with a bag , but the pain in her hip never went away . The pain in her butt never went away . So after 18 months a little longer they said you know ? She said I know that I'm not going to beat this . She was either in radiation , in chemotherapy or out of remission . She never quite . She never beat it .
Speaker 1And so one day we were at the doctor's office and she said I have to get rid of this pain . I can't even enjoy my family because I'm always in a fog on painkillers . And he said well , we could do a nerve block in your leg , but your leg will be paralyzed . And she said I don't care , I just don't want to be on painkillers , I want to be with my family . So he said , okay . So we scheduled this thing , 20-minute procedure . Four hours later they come out and say , oops , we misdiagnosed her . Her primary source of cancer was actually bone cancer and when we went in to do the nerve block , her pelvis powdered . She'll be dead in 10 days . And she was dead in 10 days . So did she have colon cancer ? Yes , it was a secondary cancer , but the reason nothing worked I look back now and think was because they were treating the wrong thing . So I , you know as a kid , but as a kid , like you just said , when I was 20-something years old and they say do this , you go okay .
Speaker 2I just don't want to lose my mother ?
Speaker 1Okay , let's do it . Whatever you say , let's do it . You know , she's vomiting every day and her stomach's all burnt from the radiation . She's vomiting every day and her stomach's all burnt from the radiation , I know , but we're just going to give her a few more treatments , Okay , you know , you always said okay because they were so all powerful and we weren't as smart . We didn't have the internet , we weren't as smart . You know , see , my grandmother , when I was a kid , used to use she used to boil fennel and make a tea if you had a stomach ache , but you didn't really think food could cure disease .
Speaker 1You just knew there were these little folk remedies , that you're non-unmade , and you know how cute .
Speaker 2I look back now and think how smart they were , oh yeah , back then just a bunch of hippies that did weird things , and now they're brilliant .
Speaker 1I always say they're brilliant .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1So who knows , Jim I don't know . That's kind of the story . So for me , when they said welcome to spontaneous regression you won't stay here I was like thanks , I got to go .
Speaker 2Yeah , and you're not going back
. So do you go to a doctor at all ?
Speaker 1I do on occasion . I have , as I've gotten older , started getting blood tests every couple of years and everything is usually . I do struggle with anemia . I have to be completely honest in full transparency . It never has changed . I struggle with hemoglobin all the time . It's always like seven or eight and when I talk to my doctor she says you know somebody , some people just adjust . My whole family , every female , has Mediterranean anemia , thalassemia , leukemia runs in the genes . So it's like okay , so you know I have energy to burn . So I think your body does adjust somehow to what you have to , whatever your resources are . But yeah , but like regular , like do I go every six months ?
Speaker 2No , no , so that made you obviously once you got into the diet , the macro biotics , and then you is that when you got into the healthy cooking or how that transition .
Speaker 1Yeah . So when I was sick and I was learning how to cook real food , you know , that's when my interest was peaked . And then when I recovered , my husband said , well , I was a pastry chef before I got sick . And he said what do you want to do now ? And I said , well , with was a pastry chef before I got sick . And he said what do you want to do now ? And I said , well , with what I know now I can't go back to poisoning people with sugar , milk and butter , so I have to do something else . And he said what do you want to do ? And so my first idea thank goodness he's so much more sensible than me I said , well , here's what I think I should do . I'm going to go sit in oncologist's office and tell people there's a better way . And he said , babe , we don't have that kind of money for bail . So no , you're not doing that . I was like , okay .
Speaker 1So I went to my teacher in macrobiotics and studied with him for about four years , studied Chinese medicine , to understand how the body worked energetically . Not because I wanted to put needles , but it was the only way I could figure out how to study how the body really worked , the five energies and the humors and all of that . I went to my teacher and he said why don't you teach cooking ? And I thought , oh really , teach cooking . Why ? Because I'm a girl . And he said , no , because we teach people cooking , you can give them tools . So I left him and I started to think well , maybe he's right . I mean , I could talk to you for four hours about what a carrot will do for your health , but if you leave me not knowing what to do with a carrot , what did I really give you ? But if I teach you how to cook the carrot while I talk to you about what the carrot can do for your health , I've given you a tool . Whether you use it , don't use it .
