Dear Donna (and her lovely team),
I've been thinking about writing you an e-mail for a while now, and I apologize in advance because this will be a long one. I have so much to tell you. Yesterday I realized that it was probably time, since I finished listening to every single one of your podcast episodes!
This took me some years of course, but let me introduce myself. My name is Vanessa, I'm 28 years old, and I live in Brazil. Let's just say that the cards that were dealt to me health wise were not the best. From day 1 in this life I had issues – both my mother and I almost passed away during my birth.
My mom had terrible complications, so she couldn't breastfeed me. I've heard that this is very important for a baby's health. In addition to that, I grew up during the 90s and early 2000s, which, at least in Brazil, meant the worst years for healthy foods. Doctors would say that margarine was healthy; stay away from animal fat! Breakfast was a cereal bar loaded with sugar. Afternoon snack? A whole package of ultra-processed sandwich cookies! Why not?
My health was already on the more fragile side. With this diet added to it, I would get sick much more frequently than the average kid. I remember getting colds and flus at least 6 times a year during the colder period! So when it wasn't summer, late spring or early autumn, I would get sick once a month. Plus a few times during summer as well (viral gastroenteritis and all that stuff). And this went on for years.
People, including my brothers, seemed to grow out of this phase of getting sick frequently as children, so why couldn't I? Both my parents are doctors, but as you mentioned in some podcast episodes, doctors don't learn a lot about nutrition, and so I was stuck in this place of feeling I was just unlucky with my health. During the 2010s, things slowly started changing in the medical field, and my father, who is always studying, found out about the paleo diet. At that time he was overweight, so he went on the diet. We were shocked not only by his weight loss, but also by how much better everyone felt when we swapped seed oils for lard in the household. Even our maid, who had 3 autoimmune issues, was shocked.
At that time, I learned that food could change things. I experimented a little with paleo, cut gluten, saw improvements, and kept up to date with diet by listening to podcasts. One day I learned about the GAPS protocol, which you probably know about. That led me to a book called The Art of Fermentation (you probably know it as well). And that led me to the almost 300 episodes of your podcast that have been accompanying me during good and bad times these last few years.
I started secretly fermenting vegetables and would sneak the jars into my closet so that my parents wouldn't find them. At some point, they had to come out of the closet, quite literally, and I'll leave the freakout that everyone had to your imagination. Imagine explaining to your doctor parents that you are intentionally spoiling food in your closet to eat. "Mom I swear, it's good for you!!". We had so many bad discussions. During the die off period she thought I was poisoning myself and I wouldn't give the foods up, no matter what!
I know this is already a long email, but I just want to add a few more things to my story. You say you're always learning about diseases that cultured foods help with, and here's mine: In 2020, before finding cultured foods, I developed interstitial cystitis (IC), which is an autoimmune issue that basically feels like having an UTI that you can't get rid of. It's horrible, really horrible. Some people even have their bladder removed, since it's so unbearable. And the worst part is that sometimes this doesn't even solve it and the person still feels pain. I think this could really be a great podcast episode, since this disease is often overlooked by doctors. And guess what: there are studies linking it to diseases like IBS.
At that time when I developed interstitial cystitis, I was severely stressed and had changed my diet to include a lot of dairy products that I didn't eat before. When my symptoms started, there were many foods that I couldn't eat, like tomatoes, onions, pepper, etc. A lot of things would trigger symptoms. Would cause flare-ups, as IC patients say. But by experimenting I found out that what was actually causing the inflammation in my body was cow's milk protein. I cut out the dairy products that I had added to my diet and was able to eat all those other foods again.
After I got better, I was actually scared of trying to reintroduce cow's milk, since the symptoms of interstitial cystitis are so bad. Time went on, I continued to listen to your podcast and after 2 years I decided to try milk kefir. I was hoping I could get some missing gut bacteria that would digest the cow's milk protein for me, and that's exactly what happened. I didn't have goat's or buffalo's milk available to make kefir, so I made it with cow's milk and the first few times I did have symptoms of my disease. However I stucked with it and it didn't take long at all for me to stop having reactions to cow's milk. I now eat it regularly without any issues.
Before finding your podcast I already knew about kefir, it's actually kind of popular where I live! In the past a friend of the family had given me water kefir grains to help with my stomach issues. I know you don't include it in the trilogy, but I have to say, somehow it prevents UTIs for me like no other ferment! So I have both types of kefir to thank for my healthy bladder, since one helped with interstitial cystitis and the other one helped with UTIs. But really, I have all cultured foods to thank for my health in general. Over the years I added more and more of them to my diet.
After water kefir, cultured vegetables, kombucha and milk kefir, it's time for sourdough. The dutch oven I ordered arrived yesterday, and I'm excited to start learning. I'll start with gluten free breads since I haven't been able to have gluten for 10 years now, but once I get the hang of it I want to try einkorn as well. I'm still a little cautious about modern wheat since I'm so sensitive to it, but I'll give it a try as well.
Even in this long e-mail I cannot find enough words to express how much you, your website, your podcast and your lovely team mean to me. Your story about Holly resonates deeply because of my own birth and my own story. For so long I was scared that my future children's health would be even worse than mine, and now I'm not scared anymore. Also, when you talk about how people thought you were crazy for fermenting vegetables, my past self who hid them in the closet feels suddenly comforted. You are so healing to me, just like these foods!
Thank you so much for your time and for your content. I'm looking forward to episode 300!
Lots of love and many hugs,
Vanessa