85: Growing, Healing and Connecting through Gardening

What if healing didn’t start in a clinic—but in the soil?

On the newest episode of LiveWell, we explore how nature, community, and purpose are transforming Veteran care with Dr. Kaitlyn Fruin, UCLA preventive medicine fellow, and Air Force Veteran Cyntrea Cotton, founder of the Veterans Garden Initiative.

This inspiring episode reveals:
 • How therapeutic gardening is easing PTSD, anxiety, and depression for veterans.
 • Why growing organic food can support whole-person healing—from the inside out.
 • The challenges and triumphs of reviving a 15-acre clinical garden on VA grounds.

Cyntrea shares her personal journey of struggling with panic attacks, isolation, and chronic stress—and how reconnecting with the earth sparked her recovery and purpose. Katie walks us through the science and systems behind food as medicine, highlighting how gardens can be powerful entry points for mental and physical health.

If you’ve ever wondered how nature can heal trauma, build community, and restore well-being, this episode will plant a seed.

Visit our website to explore other episodes, suggest guests, offer feedback, or invite Wendy to be a guest on your podcast! 

Episode Resources + Mentions: 

-       Transcript 

-       GrowGood

-       Restoring The Veterans Garden

Today’s podcast was brought to you by UCLA’s Semel Healthy Campus Initiative Center. It really means a lot to our team when you rate and review LiveWell on your preferred listening platform. Thank you so much for supporting our storytelling.

We also have links in the show notes on our website: https://healthy.ucla.edu/

If you have any questions or want to suggest a guest to be interviewed, please reach out at: livewell@ucla.edu

To stay up to date with our latest podcasts, make sure to follow us on Instagram @healthyucla

Transcript

Dr. Wendy Slusser  0:00 - 

I am thrilled to spend the next hour with two extraordinary innovators and trailblazers, Cyntrea and Kaitlyn Fruin. Today, we will be learning more about gardens and their contributions to healing and health. So, let’s first start about each of your journey’s to your work in the garden and working together. Who would like to start?

Dr. Kaitlyn Fruin  01:45

All right, I'll get started. So I'm like you said, Katie Fruin, I'm a preventive medicine fellow, and my journey to the garden actually started during my residency. I was working at the HPAC clinic at the VA, which is the clinic for Veterans experiencing homelessness, and my patients who are experiencing homelessness, and this was in 2020 when it was locked down, and the VA was helping them to get housing. But the themes that kept coming up is they wanted to find community, and it was such a tough time, I think, for us all to have community when we had to isolate, and especially for Veterans who were living in their cars or didn't have a space to live, you couldn't just get on a Zoom with your friends. There was really a lack of space, a lack of community, and Veterans were also really looking for opportunities to be outdoors and be in nature. And at that time, we didn't have any programming. And so fast forward. A few years later, when I started my preventive medicine fellowship, I learned about the Veteran started, which was actually a garden started in the 1960s but after COVID, the VA had been working on restoring it, and maybe I can turn it to Cyntrea, because Cyntrea has actually been involved with the garden as a Veteran gardener for longer than I've been involved with the project. 

Cyntrea Cotton  03:04 

Thank you, Katie. I'm Cyntrea Cotton, and yes, I'm an Air Force Veteran, so I go to the VA hospital often for like especially during the pandemic, it was a lot of anxiety. A lot of people were depressed. And so word of mouth, I heard about the Veterans garden, and then I saw Thank goodness for social media, so I saw a flyer for a gardening workshop. And so that's when I showed up. I didn't even know we had a Veterans garden, so I took the class with a master gardener who was there now she's been there for a couple years, Trish. And so after the class was over, I stayed. I was like, I'm not going anywhere. I loved everything they was doing is, like, it's a hidden jewel. And so it wasn't really active when we were going to the classes. And that was just my thing. I was determined to get more Veterans involved, because we need that open is definitely helpful for mental issues and a lot of anxiety that comes with, you know, military trauma and yeah, like, is kind of like a safe haven. Yeah, and so, yeah, that's where I met Katie, because we took on a huge project to plant over 1000 tomatoes. And yes. So once we made a connection, it just kind of naturally unfolded from there.

