ROXANNE’S STORY

     During my childhood in Ohio I was blessed with nontraditional foods. Andy Koteles, my father, was a steelworker for 35 years. Marge, my mother, was a housewife whose six little ones kept her busy. We knew laughter, love, and quality food. Marge baked bread every morning. My sisters, brothers, and I joined her in the kitchen when we were big enough to reach the table surface. She taught us cooking, baking, canning, cleaning, and filleting fish.

Since steelworkers received little pay we were encouraged to live off the land. In early spring we bought 200 young chickens to fatten for fall’s harvest. We fished, hunted, and harvested. I loved every moment of it.

     Rosanne my identical twin and I always preferred to eat fruits and vegetables to sweets. Our birthcake was usually fruit pie. I started asking about food then. Why did Rosie get sick and I did not when eating a tomato picked from the same plant?

     The quality of good that we ate got worse when we moved to a nearby small city, Martins Ferry, in 1964. Store-bought cans, boxes, and frozen foods soon stuffed our cabinets, deep freezer, and refrigerator. I missed homemade macaroni and cheese. Its replacement came in a box that later made me become thirsty and crave sweets. We never complained. We appreciated Mom’s hard work.

     We were blessed. No fast food restaurants existed near us until around 1969. By then, my taste buds knew what simple pleasures they enjoyed and missed.

     From young adulthood through the present I have become more and more frustrated finding quality foods like I had in my childhood. Around 1996 I realized no matter how much a meal cost, it still left me with many discomforts such as acid reflux, constipation and nausea.

     When I changed careers and enrolled in the New England Culinary Institute I was able to connect with familiar, quality foods again such as organic and heirloom products. Organic does not have pesticides, herbicides or preservatives to interfere with their sweet flavors. Heirloom seeds have been handed down from generation to generation for 50 to 100 years or more. My culinary internships took me to The Breakers in Palm Beach and later to the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco, where at last I rediscovered my favorite flavors from my childhood. During this time I learned of many new foods that we did not have growing up such as sea vegetables.

     Through my own research I came to the Kushi Institute in Becket, MA, where I learned how to work with seaweed and other not-so-familiar products. Ninety days later I went from being a critical to a low hypoglycemic; lost 28 pounds; experienced incredible energy, clarity, and focus; and finally got relief from acid reflux, constipation and nausea.

     We lost both my parents to major illnesses, and we had been so frustrated trying to figure out what to feed them, and there was such a lack of direction from the hospitals. Sure wish we knew these foods sooner. You can read more about this adventure in The Art of Food Wisdom. Four years later, at the request of clients everywhere, I wrote the CANCER COOKBOOK, Food For Life.

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