Our Philosphy
As one doctor put it, “People wear their genes too tight.” (That’s not a misspelling.) What he meant was that we are too quick to blame illness on our genetics. The good news is that we have more control over our health than the “tight genes” theory suggests. Based on that published research, lifestyle is up to 90% more important a factor than our DNA. That should make you happy, because if you’re sick it means you can beat it. If you’re healthy, you can stay that way. Amazing, isn’t it?
We have five basic tenets:
*Food can hurt or heal.
*Eat it clean and mostly green.
*Perfection is not required.
*Your body has the ability to tell you what it needs.
*Functional (integrative) medicine is the best way to go.
We don’t subscribe to one food camp. We believe there is a lot of good to learn from each of the various food lifestyles. We’re not vegetarians, but we don’t think meat needs to be eaten every day. We celebrate food in all of its real forms.
What is Fooduciary?
Perhaps you’ve heard the word fiduciary before. Often used in the investment world, it means that an advisor is held to an extremely high ethical standard and can only recommend investments that are in the very best interest of the client, even if the recommendation is at the advisor’s expense.
So, what’s fooduciary? Same thing, but instead of talking about money, we’re talking about food. Food (and information) that we can recommend with the eaters’ best interests in mind.
The most important thing in healthy eating is to keep it real. Literally. The closer to nature and the less tampered with by science any food is, the better it will be for you. We have a fooducia (we made up that word, too) of information to share.
So go ahead, jump in, spend some time. Your brain and your body will thank you. The information you’ll find here will help you eat the way nature intended. That’s our Fooduciary responsibility to you.
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Who are the Fooducians?
Kelli was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis at the age of 6. This chronic illness runs in my family. The journey of pursuing treatment for this and other seemingly unrelated illnesses and symptoms through the traditional medical system in the U.S. lead me into a downward spiral of more and more medications and more and more new symptoms that just wouldn’t stop.
Life was becoming pretty bleak for me, but finally real health and change came in August 2009 when I was referred to a local doctor who provided the critical information I was missing. I had always tended to eat more healthfully than most of my peers, but this doctor’s guidance (based in very sound and solid scientific medical research) allowed me to make changes in my diet that put an immediate stop (within 4 days) to my arthritic symptoms. 80% of my prescription medications made it to the garbage bin within the first month of making changes. Within three months I was able to stop my low-dose chemotherapy treatment. Four months later I was done with a major immune-suppressing drug. I am currently working toward eliminating the last of my prescription medications. Most importantly, I’ve never felt this great in living memory.
I still follow the principles that brought about those changes – they are part of my lifestyle and habits because they promote my health. I am very passionate about what I have learned and what I continue to learn as it relates to health and well-being, especially through nutrition and exercise.
I write to share my journey and the information I wish I had years ago.
Contact me at kelli @ fooduciary.com
Brad’s diet was a lot more typical growing up. Like most Americans I was raised on canned, boxed and frozen dinners. Marrying Kelli and adjusting to her healthier diet was a wild ride. But I was very motivated to look for answers to medical questions because I had seen conventional medicine raise its shoulders and shrug at tough questions, unable to save the life of a close loved one. My motivation is to help others eat the best way possible to keep themselves healthy, and give options to those who may be dealing with chronic illnesses. There are just too many instances in which we find western medicine left staring at us with a dumb look on its face.
My journey is to find answers and help others who are searching for their own.
Contact me at brad @ fooduciary.com
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When the two of us started learning about ways to change our diet Kelli was 7 years into a successful career as a CPA, working with billion dollar world wide corporations in international tax. Brad was 8 years into a small business that he had helped build from the beginning and had a promising future.
It’s funny how health challenges will make you reevaluate your course in life. For both of us a strong feeling of “there has to be more” was entering our minds. We seemed to have it all. Great positions, a big fancy house, two nice cars, the big screen TV…but we weren’t happy. We didn’t have a clear picture of what happiness would be, but we knew life is too short to not seek it out.
So at the end of 2010 we uprooted and cleaned house. We sold nearly everything. The house, both cars, the furniture, the library of books, the prized kitchen gadgets. Got rid of it. Countless ebay auctions, selling on the local classifieds site, and two garage sales got us down to this:
Brad’s dad took this picture as he was picking us up to take our few most valuable possessions to his house, and dropping the two of us off at the airport to fly to Costa Rica. We were going to leave the country and find happiness.
We spent three months in Costa Rica living in the sunny northwest part of that country. We’d work on this site, writing articles every morning, then head to the beach, do yoga, whatever, for the rest of the hot daylight hours. It was a great break for us, but we realized pretty soon that we weren’t living in a place or manner that would work for us for very long.
So after those three months we packed our suitcases (literally, we each had a suitcase and backpack and that’s it), and we flew to New Zealand. It was gorgeous. We fell in love with the land of the hobbits and happily return there for a longer stay. We spent just two weeks in that country before flying to Australia. Ahh, Australia.
We tried our darndest to stay in Australia. We loved it. Brad got close with two opportunities that would have granted us long term visas, but in the end both companies shied away from the responsibility companies assume when sponsoring a foreign worker. We were happy in Australia and having a great time, so we felt disappointed when our time there was over after three months (the length of a tourist visa).
At that point we knew it was time to find somewhere we could call home without spending so much time on travel and visa logistics. We decided to make our way back to the States, by way of Bali. Oh Bali how we love you.
To imagine tropical paradise on Earth, search for pictures of Bali. Wow. We found our paradise in a little town called Ubud. We rented a small home where we’d wake up each morning to the view of palm trees and rice fields. Organic meals would cost us eight or nine dollars, 60 minute massages were ten bucks, and yoga was everywhere. We got around the island on our little scooter and despite a few near fatal crashes, we loved the freedom the scooter gave us. Bali for us is the place we know we could return to year after year for a relaxing vacation to recharge our batteries. But it’s a very indulgent, unambitious way of life that wouldn’t work us forever.
So here we our. After a few hops when we landed in the States, we settled into our own little life in Austin, Texas. It’s do different from what we knew in Utah that it feels like our travel adventures have continued. We’ve had to adjust to the realities of no public transportation (meaning, needing to buy cars again) and health insurance being tied to jobs (the bane of many would-be-entrepreneur), but we are finding our own way of defining happiness.
We know for us it isn’t in lots of material things, or doing things by the books. We likely didn’t need to travel the world to find this out, but it was a great laboratory! We find happiness in working on projects we enjoy, in spending time together, in spending time with others, connecting with people, and finding ways to serve and help those we come in contact with.
Has bliss been found and is Austin where we’ll be forever? We’re not so sure about that. We’re young and there’s a lot more to learn and explore, but we feel happy knowing we are living an examined life and strive not to do things how they’re “supposed” to be done, but by what allows us to contribute the most we can to the world. And perhaps in that way, we have found what happiness is.