Dr. Wendy Slusser 4:54 

Well, let's unpack a couple of things that both of you said. First of all, let's just start with what you just finished saying, which is 1000 tomato plants. So you connected over that. How did that happen? Who had that idea?

Cyntrea Cotton  5:10  

The Veterans, right?

Dr. Kaitlyn Fruin    05:11 

So what happened was, is the West Side Food Bank, which is runs the food distribution for Veterans. They had mentioned to the VA staff that Veterans kept asking for tomatoes, but tomatoes are very difficult to transport, and it was just a tough product for them to deliver. And so hearing that need, we have a 15 acre garden on campus, and we said, well, let's prioritize growing tomatoes. And so we were very fortunate. One of our Veteran colleagues who runs an agricultural program down in San Diego, he helped us get a donation for 1000 seedlings. UCLA, Department of Medicine actually helped fund half of the supplies because we built a hydroponic farm. So we needed pots, we needed Coco core, which is, it's not soil, it's a medium that's from coconut husk, and then we have an irrigation system. And so we did that last summer, and we just started planning the tomatoes for this summer as well. So I think we had, like, about 350 pounds of tomatoes last year and expecting probably triple them out this year. 

Dr. Wendy Slusser 06:22  

Wow. And was it really what they wanted? 

Cyntrea Cotton  06:26  

Even more, really, yes, and it was delicious. Like people were coming and just picking the tomatoes and eating them. They couldn't believe how fresh, how delicious, is organic as well. 

Dr. Wendy Slusser   06:38  

And how do people know about coming and getting the tomatoes? 

Cyntrea Cotton  06:44 

Social media, thankfully, Katie started an Instagram so before then, we didn't have an Instagram presence, so everything was kind of like filtered through different organizations, and it wasn't really getting out. So now we have flyers that we put out throughout the VA even when I was in emergency room, I saw a flyer for the garden. I took a picture. I was like, oh, we’re getting around.

Dr. Wendy Slusser. 07:12  

Wow, and it's all volunteer based. 

Cyntrea Cotton  07:14 

Yes, all volunteers.

Dr. Wendy Slusser  07:16  

That's really tremendous. When you think a lot of times volunteer based organizations have a hard time regularly doing the work, but garden requires the work year round, doesn't it?

Cyntrea Cotton 07:29   

Yes, and it's very physical, so we do have Veterans who, including myself, that have disabilities, so we try to balance it out. So we won't, you know, push ourselves too much. But for me, like I love it to meditate is an area for like meditation. 

Dr. Wendy Slusser 07:52  

One of my one of my mentors, who just retired from the Center for Disease Control was in charge of total worker health program. He said, people when they go to work, they should be healthier when they leave work than when they showed up, and that's sort of what happens to you. It sounds like, right, exactly. And that should be that should apply to everything. Unfortunately, it doesn't. But that could be something we aspire to…

Cyntrea Cotton   08:19  

Even going to the ER, like, sometimes I'll go in and still feel bad when I leave. But then it's a lot of days I go in, I'm like, Oh my gosh, I feel so much better than how I came and she said, that's how you supposed to be when you come to the ER, exactly. And yes, that's how it is going to the garden. I feel I go in my head is like, just filled with all types of just everything that's going on in the world. And then you get to the garden, it's just like, oh my God, the roses, look at the aloe, look at, you know, just that lavender, just blooming, just different things. Just bring you to the present and not worrying about the future. And that's one thing. When they say, working in the garden, it can be emotional, too. I love it. But then I want every plant that I put into the soil, I want everybody to live and grow, and I want to harvest. So when we lose some crops, yes, exactly, my babies, like, I feel so bad when I lose them. Yeah, yes, that's the hard part. Like, when everything to grow.

Dr. Wendy Slusser  09:41     / 33:57

That is hard. That's true. Then if there's a cold spell, yeah, or heat wave, you, yeah, that makes it worse, right?

