Lisa Jendza is the founder of Freedom Kitchen; a place for health enthusiasts to gather. In this episode we talk about her own health journey and she shares her strategies for you to get out of your head and into your heart and body to facilitate healing.
Lisa Jendza is the founder of Freedom Kitchen; a place for health enthusiasts to gather. In this episode we talk about her own health journey and she shares her strategies for you to get out of your head and into your heart and body to facilitate healing.
In our conversation today, Lisa shares about how her experience in business and education has informed her perspective on the importance of a holistic approach, whether in medicine, or the food system, we need to pull the lens back.
Lisa shares her healing journey with us, and her message of the importance of looking inward for answers instead of looking for solutions from an external source.
She invites us to move confusion to clarity, getting out of our heads and into our hearts and bodies to facilitate healing.
[00:00:00] Julie Michelson: Welcome back to the inspired living with auto-immunity podcast. Today, I'm joined by Lisa Jendza of freedom kitchen. Freedom kitchen transcends time and space to offer cooking classes and education to those who value food and health. It's a place for health enthusiasts to gather.
[00:00:46] Lisa has also owned a wellness spa, co-founded a commercial kitchen and cooking school. And as a business coach and health coach.
[00:00:54] Lisa shares her healing journey with us and her message of the importance of looking inward for our [00:01:00] answers, instead of looking for solutions from an external source.
[00:01:04] Lisa, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for joining us today.
[00:01:09] Lisa Jendza: Thanks Julie. Thanks for having me here.
[00:01:12] Julie Michelson: I would love to start with sharing with our listeners just to do something a little bit different. One thing that even people familiar with, you may not know about.
[00:01:24] Lisa Jendza: Well I've been to every state in the United States except for Alaska. And I've been to every Canadian province when I was growing up. My parents wanted to see the country and we did road trips. So I have been on road trips and camped in. At every state except for Alaska. So, I mean, when I haven't been to, and then we did all of Canada, we did the Canadian Rockies and all of the Canadian provinces.
[00:01:50] So I have seen a lot more of this country than probably most people.
[00:01:55] Julie Michelson: Absolutely. That's amazing. So I have to ask, when are you going to [00:02:00] Alaska
[00:02:05] Lisa Jendza: on the
[00:02:05] Julie Michelson: list somewhere?
[00:02:08] Lisa Jendza: Not currently on the list? Well, that's,
[00:02:10] Julie Michelson: that's fair right now. That's fair. Well, I love that. And I know, you know, most of the. In this world, got to doing what we're doing through our own experience. So I'd love for you to share your, that part of your journey with us and you know, how, how did you get to where you are and how does that journey influence what you teach?
[00:02:36] Lisa Jendza: Yeah, I think most health coaches, so, you know, in my age group, We didn't, there was no age group, our age. I hate to pull you into that age, but
[00:02:48] Julie Michelson: I'm happy to be here. So,
[00:02:53] Lisa Jendza: so there was no such thing as a health coach, you know, when, when I was growing. And and so I have my beliefs on [00:03:00] why that has even emerged as an opportunity or a business, which clearly was the failure of another system.
[00:03:07] And I, I think that I got here due to the failure of my diagnoses and I like to mention, so you know, the short version is by 36, I had type two diabetes and fibromyalgia and I was over 200 pounds and. I had brain fog. I couldn't concentrate anymore. But if we back the story up by the, by age five, when I have any recollection, I had chronic bloating to the point that my parents would talk about me looking pregnant.
[00:03:40] I could roll my belly because I would get very bloated and then the bloating would go down. And then you know, I knew as a teenager, when I took carbohydrates away, I felt better. I already knew that as a teenager. Well, At 18, my triglycerides were over 300 and I had three doctors [00:04:00] walk in the room. We had a new HMO.
