Meet Mena

Mena is not only a professor who teaches the history, tasting & making of chocolate, but she also teaches health & wellness classes at the collegiate level as well as in her community.

In her virtual clinic, she helps others as a Holistic Nutritionist, Herbalist, Wellness Coach & Certified Laughter Yoga Leader.

She mothers four amazing girls with her husband. Together the family enjoys the company of their feline companions & share a passion for nature-based & toxin free living.

Fun Fact:

I have gone by

"Corn-Free Hippie"

&

“Profa Mena”

but most people know me as simply Mena.

Pronounced:

MEN-uh.

My approach to life is influenced by a maxim coined by my mother:

"With one’s health, one has everything." 

I have come to believe that with Saúde (health) one can cultivate Paz (peace) & Amor (love) thereby living "The S.P.A. Life."

In 2015, I began my original blog where I recorded recipes for my family's dietary needs.

Knowing that the SDC is a tough diet even for someone who previously ate a Paleo diet, I chose to eat SCD with my daughter - a choice based on research relating to my own autoimmune disease as well as a sign of solidarity so that I could be her cheerleader.

Thank you for stopping by & welcome. I look forward to working with you.

Saúde, Paz, Amor!

As an Azorean immigrant, I spent my childhood on a small rural homestead with old world eating & techniques that evolved into consuming semi-homemade foods in my teens. While I grew up in the US, I was exposed to traditional ways of living.

Away at college, I ate at the dining hall. I noticed food intolerances & gastrointestinal distress. The Grad School period brought about another round of GI distress, but at the time no one talked about Celiac & NCGS (Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity), so I chalked it up to stress.

Before completing my dissertation, I had an ankle surgery. I prepared with daily meditation, allowed myself to sleep as needed, & cleaned up my diet -- at the time this meant not consuming added sugar, coffee or alcohol & adding more greens to my diet. From this medical journey, I learned how much sleep per night was ideal for me in my 20s, discovered that prescription medications don’t agree with me & affirmed that my meditation practice helped my healing.

In my late 20s, I started my family & I read a pregnancy magazine article that cautioned against the use of personal care products with salicylic acid as well as other ingredients in household cleaners. I went through my collection of Avon, Garden Botanika & Clinique products & threw them out along with most of my household cleaners. I wanted my child to be given the best opportunity at a healthy life & so I made my first lifestyle detox choices.

During the pregnancy, I avoided the foods doctors tell pregnant Mamas to avoid, ate as well as my nausea allowed, & diligently took prenatal vitamins. Fast forward to the day my daughter made her debut via natural hypnobirth. My birth plan had played out well & we were blessed with an 8 lb. 12 oz cutie.

But our perfect little baby started crying. A LOT. EVERY DAY. I consulted with the advice nurse. She said it was just colic - defined as crying over 3 hours a day for more than 3 days of the week in a healthy baby under 3 months of age.

I was convinced she didn’t have colic because she cried EVERY night at least 3 hours a night & sometimes up to 5 hours. My arms grew stronger from all the bedtime rocking. I danced with her in my arms as I made up silly songs in Portuguese to calm the both of us. I also noticed that she never nursed the way described in a La Leche League book. She rarely nursed for more than 5 minutes, &, during a good nursing session, she only nursed a little on both sides, then turned her face away & seemed to not be okay.

I knew this wasn’t how a healthy baby behaves.

My baby, born in the 95th percentile for weight, at her 2-month well-baby visit had fallen off the chart. Her eyes were goopy. I was told she just had colic & to wait it out. But at the end of the visit, her doctor saw the rash on the back of her knees. She finally acknowledged my hunch. She told me to go on an elimination diet first removing diary & returning in 2 weeks with the hope that we’d see positive change. We returned. No change. So, I then removed soy. This process went on as I removed a new food group every 2 weeks. Next, I removed eggs & nuts; then fish & seafood; wheat, etc. etc.

I was hungry. My baby hurt. We had no answers. We felt alone.

She is a summer solstice baby & we hoped that by Thanksgiving we’d know the cause of her crying, rashes & eye goop.

No such luck.

“Maybe by Christmas,” I thought.