Cyntrea Cotton  09:50   / 34:06

But now we know how to compost and everything, so it still is going to get back to the, to the earth and the soil.

Dr. Wendy Slusser  09:58  / 34:15

People are known to sing and talk to their plants. So I feel…

Cyntrea Cotton  10:03  / 34:25

Guilty! Sometimes I bring my music. My music playing…

Dr. Wendy Slusser  10:08  / 34:30

I relate.

Dr. Kaitlyn Fruin   10:12   

And I should add that, so the garden is a clinical space run by the VA Whole Health Department. And Whole Health is a department that is unique to the VA and really prioritizes defining health as whatever the Veteran says health is. And so whole health does things like acupuncture, gardening, yoga, a bunch of different services that we can't always offer at institutions like UCLA. So the VA Whole Health Department, they oversee the space, they buy the supplies, as Cyntrea mentioned, Trish, who's an amazing Veteran and Master Gardener, leads the organic gardening class. And now we're really excited, because we have a new nonprofit partner called Grow Good grow operates a paid agriculture job training program for Veterans, and so the first Veteran actually just started today and with Grow Goods farming acumen that's going to really help us grow the space. Because, as you can imagine, you know, plants don't take the weekend off, so we need a team of people consistently to help us grow beyond the front acre to really bring back the full 15 acres, which used to be. I mean, it almost looked like an amazing botanic garden before, and fortunately, the soil quality is still excellent. So with some love and some more Veteran gardeners in the space, we're gonna really, I think, get the land growing again.

Dr. Wendy Slusser  11:42   

Wow, that's music to my ears. And I know you mentioned earlier that in 1960s it was created. So this is almost, 100 year old garden. If you think we're almost at the 2060 I mean, we're 2025 but still…

Cyntrea Cotton  11:56  

I know you see the greenhouse, you can tell that has been here for a long time. We would love to restore that. It's so old, but it's like, is a piece of history that you can that you can see that is from us over a century ago. 

Dr. Wendy Slusser  12:13  

Yeah, yes, that's cool.

Dr. Kaitlyn Fruin  12:14  

Yeah. We are very fortunate that a few of the founding gardeners, who are now in their 80s, their Veterans, they came and kind of talked to us about why they created the space. And you can imagine, you know, when they were returning from the Vietnam War, the technology was not as sophisticated as it is now. And they were telling the story about how there was a Veteran who had these terrible headaches, and at the time, the only imaging was x ray, and so they x rayed his head, and they said, everything looks fine, but it ended up that he had traumatic brain injury and that Veteran ended up committing suicide. And the Veteran community said there has to be a way of doing health care beyond tests and being in the hospital. And they said, let's create a space where Veterans can heal. And so, you know, we all work together. You know, we work with our clinicians and medication and the treatments, but acknowledging that from the Veteran community themselves, they said, We need a space to gather, and we need a space to heal where it's peaceful, and that's what led to the Veterans garden being created, what led to the horticultural therapy program, which for many years served Veterans with severe mental illness and substance use disorder, and that's really what we're trying to bring back now, because unfortunately, suicide is still the second leading cause of death of Veterans under the age of 45. 50% of Veterans returning home who have mental illness don't seek care. And so one of the things we're trying to look at is, you know, maybe a Veteran who has signs of mental illness is nervous to come and see a clinician in the hospital, but maybe they're interested in gardening, and maybe this will actually be a new point of entry into VA care. 

Cyntrea Cotton  14:00  

That's what I was gonna say when I was bringing up the disabled Veterans. So for me, just a lot of anxiety going to even going to the VA hospital is triggering. And so the Veterans garden is still on campus, but it's kind of a safe haven. So it's a different environment, but you still meet Veterans under different circumstances. It's like the whole mindset is different when you walk into the Veterans garden versus meeting a Veteran in a hospital. So yeah, I think that is what helped me mentally and getting through, because I have less panic attacks, my anxiety is down a bit like even now, like I three years ago, I would be on medication and not functioning, not being able to just take care of myself, because I was just on medication and still having panic attacks, but stuck not wanting to get out, being in the house, and then once I got out that vitamin D in the sun, yeah, that was a mood change. It just being out, yes, in life, and then seeing plants grow from seed to harvest, yeah, that just changed my whole life.