[00:04:01] My parents were so happy cause it was all like team doctors now. So I went and they not just the one doctor, three of them come in the room and they're like, your triglycerides are over 300 and we just really don't know why we think it has to do with fried foods and fast food. So avoid those. Well, it was carbohydrates, it was sugar.
[00:04:25] And so that was misdiagnosed from a young age. At 24, I was in braces for carpal tunnel. At 26, we were talking surgery for carpal tunnel. At which time my ankles were also chronically hurting every day. And the doctor told me to take it. I said, but my ankles hurt every day. And he said, take Advil every day.
[00:04:50] I said, you want me to take Advil every day? Well, so let's just string all of these together from age five, I have digestive issues [00:05:00]
[00:05:01] Julie Michelson: is the gut related to the rest of the body. And Lisa,
[00:05:06] Lisa Jendza: I share this because people aren't always connecting the dots and they look at everything as an isolated. And we'll get into why I think we look at everything isolated, but we look at everything as an isolated event as if my ankles aren't connected to my wrists and they aren't connected to my brain fog.
[00:05:26] And none of it's connected to the high triglycerides. So it takes a sleuth, but this together, because the medical profession treats all of those individually, well,
[00:05:39] Julie Michelson: you'll have all different specialists for each body.
[00:05:42] Lisa Jendza: Yes, Oregon system. Yes. Yeah.
[00:05:45] Julie Michelson: So that's how in traditional Western medicine we're talking about.
[00:05:50] Lisa Jendza: Yes. So that's how I got here is I had to do my own research to get my health back. And there's a saying that says, we don't want to invest in our health [00:06:00] until we lose it and then we'll pay anything to get it back. And that's the truth. When you don't have your health, you are not productive. You lose your livelihood.
[00:06:10] It was difficult for me to function, to work to. So, you know, and it comes on so slowly it's, it's like that frog in the water, you know, on the stove and you turn the stove on and it just gradually gets warmer and warmer. And the frog ends up dying because it gradually, if you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, he jumps out.
[00:06:32] But if you gradually boil him, he doesn't even realize, and that's kind of what's happening is people are losing. They have less health, less vitality than what they can have, but because it's all happening so gradually, and then they're spending all this time looking at each individual thing, like all the energy that was spent on even talking about carpal tunnel.
[00:06:56] The carpal tunnel. Wasn't the issue. It was
[00:06:59] Julie Michelson: [00:07:00] right. Well, and I want to add, it's not, you don't even just lose your livelihood, which is big enough and your ability to work, but you lose those things that you don't have the energy to be who you really are. Right. So maybe you're not the mother you want to be because you can't, you can't participate the way you'd like to, or the partner or the friend or daughter, husband, whatever.
[00:07:24] So, you know, I, like, I always say my life got smaller and smaller and smaller and work was the most obvious, but in hindsight it was all these layers of all these other pieces of losing ourselves.
[00:07:38] Lisa Jendza: Yeah. That makes me want to weep because I think that's so true. I don't think that people realize that their life gets smaller and
[00:07:46] Julie Michelson: smaller and they don't well, that, that analogy with the frog is perfect.
[00:07:50] You don't realize it when you're in it. And, and the exciting thing is don't weep because that's what you and I are doing is letting people know that there's another way. And [00:08:00] you can reclaim them. Parts and pieces of, of your life. So what was like, where w how you said, you know, you needed to be a super sleuth, right.
[00:08:09] To figure it out. D tell
[00:08:11] Lisa Jendza: me about that. Well, it's interesting. This I'll probably take the audience in a little different direction than what they would expect out of a health. Oh, good. But if we. I understand the educational system and we understand that it was created to create assembly line workers.
[00:08:29] And when everyone to stay with me on this analogy, because everything in our society now has been turned into an assembly line worker. And I was able to see this in corporate America. I was in information technology for 25 years. And when I hired in, we had to understand all of the systems. Now I worked at a pretty unique place that worked for EDS and people know EDS had quite a reputation, Ross Perot really the are commercials about building the [00:09:00] airplane in flight.
