My blog represents the recipes I have created and demonstrated at True North Health Center and at the McDougall Program, both in-patient facilities in Santa Rosa, CA that advocate better health through a low-fat, plant-based diet. I have been teaching cooking classes and developing my own recipes since February 2010. It is truly a joyful experience for me to teach others how to improve their lives via the food they eat every day.
Changing your diet is much like learning a new language; it takes time and practice to develop proficiency. When I see people’s "light-bulbs" go in my classes—when they realize that eating this way is something they can really do when they get home—it’s so exciting, for me and them!
My recipes are developed using whole foods, including fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains and beans, and raw nuts and seeds. Recipes avoid all animal products (including meat, fish, fowl, eggs and dairy products) as well as any added oil, salt, and refined flours or sugars. In addition, recipes call for as few processed and pre-packaged foods or ingredients as possible, and are designed for anyone who is interested in adopting a health-promoting, low-fat diet that tastes delicious.
My philosophy and teaching focus on the belief that health is the body’s normal state and that chronic disease and discomfort are not the inevitable outcomes of aging or bad genes (in the majority of cases), but are the result of lifestyle and nutritional habits cultivated over a lifetime.
How I got here:
I chose my focus on nutrition after coming to a crossroads in my former career. I worked as the managing editor of a national magazine, and over the years became increasingly stressed out and unhappy, which started to affect my physical health. After a year of trying to beat the stress and keep my job, I realized that I’d have to make a change and leave my position.
I was fortunate to have the support of my employers to seek a solution that worked for me. So I demoted myself to a staff writer at the same magazine and worked from home part-time while simultaneously dipping my toes into the nutrition world—an area of study that had interested me for many years.
After 10 months, I received a certification in basic nutrition from Bauman College of Holistic Nutrition and Culinary Arts in Penngrove, CA. While this education provided me with a basic primer on conventional nutrition and a title that I could put next to my name—Cathy Fisher, NE (certified Nutrition Educator)—little did know that my education was really just beginning.
Having been a fan of Dr. John McDougall’s for many years (I credit him and his books for showing me how to escape the tortures of dairy foods, which caused me to have horrible stomach aches throughout my life), I contacted him in late 2006 to offer my services to help with his in-patient programs. To my delight, he took me up on my offer, and I still work for him and Mary McDougall and their many in-patient programs, doing a variety of tasks, including teaching cooking classes, assisting with events and programs, editing the monthly McDougall Newsletter, and assisting with a clinical study that Dr. McDougall is currently conducting on the relationship between multiple sclerosis and a plant-based, low-fat diet. I love the variety of work I am able to do here, and have benefited greatly from the education I have received here over the years. I have had the opportunity to meet and work with some of the smartest and wisest people in the field of plant-based nutrition. Over the last four and a half years, I feel that I have recieved the most valuable education about how to attain optimum health possible.
In February 2010, I began teaching cooking demonstration classes to the visitors of True North Health Center in Santa Rosa. Dr. Alan Goldhamer is co-owner of True North, a plant-based diet and fasting center, and I am humbled to be working among his staff of health and plant-based nutrition visionaries. I currently teach at True North every Friday to the ever-changing group of patients who are staying at the center at any given time. The center promotes a whole-foods, vegan diet, or as Michael Klaper MD (who works at the center) puts it, a “lean and clean” diet.
The recipes that I have created for all of my classes are on my blog, and it is growing rapidly. I have begun to get requests for a cookbook from students who are eager to return home and start cooking, so I am working on that currently. If you’d like to be notified of when the cookbook will be available for purchase, please send your name/email to me (click here to send me an email). Please feel free to leave comments, questions or feedback on the blog.
I look forward to expanding the reach of my teaching so that it may reach more people in the future, and also to educate others to teach this way, so that the roots of healthy cooking know-how will spread far and wide!
Click here to contact Cathy, to schedule a one-on-one appointment, to inquire about presentations or cooking demonstrations, or for more information.
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