Dr. Wendy Slusser   15:33   

Thank you for sharing that. I remember you were telling me earlier before for the prep of this interview, how, when you go to the hospital, you naturally found the garden and you found its value in in real life. You know, it wasn't like you read about it. It just happened.

Cyntrea Cotton  15:55  

And I was telling the doctor, because a lot of times they say, Oh, you need to change a diet. And so I said, Well, there's no healthy food around you know, I was like, I wish I could, and it's so expensive. And the doctor said, I think we have a Veteran's garden around here. I said, What? And so that was the initial tip. Like I had no idea it was right across from the VA. 

Dr. Wendy Slusser  16:29  

So you lucked out finding a physician that actually thought of that to help support that idea. That's awesome, and you followed up, but just also good as a, as a physician myself, I love it when my patients actually listen to me. That's really, that's really fulfilling. And I was, you know, it sort of leads me back to Katie's journey, because you, you've chosen this preventive medicine fellowship, and I, I've always thought of it as being a really cool idea, but I don't really know what it's about. Can you explain to me what a preventive medicine fellowship is about?

Dr. Kaitlyn Fruin  17:07   

Yeah, so at UCLA, we have preventive medicine fellowship, so all the trainees have completed a primary care residency. So for myself, I did internal medicine. Some of my colleagues are pediatricians. Other are family medicine. And preventive medicine really gives you space to take your experiences from your residency training and say, I've treated a lot of disease. How can we now use the health system to prevent that disease in the first place? And so for myself, my family actually has for many generations been farmers back in Illinois, where I'm from, but my parents are pharmacists, and sort of growing up, I always thought, why is it that, you know, for my parents patients, they can get any medication that they need, but so many of them are going hungry and at the same time seeing the farm community that my family's from really suffering, as you know, small farmers have been driven out of business, and just thinking like, why can't we prescribe food to our patients? Why can't we prescribe housing to our patients? Why can't we prescribe money to our patients? And I think it's really more a failure of imagination, rather than a failure of what we can do as a community. And so when in my fellowship, when I heard about the Veterans garden, which my whole residency, I had no idea about just working on the other side of Wilshire. The Veterans garden is the largest farm located on a medical campus in the nation, and if we get it growing again, we can, you know, prescribe fruits and vegetables the same way we do medication. And what we know is diet related disease is the leading cause of preventable death. It's also, for every $1 we spend on food in our current ultra processed food system, we spend $1 on health care costs, and so there's definitely the economic rationale to be prescribing fresh fruits and vegetables, especially within the VA health system, which is the largest integrated health system in the whole country, where there are unique incentives to prevent disease, which unfortunately is not always true in other health settings.

Dr. Wendy Slusser   19:18   

How do you feel about that vision, Cyntrea?

Cyntrea Cotton  19:22   

That is what I'm doing now, like just playing around with food, and I'm noticing changes. And I remember my doctor at the VA it was about, probably about seven years ago when I first, like, really, got into the plant based diet. And when I went to get a checkup on optometrist, she asked me if I was eating blueberries, and I said, and literally, that year, it was just blueberries, everything, blueberry vegan, blueberry cheesecake, blueberry pancakes, waffles, everything, blueberries. And so I was just shocked that she my doctor at the VA said, you been eating blueberries? I said, why? Yes, Doctor, I have and so she said, I can tell, because for the first time, your eyesight has improved. Ah, exactly what? And she said, Yes. And then she said, Yeah, blueberries, it helps repair your retina. I had no idea. So from then on, I said, Oh, let's see what else we can do. And so lemons, I have done a lot with lemons, which is clearing my skin with keloids and cysts and aloe. Those are my two favorite skin health…

Dr. Wendy Slusser  20:50  

Right on, well you're living in the right part of the country for aloe and lemons, aren't you? That's great. So you just gave a little bit of a suggestion for how to incorporate food into your routines. What about nature? How would you recommend people who might not have normally thought of nature as a part of their wellbeing, as much as just sort of there? How would you recommend incorporating into someone's life?