[00:09:01] That was real because we were doing things that were new and unique and cutting edge. And so we were literally building it as we went. But you've had to understand the whole system. And I always called that point in, in information technology, you know, that was the wild, wild west of technology. You know, but it was like structured entrepreneurship because even though you were part of a corporation, we, we had a lot of entrepreneurial type people who were.
[00:09:31] Participating over time as that became corporatized, I watched and then, you know, EDS was sold. And then eventually when I left, it was Hewlett Packard. I watched every job function get compartmentalize. You don't need to know the whole system anymore. You work on this component, you work on the routers, you work on the ATM switches.
[00:09:54] You work on the broadband network. And I thought, oh my gosh, they're turning us into assembly line [00:10:00] workers. And it clicked for me then. So this was happening in parallel to me seeing specialists and realizing doctors are assembly line workers. It sounds fancier. Cause they're called specialists anyways.
[00:10:17] They're just an assembly line worker. They only do this piece and then they send you to someone who does this piece and they send you to someone who does this piece and who's connecting them. And then I realized our whole society, if you, everything from the DMV or the secretary of state, and if you go to your county offices or anywhere you go anymore, Everyone has been turned into an assembly line worker.
[00:10:43] I would even argue someone at a bank that used to be, you know, cross trained, but now they only do this function or someone at a grocery store that used to be cross trained. And now they only do this function. And there's a reason for that. And that is to keep people perpetually [00:11:00] confused. So this keeps us looking.
[00:11:03] It's like the coconut shells. Am I looking under this one? Or am I looking under this? You know, that game? I always,
[00:11:08] Julie Michelson: yeah. One at a time,
[00:11:12] Lisa Jendza: you know, you shuffle them all around and you're like, is it this one? Is it this one? So it keeps us perpetually confused. And on top of that, we have been conditioned since a young age to look outside of ourselves for the answer, you know, that's why we had to go for all those well-child checkups with the doctor when we were young to condition us that the doctor knew.
[00:11:35] And and you know, obviously we look to our parents, we look to our teachers and then we grow up and we look to our bosses and we looked to our government and we can see where that's gotten us. There's where there was a lot of conditioning that has us looking outside of ourselves at the same time that everyone was don't want to want to say dumb down, [00:12:00] but we don't have a holistic view.
[00:12:02] Of anything. Sure. Everyone has a specialty view. And, and I believe it is that education model of being assembly line workers that, and we waste a lot of time. Chasing a symptom. I spent so much time with the carpal tunnel. It wasn't carpal tunnel. It was inflammation in the inflammation was affecting everything else as well.
[00:12:31] So if I would've just gotten back to the root cause, but you have to look at the whole system. You have to. The environmental factors you had to take the FA you know, all the facts into account. Like I wasn't sleeping at night cause I was on call 24 7 go. When you got lack of sleep,
[00:12:50] Julie Michelson: sleep matters to not sleeping, drives your inflammation.
[00:12:56] You know, you talk my, you speak my language. So what [00:13:00] was that turning point for you? You had these experiences and you saw what was happening. Outside of your health, and I'm assuming then connected those dots to what was going on with your body, that, okay. You know, maybe my ankles, my wrists are connected somehow.
[00:13:16] But what, you know, what was, was there a tipping point? Was there, you know, what was that first kind of shift where you realized we're looking at this all wrong?
[00:13:28] Lisa Jendza: Yeah. I will say that somewhere in there. There. I think like an awakening experience within myself, I had been doing a lot of therapy for adoption issues.
[00:13:39] So I think. I believe in the power of therapy, at least for I don't think you got to rehash your story forever and ever, but it's helpful to get that out. So I think there were a number of things that sort of came together all at the same time. I had become friends with a chiropractor through a business networking group.
[00:13:56] I didn't understand the benefits of chiropractic And it [00:14:00] was only because of a business networking group that I had become friends with her. And then I started chiropractic and then I did find a holistic doctor. What led me on my path was starting to read a lot of books all my own research.