Speaker 1So I started teaching cooking and then my classes went from four to eight to 12 to 24 , to my house being filled , to renting a space , to teaching all over the world . And then my husband in 1996 , I think said you know , you're really funny , you should do this on TV . And I thought , oh sure , yeah , you'll figure it out and I'll do it , thinking , and here we are , and here we are , but yeah , so the healthy cooking came in . I really got creative after I got . Well , I just figured out . Look , I'm a chef , let me . How can I make this food taste better so it doesn't feel like when I tell someone they're going to eat brown rice and vegetables , they don't feel like they're deprived , they feel like they're eating something enjoyable and lovely . And that really became .
Speaker 1What drove me forward was how do I make macrobiotics something that people want to do ? Because macrobiotics is just an understanding . Macrobiotics is not about eating seaweed and miso soup . It's about eating seasonal , whole , unprocessed food , cooked in a way that's appropriate for your lifestyle and health condition . That's it . The Asian influence is lovely and mystical , and if you're into it , that's it . The Asian influence is lovely and mystical , and if you're into it , that's cool , but if you're not , I just want to teach you how to make a really good pot of rice , beautifully sweet , delicious vegetables , pasta when you want it and have you enjoy your wellness . That's it .
Speaker 2So you took healthy food and added flavor to it .
Speaker 1Exactly Because nobody wanted to eat it . First year we were on TV . Since you say that first year we were on TV , we won an Emmy . And we were meeting with our production crew at the time and I said to them so the show I mean we just won , so shouldn't we try to elevate it now and maybe do something different ? I don't know . Let's think about what we could do . And my one producer said listen , we have a lovely show Just won an Emmy . It's hosted by a pretty girl who makes food that nobody wants to eat . That's it . And I said to my husband how do you feel about becoming an independent producer ? And we left that at that moment .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1So we became independent and have been producing ourselves ever since , hiring crews and doing the whole thing . It's cool . I like doing it that way .
Speaker 2So you're still on PBS , right .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , okay .
Speaker 2And also your YouTube channel .
Speaker 1I love public television and Create for many reasons , but the two most important ones are that they're deeply committed to education , and that's really all I care about . I think that you know if I , if I was doing the show to make money , I'd probably do stand up somewhere instead , because you know PBS , not CBS , and um , I feel like it's a huge classroom . Anybody can watch it . You don't have to have cable , everybody has access to it . And I also feel like we own all of our content . I own all my intellectual property .
Speaker 1I don't have ghostwriters on my cookbooks , I don't have somebody else who owns a piece of me , and on public television , while they screen everything for offensive information , nobody tells me what to say . We took the show in the beginning to Discovery and they said this is a great idea . Every now and then you'll have to throw in a chicken breast or some fish to make it friendly for America . And I was like I'm out , I'm out . And our producer at the time said nobody says no to them . And I said I just did . And on public television , I just didn't . And on public television , you know , we're the masters of our own domain in terms of what we say . I mean , I certainly have , at the end of the show , disclaimers that it's not medical advice because it isn't , it's entertainment in the end . But we do give some cool information .
Speaker 2That's a fantastic story . I like that . When you're cancer free , that's always good , good ending .
Speaker 1It's a great ending . It's a great ending to the story .
Speaker 2I want to get into the practical stuff with your cooking and all that kind of stuff which I want it basically for myself . But since everyone else is listening , they can listen in also . That's fine , but we're going to . Can you come back next week ? That would be great . We'll just continue this conversation .
Speaker 1Come back whenever you want me to .
Speaker 2Well , and of course , if people want to get a hold of you , just go to ChristinaCookscom , right , all the information's right there .
Speaker 1Yeah , and social media is all . Christina Cooks , if they're interested . Yeah , we have a YouTube channel that has recipe videos . Instagram , facebook , all that stuff , yeah , all right ?
Speaker 2Well , thank you so much and we'll talk to you on the next episode .
Speaker 3All right . Thanks for having me . You've been listening to the I Am Healing Strong podcast . A part of the Healing Strong organization .
We hope you found encouragement in this episode , as well as the confidence to take control of your healing journey , knowing that God will guide you on this path .
Speaker 3Healing Strong is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to connect , support and educate individuals facing cancer and other diseases through strategies that help to rebuild the body , renew the soul and refresh the spirit . It costs nothing to be a part of a local or online group . You can do that by going to our website at healingstrongorg and finding a group near you or an online group , or start your own , your choice . While you're there , take a look around at all the free resources . Though the resources and groups are free , we encourage you to join our membership program at $25 or $75 a month . This helps us to be able to reach more people with hope and encouragement , and that also comes with some extra perks as well . So check it out . If you enjoyed this podcast , please give us a five-star rating , leave an encouraging comment and help us spread the word . We'll see you next week with another story on the I Am Healing Strong podcast .