Cyntrea Cotton  21:21  

I think for me, once you go out into the sun, into nature, first off, if you can ground yourself, take off your shoes, bare feet, and just step on the soil, like it's something, it does something to me, like I feel an extra sense of energy. Motivation is calming. I am just now starting to learn how to stop and smell the roses, and they tell you, like, you have to slow down and slow yes, that means so much, because I've been moving and going so fast, especially from New York, the hustle the bustle you used to moving fast. You walk down the street, you bump somebody, you don't even say, excuse me, because it's like, it's so many people, and now, like coming to California, like you said, this is the best place to heal the sun, the night, the nice weather. So in the beaches, just having access to the beaches, the parks, just getting out to the parks, trees, just breathing. And because everything, when you work, when you think about it, everything is so it's man made, is it's what you call it. It's just not natural, like you come inside, you have the air condition, you have the lights. So it's just like you cut away from Mother Nature, you don't get no sun. And that, that was my thing. I was always deficient in vitamin D, and they used to say, just go out in the sun, and that is helping my check my levels, have my levels checked, and my vitamin D is getting better. So I see a lot of benefits in just being out, my mood, being able to sleep like if I stay indoors and just sleep and just nap, I don't ever feel rested. But when I go out and I'm productive, I'm out, especially growing and having my hands in the soil. I get home, I could sleep throughout the whole night, and that's been rare for the last 15 years I've had problems sleeping. So, yes, I've seen a big difference in that. 

Dr. Wendy Slusser  23:56    

You've touched on so many things. First of all, sleep is way underrated. Sleep is such a powerful way to feel better, if you can get that quality sleep, and also what I'm hearing you say, is just really like when you say, stop and smell the roses, the sense of mindfulness and like being present. Presence, right? Like you're being present when you touch the earth with your hands or your bare feet or and you feel it, rather than just sort of it passing by. Vitamin D, if your face in your two arms, get 20 minutes a day, you're almost like, that's like a vitamin D boost, yeah, right? The idea of nature and farming is part of that. Or, you know, doing work in the garden, that sense of biophilia, living, loving, you know, nature and everything, living and that has some science behind it. What is your knowledge? Katie, about where you know we've seen published work related to that? What? What kind of data are you aware of? 

Dr. Kaitlyn Fruin  25:03   

So the one of the models that we really follow at the Veteran start and actually comes from the Bronx VA, who have a wonderful partnership with the New York Botanic Garden, and they have a program called Thrive, in which they bring Veterans from the Bronx VA to the New York Botanic Garden and engage them in different types of horticultural therapy. The Bronx VA actually has a focus on suicide prevention, and so what they're looking at is self reported depression, loneliness, stress and pain, pre and post sessions. And what they found is for depression, loneliness and stress after a single horticulture therapy session, they see clinically significant reductions, and they also see sustained reductions over time. And so I think that also makes sense that you know, pain, there are additional neuromodulators and things like that that we might need to put. In addition to horticulture therapy to help Veterans pain be reduced. But this initial literature is really exciting, and we've seen in our quality improvement data at our Veterans garden as well the same results. And so this is really interesting, because I think it makes sense that we can address mental health outcomes very quickly with biophilia, and then in terms of metabolic health, and through being more active and walking around and having access to higher quality fruits and vegetables, I think we'll also be seeing, you know, impact on weight, glycemic index, blood pressure control. But that won't happen just in, you know, a 45 minute session that's going to take more time. So I think, you know, food is medicine has really focused, I think, appropriately, on the metabolic side of nutrition, that the mental health side is this huge opportunity, because one of the things we see in primary care is when patients have mental illness or are suffering from mental health issues, it's very hard to then manage other chronic diseases. So if we can improve individuals mental health with quick interventions that can have huge impacts as patients, then have, you know, the motivation, resilience to be making those choices to say, Okay, I'm going to cook today. I'm going to go to the grocery store, which is hard to do if you're feeling lonely, depressed or stressed. 