[00:14:12] And I thought, okay, I want someone who's holistic or there wasn't, I didn't know of anyone doing functional medicine at the time, but the word I was looking for with someone who was holistic. So I did find an MD who does not take insurance. Because she's extremely holistic. And it's great with her. You get the best of both worlds.
[00:14:31] She's holistic, but she still has her MD. And she looked at me and said, this is all inflammation. Take away everything that's white
[00:14:40] Julie Michelson: say. And then one more time because everybody listening to this that mean this is it. It's all.
[00:14:50] Lisa Jendza: Yeah. She's no doctor CULA looked at me. She said, this is all inflammation take away. And here I was, you know, I went in with this list of, I have [00:15:00] fibromyalgia I'm borderline type two diabetic. My triglycerides are over 300. I mean, she did the blood work. She said. You know, there's a high society in your body?
[00:15:09] Well, I had been a smoker of 21 years, so this is a judgment free zone here. People come to me and they're like, well, I kind of have these bad habits. I'm like, listen, there is no big habit you can have that. I haven't yet. I was addicted to diet Coke. I was addicted to, it was a smoker of 21 years, addicted to coffee police.
[00:15:28] Yeah, you've done this earth. You've got some vice, so
[00:15:32] Julie Michelson: there's no blaming, you know, we, we all do the best we can with the information we have at the time. You know, my kids love to tease me. My oldest son has celiac and before we knew he had celiac, he was sick a lot shocker. He actually never had GI symptoms, so it made it harder to figure it out.
[00:15:52] But when he was sick, I did. I would say for him, but really to him, what my mom did [00:16:00] to me, or for me when I was sick, which was saltines and ginger. Right when he wasn't feeling well. So here I have extra gluten because gluten is knocked you down and it's the running joke in our family. He was 12 when he was diagnosed.
[00:16:15] So he only, he only had a little over a decade of, of that, but we do what we know at the time with the best stuff, when none of us are making decisions. You know, intentional and to lead ourselves down a road. And so yeah, when you said no blame, I mean, there's, there's no, no judgment, no blame it's. And the beauty is, as you know, and I know is never too late to get that inflammation down, to figure those things out and make those changes.
[00:16:47] Yeah,
[00:16:48] Lisa Jendza: that that's the beautiful thing is that it doesn't matter where you're at today. It can be reversed and you can do better. Maybe it's remarkable that like, [00:17:00] and I showed people pictures. So I took pictures back then at 36 and 37. So I have my before and after, and it literally took me a year, year and a half to completely turn my life around and look like a completely different person.
[00:17:12] People look at my picture at 3,600. That doesn't even look like you. So a lot of criticism, you know, late into my forties, people were like, oh, you know, but I'm much older now, or I'm older than that. So one morning I told my husband, all right, I'm gonna put that same outfit on, take a picture. There's no filters, no nothing.
[00:17:34] And I'm like, this is 10 years later. I don't know I could be delusional, but I think I look better. It's amazing.
[00:17:43] Julie Michelson: You do look better. I've seen the pictures.
[00:17:48] Lisa Jendza: I'm like, ah, maybe I'm biased. I don't know, but I think I look better. And so I'm showing you it's possible. Yes. You can turn things around and you can [00:18:00] not only feel better, but you can look better.
[00:18:02] And I tell people who come into my program. It's not about the weight. The weight will come off. It's about how you feel, because the way that's just a symptom as well. But, but trust me, when everything starts to feel good, you you're going to be like so happy.
[00:18:18] Julie Michelson: You just radiated. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's it is remarkable.
[00:18:25] It's it's exciting. I used to get upset the first, I dunno, a few years I was coaching. W, if somebody was referred, often someone will be referred by their functional medicine doctor, but for, you know, info, inflamed, inflammatory issues and sometimes significant, but all they would care about was the way.
