| Christina Pirello
Expert in Nutrition & Organic Foods
Cooking with Whole Foods
Host/Star of her own television show "Christina
Cooks"
Cancer Survivor for 24 years.
Biography
MY EARLY YEARS My mom was one of the finest cooks I have ever met,
and I was always hanging in the kitchen with her. I couldn’t reach the counter,
so for my fourth birthday my dad made a stool, and my mom gave me this little
tiny paring knife, and I got started. My mom was always so happy in the kitchen.
It was the place where the whole family gathered, and it was a place I knew
great joy came from. My mother was Italian. So we ate a lot of standard Italian
food, peasant food, a lot of stews, a lot of grains -- a lot more grain, as I
look back now, than maybe your average family now would eat, a lot of pasta, of
course, typical Italian food, lots of dairy, and, of course, meat just about
every day because my dad was a butcher. [We had a] great, spacious kitchen. My
mother baked every day. I grew up in a house where cooking wasn’t a chore that
you had to get through. It was just part of the day. My mom wasn’t always at
home, so cooking had to be worked into the day; it was a priority. Nourishment
was a place where you were happy. Food wasn’t the enemy. In our culture, food’s
the enemy a lot of the time, what with preservatives, pesticides, and genetic
modification. Then there’s cooking -- you get in from work at seven o’clock and
it’s hard. Life is harder now than when I was growing up. We’re not at home
cooking like we once were. I became very comfortable in the kitchen at an early
age, so for me it’s not a foreign room.
LEUKEMIA DIAGNOSIS It’s really interesting, in hindsight. I was told I
had delicate skin when I was young, because if someone would so much as take my
arm to cross the street, I would have bruises the next day. I’d hear from my
mother, “You’re a girl, where do you get these bruises?” And I’d be thinking, “I
don’t know.” I remember, as an athlete in high school on the swim team, I would
come home from practice complaining that my bones hurt, and you know, typical
Italian family, they’d say, “What do you mean your bones hurt; go do your
homework.” Life was different then. We didn’t rush off for blood tests so
quickly. When the doctors diagnosed me, I had thought I was tired because my
mother had passed away, with the whole grieving process; but the doctors said
that the leukemia had been there for many years, never diagnosed. So the
condition was pretty acute by the time it was diagnosed, but they said that it
had been undetected for so long.
MY REACTION TO THE DIAGNOSIS I felt like I was living in a bad TV
movie. I moved into this period of denial for a short time. I left the doctor’s
office and sat on the sofa in my apartment thinking, “I’m 26, this is
impossible.” Finally, I went back to work and was going to quit my job and go
back and live in Tuscany, where I had lived for a while, and simply die. As I
packed my office, a friend of mine came in and said, “So you’re giving up
without a fight?” I thought, “Give me a break…” He said, “You have to meet this
guy,” and I’m thinking, “Great, just what I need, a date.” And he said, “No, no,
he eats weird food and he says it cures cancer.” I’m having visions of jetting
off to Barcelona to have my blood boiled or something. And he said, “No, no, he
eats grains and beans.” I’m thinking, “I sort of eat that way and I already have
cancer.” But of course, I wasn’t eating anywhere near healthy. So I met Robert
Pirello, who introduced me to macrobiotics. He gave me a book by Michio Kushi
called The Cancer Prevention Diet and said, “Don’t make any decisions; go home
and read this book.” I read it in about 36 hours because I couldn’t put it down,
and I thought it was either the biggest crock I’d ever read or the best-kept
secret on the planet.
GETTING STARTED WITH WHOLE FOODS I remember asking, “Is there anything
we can do that will cure this?” and they [the doctors] said, “No.” This was 16
years ago, and [since then] we’ve made quite a few advances. Do I recommend this
kind of course? Not for everybody. I really did it the hard way, which is how I
do most everything. But at the time, they couldn’t offer me much. Even a bone
marrow transplant would be iffy. So one of the five doctors agreed to monitor
me, and the minute I would deteriorate they could intervene. And I agreed to
that because I didn’t think this [diet] was going to work either. So Robert and
I went shopping at a co-op, and he’s loading all this unfamiliar food into my
basket. Now I’m a cook, and I’m thinking, “I’m dead, I don’t know what to do
with this…” We emptied my cupboards and loaded them up with new foods; he gave
me a few quick lessons, and it may sound simple, but that’s how it started.
MY RECOVERY It took a year and a half to regain my health and there
were lots and lots and LOTS of ups and downs. I guess it was maybe 2 months
before they saw a big difference in my blood. They didn’t know what I was doing,
and I said, “Well, I’m doing this diet thing. I’m eating whole grains, beans and
vegetables.” They said, “That’s very nice honey, but what are you doing?” They
called it spontaneous regression and had no answer for it. They said, “Whatever
you’re doing, do it, because something’s changing.” And off I went; it was a
long year and a half, but after that period, my blood tests showed no sign of
cancer and haven’t since. And what I’ve discovered since then about the power of
food in the body is what drives me in my passion every day. If people understand
the energy of food and how it affects our health, they can make choices best
suited to them.
About Christina's Show
I may not be the new kid on the block anymore, but I still host the only
truly healthy cooking show on the airwaves today.
With over 140 episodes under my belt, Christina Cooks delivers the
information that America wants and needs to hear. In light of the health crises
we face as a nation, I take the viewer by the hand and make healthy eating fun
and delicious and easy to do. Americans want to feel good, look good and stay
healthy I show them how in my own unique style, if I do say so
myself.
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