RISE UP!

WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK

I was born an Indigenous female in the remote village of Malawi, Africa. My family are subsistence farmers, and food has always held a sacred place in our lives—not only as fuel for hard work but as medicine, woven into ceremonies, and central to celebrations. When I moved to Canada at age four, I left behind this intimate connection to food, only to rediscover it 40 years later when I returned to my birth village to visit my grandmother. To my astonishment, I realized that the food that I had been teaching my clients to consume to reverse their chronic diseases, mirrored the traditional ways of my village heritage. I have discovered that the traditional knowledge of healing through our ancestral foodways has always been in my blood. I spent hours and hours combing through medical literature, learning about food as medicine, and I feel incredibly hopeful that there's an actual solution to this chronic disease epidemic.

My birth village has always relied on food as medicine. My family and community were still practicing the same ancient food traditions, and they live well into their 90s, 85, chronic disease free. They rarely experience non-communicable lifestyle diseases like coronary heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, and autoimmune disorders that are the leading cause of death in countries like Canada, the USA, and other Western countries.

For over 20 years, I’ve been dedicated to revolutionizing health and empowering BIPOC communities to reclaim their well-being. My doctoral research uncovers the systemic barriers that prevent BIPOC individuals from accessing the nourishing, life-saving foods essential for chronic disease prevention. These health disparities are not just genetic—they are deeply rooted in colonization, intergenerational trauma, and systemic racism.

RISE UP is the culmination of my work, research and experience. It exposes the silent health crisis in BIPOC communities that’s rarely discussed in mainstream health narratives, offering a powerful solution: reconnecting with ancestral wisdom, embracing food as medicine, and dismantling the structures that keep us sick.