Questions came first
I learned early not to take the package at its word.
My interest in food and health started when I was about ten. My father questioned things most families never thought twice about, and my mother once wrote to cereal companies asking why they used BHT and BHA.
I didn't understand the chemistry, but I understood the lesson: don't assume something is good for you just because it's being sold to you. Turn the package around. Read the label. Ask questions.
The path
Then I found the kitchen.
My wife Terri taught me to cook, and something clicked. That took me to the Culinary Institute of America and then into a career in healthcare food service.
I also earned a degree in health coaching, although I never practiced professionally. I went back to school because food alone didn't answer all of my questions. I wanted to understand how movement, sleep, stress, relationships, and our everyday habits fit into the picture.
The Inner Garden
Those questions eventually became a story.
I stopped picturing the body as a machine and started imagining it as a living world. Organs became gardens. Body systems became rivers, forests, and flourishing landscapes. That idea grew into The Inner Garden.
Discover The Inner Garden