Connecting with Others Through Food
Meet Christi From Real Food Sanity and learn about her Meal Plan program
Hi all, if you like what you are reading and would like to support my writing, please consider a paid subscription. I do currently have all my posts free but will be offering some special content coming up to my paid subscribers. Please do not forget to click the ❤ button below and comment if you have questions or just want to say Hi!. I love hearing from my readers.
A few months ago, on Substack, someone posted a NOTE* about setting up collaborations with like minded people.
For those of you who don’t know, NOTES is Substack’s version of X (formerly known as Twitter), where people start conversations and post thoughts, photos, news tidbits.
Well, I replied looking for said collaborations. Of which I got a reply. So I went to Christi’s Substack page - Real Food Sanity and read up on it. I was so surprised to see that Christi lived in the same city as me and was a holistic nutritionist with a passion for healthy food. So I reached out letting her and we decided to meet IRL for a coffee. We realized that we had much more in common then just food and nutrition.
Christi, as you will learn more below, is a personal chef and uses her nutrition knowledge in her recipes, food prep and meal planning. I meal planned for our family for years. Meal planning and food prep not only helps to save money and time but also helps one stay on track to healthy eating. If you are someone who is looking to switch to healthier eating or maybe there is a food allergy or sensitivity in your home, meal planning will help for making meals at home.
I call Christi the ‘Meal Plan Queen’. She has a library full of recipes and meal ideas that will work for everyone.
But before we get into meal planning, first let’s get to know who Christi is.
Hi Christi, tell us a little about who you are?
Thanks so much for having me Danni! It’s such a fun blessing and bonus we found each other IRL here in Texas.
I’m a wife and mom of two grown boys, 21 and 25. Though I started out in the corporate world selling high end networking software, I quickly realized I hated the 8-5 corporate life but loved cooking so I eventually found my way to becoming a private chef. My husband loves wine so we took the plunge in 2007 and packed up our boys with no house and no job and moved to Napa Valley to immerse ourselves in the food and wine industries. I cooked for winery owners and he worked in a winery selling wine. On our off days we took cheap picnics to as many wineries as possible and learned all we could. From a culinary perspective, I went to as many local farms as possible and learned about their practices as well as becoming a drop site for one of the farms CSA boxes (Community Supported Agriculture) in exchange for a free box of produce weekly. Between my free produce, neighbors gifts of produce and fruit trees in the yard of every home we lived in while there, I had a natural education (sometimes with the aid of Google) in how to incorporate fruits and veggies into every meal. We moved back to Texas in 2013 and I began to cook for families in the DFW area. This was when I really began to see a stark contrast in the health of those in wine country versus those here in my homeland. I went from knowing NO ONE with cancer or any major sickness or autoimmune conditions to being surrounded by people with either or both. It really caused me to seek answers and take our health into my own hands.
You started as a personal chef, but what brought you into the holistic nutrition world?
I was one of those crunchy moms who made no-sugar, whole wheat 1st birthday smash cakes! LOL!! So I’ve known about nutrition for a long time, but didn’t know the whys behind it. Cooking for what were seemingly random people became a trend in cooking for sick people. I had one family who I cooked for as well as created multi-course wine dinners for. One week when I was supposed to deliver their dinners, they asked if I could instead take them to another family because the Mom had just learned she had brain cancer. She successfully overcame it, but this family became my connection to several other clients who came to me because they knew I had a great knowledge of using food for healing purposes as well as complimenting the oncology practices they were using for cancer.
Working with these families and researching their individual health needs as well as what I witnessed in California led me to asking a lot of questions. Why did food matter so much? What could we do to mitigate disease by changing our diets? How did food work in our bodies to either bring healing or disease? I found a school that was teaching Nutrition in a totally different way. When the bigger named schools were charging $5000 for a single certification, this school was charging half or less and gave me the hours, education and experience to leave the program after only 9 months and become a Board Certified Holistic Nutritionist as well as a Board Certified Health Coach.
Everything I learned there made sense of everything I had felt intuitively and read in my research for clients.
I always love reading your Substack and your food connecting with memories posts. What is your favorite memory of connecting with food?
Gosh, I have so many. I think one of the most profound that contrasted greatly with what I see in the DFW metroplex was an off-the-cuff gathering in Napa Valley. I had taught kids’ cooking classes in my home one summer. When the moms picked up their kids, one of them invited us to a gathering in the park behind our house in St. Helena (the Hallmark-esque town in the middle of Napa Valley.) There was no planning of who would bring what, we just brought what we had. When the time came later that evening, we took our platter of fresh veggies from my produce box and piled it in the middle of the picnic table along with grilled artichokes, bread, cheese, pizza and wine. I found that to be the norm in Northern California even when we moved out of Napa Valley to a more affordable town a few miles outside. People were willing to drop everything to get together. Back here in the busy metroplex, I was shocked to find it takes weeks if not months of planning for a simple dinner. There is always an activity to take kids to and busyness is a badge of honor. I miss the ease of being with people and happy to say I haven’t earned that badge. Was it the free flowing wine and California sunshine? Maybe…I don’t know. But that evening was memorable for sure!
As a holistic nutritionist, what is one thing that you would recommend to someone to incorporate into their lives to start their health journey?
Simple but two-fold…eat real food and read labels. If it’s not something your great grandmother would recognize, skip it. Even gluten-free, dairy free and vegetarian options can be full of chemicals and other toxins our bodies cannot digest and tolerate long term which leads to disease.
This is why I came up with Real Food Sanity. I wanted to provide busy families with a way to get healthy, real food, budget friendly meals on the table fast. I’ve been offering these meal plans at a very affordable price of $11.99 a month on a different platform, but I’m transitioning them over to Substack. Starting August 1, it will be included for my paid who will automatically receive:
· 4 Budget-friendly and healthy meal plans per week with gluten-, dairy- and soy-free options
· Full shopping list and only 2 inexpensive proteins plus real food ingredients
· Includes optional component meal prep to make weeknight dinners quick and easy
· All recipes are family friendly with tweaks for kids and those who are not diet restricted
· Plus lots of extras like instructional videos, free cooking classes and more
· Everything is in one place and easily navigable on either the website or app
· $5/mo forever until July 31, $8/mo starting August 1 onward
Christi also has some amazing recipes that she posts on her Substack.
Here is a great example.
If you are looking for help with meal planning and healthy recipes, subscribe before August 1st and get it all for just $5 a month. That’s a deal! For the cost of a daily coffee or drink, you will get all the resources from Christi to help you with meal planning.
I love the fact that I connected with Christi over our passion for healthy food. And that we connected over a media platform that is global to find that we live only 20 minutes from each other. You never know who you will connect with when you share a passion.
"Food brings people together on many different levels. It’s nourishment of the soul and body; it’s truly love." – Giada De Laurentiis
Danni
Thanks so much Danni! Cheers to many more coffee dates and dinners IRL!
Oh my gosh you two! I wish I could meet you both IRL as you BOTH are two of my favs here on Substack! This was an amazing read - I love a 'behind the scenes peek' at others who are into the holistic nutrition vibes too.