Dr. Wendy Slusser  27:36   

Well, it sounds like already you're collecting at least quality improvement data to show a shift, which is really powerful. Sounds like there's room for, not just for Veterans, but in general, given the loneliness epidemic for the country, to consider this kind of therapy for the general public as well, right? 

Cyntrea Cotton 27:58    

We see it as Veterans. Because I actually just started filling out the forms to track, you know, how you feel, the pain levels, and I didn't even realize how much of a difference it was making, because I would go in and, you know, it's early in the morning, so your mind is kind of foggy, and then I fill out the paperwork, and I'm like, and then at the end of the day, I fill it out, and I'm like, like, I feel like, so much better than how I came in. Wow, it's amazing. Yeah, I don't even realize. I'm like, that's how I was feeling earlier?  Two hours ago, I was feeling like this? And now I'm feeling like, what we doing? Life is beautiful.

Dr. Wendy Slusser  28:48 

You know you both talked a little bit about food as medicine, and I'd love to hear what that means to both of you.

Cyntrea Cotton  28:56  

So for me, the first thing I do is listen to my body. So anytime, like, I know when I'm like, feeling really good, how my body is reacting to certain things, and so whenever anything's off, I think about, like, what am I eating? What have I been doing? So I do, I know. Like, if I eat fast food, I can tell the difference. Like, Oh yeah, you've been bad for the last you have to get back on the greens and drink a lot of water. So the first thing I do when I'm feeling bad is think about, well, how can I improve it with food? And so anything, whether it's digestive issues, lemons, I love lemons. So that's I have the lemon water that I drink every morning. And when I don't drink lemon water, I feel the difference if I missed a couple of days. I'm like, I'm stuffy, just anything. I'm like, Oh, my lemon water. So it's just certain things. I'm like, it's not even a diet, is life, it's something I'm going to live on for the rest of my life. So, yeah, I just incorporate good things that I know are helpful.

Dr. Wendy Slusser 30:22   

So I hear again, the theme of being reflective and noticing, yeah, I hear that it's, it's, it's very powerful. And especially I think that, like when you talk about water, of course, that's the most important ingredient, right? We can't live without water. That's the first one, the first ingredient of our system that requires, that gives us life a place like LA, where there's so, it's so dry, you know, we don't even notice probably how much more water we need in terms of the way we feel, and sometimes we feel hungry, but it's really because we're thirsty, right? So being mindful of your, of how you feel will, yes, lead you, hopefully, to a path of using food as a way to feel better. 

Cyntrea Cotton 31:11   

Yes, what nutrients, what vitamins do you need?

Dr. Wendy Slusser 31:16  

Yeah. And how about you, Katie?

Dr. Kaitlyn Fruin 31:18   

You know, I feel really fortunate to have trained at UCLA, where we have world experts in Clinical Nutrition, and in my medical school, we kind of learned about the Mediterranean Diet, but then when I came to residency, and Dr Zhaoping Li gave us a lecture about phytonutrients and why we really say eat the rainbow. You know, I never really thought about all the different bioactive compounds and that, you know, food is really medicine. And like Cyntrea said, people from different cultures have been using food as medicinal remedies for years, and so really thinking about, you know, foo d as medicine in terms of how it can power economies and, you know, drive dignified employment for people, but also that connecting our patients to high quality food that's not grown with pesticides and has the highest level of nutrients can really help power our bodies better, prevent cancer, prevent metabolic disease, and help us to truly achieve our full biologic potential.