Nope. Not yet.

We saw a pediatric gastroenterologist who wanted me to stop nursing, give her a hypoallergenic formula for 2 weeks & then resume nursing. My husband & I agreed that this sounded ludicrous knowing that this is not how the nursing relationship works.

Next came the allergist referral. After, 7.5 months, we had answers: she was allergic to corn, rice, cod, shrimp, peanut, eggs & diary.

“What?!?! People can be allergic to corn & rice?!?!?” I thought.

Yes, they can.

The allergist told us that it would be impossible for me to eat her diet & sustain the both of us as I nursed. As first-time parents with a limited support system, exhausted from all bedtime rocking & not being nutrition experts we feared our child would continue failing to thrive.

We did as we were told. We began the long, painful journey of weaning her while introducing her to a “hypoallergenic” formula with the first ingredient being “corn syrup solids”. Yes, the allergist prescribed a formula with corn in it to a corn-allergic infant!

My husband says it tasted gross. I didn’t have the heart to taste it. I was broken, defeated & devastated because I felt that I had failed with my nursing goals. I feared I had poisoned her with my milk that contained her allergens.

My husband & I decided that we would do our best to eat her diet so it would be normal for her. After some sleep, I decided this was an opportunity to be creative in the kitchen. I revamped family recipes. I ate her diet. Despite being a first-time mom, I felt well & had energy.

Fast forward a few years to after the birth of my 2nd daughter. My GI issues returned, but this time they brought their friends brain fog & terrible rashes that showed up on my face, neck & underarms. For over 2 years, I lived with these itchy companions that took a toll on my self-esteem.

I saw doctors & dermatologists who told me to use creams without knowing the cause. I wanted to know WHY I had rashes, not to cover them up.

Around this time, we had done alternative allergy treatments for my eldest daughter allowing us to introduce some corn into the home. We had re-introduced wheat as it had not shown up as an allergen.

The brain fog, GI issues & rashes were so bad that I decided to remove gluten again, but my rashes persisted. And now, I had a spot on my arm. I sought a referral though my chiropractor who shared the name of a female dermatologist who took me seriously. She tested my rashes & the spot that had appeared in my 2nd pregnancy.

I was diagnosed with a 2-in-1 skin cancer (basal & squamous cell). I was in my early 30s with skin cancer! I had surgery. I worked with my chiropractor on a detox as part of my recovery. I ate raw, vegan, grain & legume free foods for 3 weeks with natural supplement support. It was intense! The rashes cleared up. I discovered that I too had a corn allergy when I tried to have some popcorn.

This journey in addition to a paleo-style diet let my body to heal enough to become pregnant with my 3rd daughter.

And do you remember that allergist who told me I could not support myself & my eldest daughter on her diet?

He was wrong.

I ate a more restrictive diet that was nutrient-dense while nursing baby 2, carrying baby 3 AND tandem nursing them. We thrived & welcomed baby 4 a few years later.

I thrived with a health hiccup: a diagnosis of uveitis after baby 3 & a serious flare after baby 4 that was controlled with prescription eyedrops.

Fast forward to a flu that hit my family. In the aftermath, I could not shake the uveitis flare & my eldest’s GI symptoms worsened by the day. I found an ophthalmologist who supports my diet & lifestyles choices & after dozens & dozens of appointments & tests, my daughter was diagnosed with Crohn’s at the tender age of 14. My persistence had finally yielded an answer.

“But what now? Crohn’s is a chronic autoimmune disease that doesn’t just go away.” I thought.

Life with a corn allergy means that western medicine / pharmaceuticals are not a standard or easy option. For our family, holistic options are our first choice & so I decided to join with my daughter on & her medically prescribed Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) therapy journey not only as a sign of solitary, but also to see if it would help my uveitis. By day 9, I felt like my healthy self & my daughter’s nightly tummy pains had subsided.

Wow! It felt good to find a dietary style that worked for us!

These events combined, my real world experience & holistic training prompted me to start my own clinic so that I could help others on their wellness journey so they would not have to go through the heartache my family & I had experienced.

I look  forward to helping you thrive & be your best self!