I will never forget that morning when I received the news that I had breast cancer. That was that moment when my entire universe went into a free fall. Anyone who has ever been diagnosed with cancer knows exactly what I’m talking about. I felt helpless, scared and thought I was going to die.

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I spent weeks crying my eyes out, mourning my life and secretly hoping that the diagnosis was a mistake. But as a journalist, I also spent every waking hour educating myself about cancer, determined to stop it in its tracks. And I made a pact with the universe that if I figure it out, I will tell the world. Cancer became my most important assignment; except this time I wasn’t telling a story, I was the story.

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I turned down chemotherapy and embarked on a healing pilgrimage that connected me with some of the most knowledgeable and well-known people in the medical, scientific and integrative health communities. And what I found shocked me even more than my cancer diagnosis. I found out that cancer is not some kind of mysterious disease we have no control over. I learned that there was no wonder drug but rather, health is a choice, and my daily choices, whether I realize it or not, were making a direct impact on my health.

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I learned that what I needed to do was to first detoxify my body, then heal my gut and rebalance it: with healing prebiotic foods but also from the stresses of life. I needed to boost my immune system and alter the course of my cancer on a cellular level.

People often ask me what exactly I did to heal. The answer is that I did everything: vegan diet, kundalini yoga, meditation, acupuncture, colon therapy, Ayurvedic herbs, vitamin IV’s, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, electro therapy, infrared sauna, regular therapy, raw detox, massage, visualization, herbal supplements and teas, green juices, wheat grass, and therapeutic soups. Every single thing played an important role in my healing but it was discovering the magical powers of soups that I believe, ultimately healed me.

Because as a make-shit-happen kind of gal, I knew that while it’s important to be careful about toxicity in products, water and air, it’s almost impossible to control that all the time. But nutrition is the one aspect of my life that I could be in control of; it was entirely up to me what I ate. Moreover, the studies I read on epigenetics showed that food was medicine and our fork was the most powerful surgical instrument out there. Spices like turmeric, for example, had effects on gene activation, influencing DNA methylation that contribute to cancer development. The trick was to figure out how to maximize the medicinal effects of food and include all the spices and herbs that my body needed to zap inflammation, balance my hormones and blood glucose, alkalize my body, detoxify and eliminate toxins, and improve the absorption of nutrients.

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Healing Soups became my answer. I knew I had to come up with recipes that would be nourishing and healing, but also exciting and with layers of flavor. Armed with herbal encyclopedias, books on Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine and Homeopathy, as well as my own interviews with doctors and practitioners of healing arts, I spent months in the kitchen, injecting sparks of my newfound culinary creativity and healing juju into creating my one-of-a-kind organic blends with nothing more than veggies, herbs, spices, mushrooms and occasional legumes.

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Even though my delicious soups began as a way to heal myself, they became so much more than that. I’m so honored to now be able help so many people on their journey to transform their health.