[00:18:48] Right. Like that, that was an, it used to really set me in the beginning. Like, no, don't you understand? And I would explain like when we get, when we hit it, right. And we address what's [00:19:00] causing the inflammation, the weight will fall off. And now I finally am like, Silly me use it. Fine. Good. It's not going to be like you've ever approached weight loss before, but that's fine.
[00:19:15] Lisa Jendza: The funny thing is, Julie is this is the carpal tunnel, right? Like it's. So now if someone comes to me and says You know, I want to lose weight or I want to get rid of my carpal tunnel, or I want my joints to stop hurting. I just say, okay, I have a single program. I don't do anything different for anybody.
[00:19:33] I have a diet and detox program. It is done elimination protocol. You go through this three month program and then, you know, we'll, we'll see what happens because it's the same thing.
[00:19:45] Julie Michelson: Absolutely. It's it's yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you touched on very briefly, but I, I know one of your symptoms was brain fog. And I [00:20:00] know you have this wonderful ebook, so I want to know, I want to have you introduce our listeners to this idea of, from confusion to clarity.
[00:20:11] Lisa Jendza: Yeah. I think. In all of my years of owning my wellness fast. So when I left my, my day job, my corporate America job, I bought a wellness spot and started doing detoxification treatments. So I was fortunate enough to talk to 4,000 plus clients who came through my doors over those years. The common denominator or the common theme seems to be, I'm just so confused, Lisa.
[00:20:40] I, I think I'm eating healthy. I don't know what healthy is. I mean, I'm doing this, I'm doing this. I made this change. I'm just so confused. They would go on their diets. They would lose a bunch of weight. They would gain it back. They'd say I'm just so confused. I'm just so confused. So over those years, as I was studying [00:21:00] detoxification, as well as nutrition, I would ask a lot of questions and the confusion seems to be because the more information we live in the information in.
[00:21:12] The more information we take in the more confused we get. Sure. Because we've lost touch with our intuition and we have no discernment to decide if this is right for me or not. There is a place for information for research, but then there can actually be something as too much information. And so this is where, I mean, I'm such a big proponent of having a coach and having a health coach who walks along beside you, who can help curate the information who can help you to understand the information and then who can help you [00:22:00] implement so that you can discern then for yourself, if this is what's right for you, because you and I both know we can go.
[00:22:08] A book right now we can go read the China study and say everyone needs to be vegan. There's a ton of information though. That cells don't read that
[00:22:19] it's kind of dry. I don't know. I don't know if we're going to go read that, but there's research on both sides. And so I know early on. And even in my own life, I had to keep implementing things to see like some things I knew intuitively right away, like, oh my gosh, I need to juice. I knew I needed to juice.
[00:22:41] I knew I didn't eat enough vegetables. I needed to get my blood sugar under control. And I thought, well, juicing on would be a lot easier than trying to eat all these that was remarkable from, I mean, just juicing cleared my brain fog and got me, you know, on the right path. For me, I have [00:23:00] to implement these things.
[00:23:01] I can't just read all the books and I have all the books. Sure. But
[00:23:06] Julie Michelson: implementing is, is where coaching comes in. Right. It's the, you know, anybody can get their hands on the information now discerning whether it's the right information for them is different depending on where they are. But you know, that's what I tell people all the time.
[00:23:22] It's I don't help you with the what I mean. Yeah. I can guide you, but it's the house. Because how you implement is going to be different than how I implement it. I have clients who are men in their sixties who don't cook. And live alone. And I have clients who are, you know, young moms with big family, you know, so it's always gonna look different.
[00:23:45] It's gotta be personalized. And that's where that, that intuition. I love that it, my, my initial coach training. Through a heart-centered coaching program in my clients, that's one of the first things we do is like, okay. Yes, [00:24:00] there's a lot of information you've got in your head. Let's now let's get you out of your head.