Cyntrea Cotton  32:23   

That's true, because even when you go to the grocery store and get organic. You don't know how long it's been sitting on the shelves. So going to the garden, picking it and then taking it home and cooking it is like the best way to go. Most nutritious…

Dr. Kaitlyn Fruin  32:42   

And I think it's I was really lucky when I was growing up in Chicago. I could always go to my family's farm, but it's kind of crazy to me that for many kids growing up in urban areas, it's easier to see a zebra at the zoo than to pick a carrot out of the ground. And we have so many Veterans who are like, I didn't know carrots came from the ground, or like, I'll be like, I don't eat tomatoes. Then they eat the tomato off the plant and they're like, this is not a tomato. This tastes completely different, and it's crazy. The flavor profiles of the same "food" off the vine versus the average produce in America travels like 1500 miles, so not here in California. But many people are used to eating food that it's the shell of what it used to be.

Dr. Wendy Slusser  33:28  

Yeah, I agree, the flavor profile is so much better when it's just freshly picked. Yeah, and I learned from our science and food leader, Dr. Amy Rowat, it that the carrot is much sweeter if you pick it in the morning, so it's even the time of day, right? 

Cyntrea Cotton  33:46   

Growing up like I would never think I would just eat a carrot. But now and the Veteran's garden, I taste everything, beans. I thought the father beans. It was so sweet. I thought it was sweet peas, it's so sweet. I never tasted beans that's that sweet. So yeah, we have and just the collard greens. A lot of the greens that we have, I pick and I can eat right raw. It's not a lot of places, especially if I just, I buy the food, I can't eat it raw. I have to cook it, but from the garden, yes, I can eat a lot of more raw food, which is healthier…

Dr. Wendy Slusser  34:32 

Yeah, so true. This is an incredible conversation. Makes me inspired. Makes me want to put that garden outside of my office, I'm gonna get motivated.

Cyntrea Cotton  34:46  

I’ll come by to harvest. 

Dr. Wendy Slusser  34:49  

Oh, we would love that. We would love you to be a frequent visitor here, for lots of reasons. On your next visit, we'll take you up to our garden,. You could adopt one in the summer, if you want.  we have people that are master gardeners from outside, that help sometimes . I have a feeling you're going to be a master gardener. Are you?

Cyntrea Cotton 35:26   

Trish  referred me to the  class, and I did go through it last year, so I've been  building up my hours. 

Dr. Wendy Slusser  35:36   

Good for you.  congratulations.

Cyntrea Cotton 35:39   

I'm new. I'm still learning.   You really are what you put into your plants , and your health is the same way. 

Dr. Wendy Slusser 36:26   

I love that you are what you eat.

Cyntrea Cotton  36:28  

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes…

Dr. Wendy Slusser  36:33  

 For us right now, I'd love to hear both of you. What does it mean for you to live well?[WS1] 

Dr. Kaitlyn Fruin  37:03  

Well, I'll say, you know, one of my huge inspirations since I've moved to Los Angeles has been Homeboy Industries, which you may be familiar is the nonprofit that is the world's largest gang rehabilitation program downtown, and Father Greg, who's one of their founders, I heard him say the other day, you know, we could solve all the problems in the world if we believe two things, one, that each person is unshakably good, and the second is that we all belong to each other. And I think, you know, living well really means believing that we belong to each other. And it's not just we are what we eat, but we are who we feed. And so I think if we embody that spirit, then we can live well, individually and in community. 

Dr. Wendy Slusser 37:50   

I like that a lot. Thank you for that.

Cyntrea Cotton 37:53   

That's my answer. So for me, living well, is doing what I need versus what I want, and every aspect food, just going to the garden, what I volunteer, what I do, the spaces I'm in, I try to be productive. Just keep my mind active. 

Dr. Wendy Slusser  38:24   

I like that saying what I need, not what I want. I like that a lot. Yeah, both of those, definitions to me, really resonate. Thank you both so much  and so grateful that we have the opportunity not only to have interviewed you, but also I look forward to collaborating and supporting your efforts in any way we can.  thank you.

Dr. Kaitlyn Fruin  39:07  

Thank you so much. 

Cyntrea Cotton 39:08 

This is my first podcast. 

Dr. Wendy Slusser  39:11  

All right, we love this amazing, yeah, I think you've got a future. Thank you. 

 [WS1]re-record