[00:24:04] That's
[00:24:05] Lisa Jendza: I think what helped me as along the way, I got my yoga teacher. And throughout my yoga teacher training, and really during those years, I was learning to get more grounded because, you know, I'm a very heady person. I, I was an executive for information technology. I mean, I'm an engineer is left brained.
[00:24:23] I'm very heady person, so it really took. The detox treatments that I did, mineral body reps and sauna therapy and the things they did in my spa, and then my yoga teacher training to really teach me how to get grounded. And so that's a large part of my teaching because. I can spot those people a mile away, the ones that I connect with on an intellectual level, but I can tell they are so disconnected from their body.
[00:24:49] And so in their head, they're like, I'm still confused because I don't know. Should I be vegan? Should I be carnivores? Should I Jews? Should I not? Should I do this? Should I do smoothies? I don't know. I don't. I [00:25:00] was told to eat whole grains. So I always say the reason that we are confused. Is because you're still looking outside of yourself for the answer, or you're still stuck in your head and you haven't trusted your body yet.
[00:25:14] So we have to re-engage this connection and help guide them to their intuition or their heart, but we have to get them to their gut, their heart, both so that they can feel what's right for them. Early on. And I caution people. I say, oftentimes people will teach what has worked for them. So in the early days, it's, it's kind of immaturity and coaching and I did the same thing.
[00:25:47] Oh my gosh. Juicing's the best thing in the world everywhere. That's not necessarily true. Right. They might not need to. But then I was like, everybody needs to give up dairy. Dairy is the devil, [00:26:00] but I have clients who can handle dairy. Some people, you know, gravitate towards me. Some people don't there's, there's no one right way.
[00:26:09] And where. There's enough division in our world where I get more frustrated even within our community is when things are made wrong or there's only one right way. And so I think the best thing that we can do as coaches is guide them through a process. To find clarity and you know, that the best ideas are their ideas.
[00:26:36] So we can guide them like try this and this and this, and then, you know, see how you feel. And when they determine this made me feel really good. It suddenly is their idea. It's not your idea or my idea, it's their idea. And so I think that experiencial process. Of working with the coach and implementing [00:27:00] changes so that you can embody literally embody those changes because the confusion is up here and the clarity is in here.
[00:27:12] She's
[00:27:13] Julie Michelson: touching her heart for those who you can see. Oh yes. For the audio listeners. So I know this journey has alleged, you sparked this desire in you to, to teach kids cooking classes. Tell me a little bit about what drove that decision.
[00:27:33] Lisa Jendza: Yeah. So I had actually said no when they first talked to me about it and I hired a retired teacher and got it.
[00:27:41] I mean, I love her as a person, but I was, I watched her classes initially and I wasn't very happy with the food choices or the lessons. And I thought these need to be healthier. Like these kids can learn better. They don't need to learn how to make chicken nuggets. Right. They can actually do. [00:28:00] You know, we can make Thai almond chicken bowls.
[00:28:02] Like we can, they don't need the foods that we think that they need. They're not that limited. So of course she was trying to appeal to them. You know, she did like a Mac and cheese and she did a chicken tenders and I was like, no, this isn't what I want to teach. That's not
[00:28:19] Julie Michelson: creating change and improvements.
[00:28:26] I hear that all the time from my clients who are parents, you know, well then I need to double cook because my kids aren't going to eat vegetables and this and that. And it is so not true. I have a client who had four kids living in her house at the time that she did her first elimination diet and she didn't cook and she was running her own business and her husband did the cooking, but he cooked one.
[00:28:52] And that wasn't going to work for the elimination diet. And we joke all the time because, and she happens to also be a [00:29:00] friend of mine. So this was a few years ago, but I still see her and I still see her husband sometimes. And. She now cooks he'll grill a little in the summer. It's completely shifted the family dynamic.
[00:29:16] The kids no longer take, you know, junk meals to school. It, she started with just the, because she couldn't possibly double cook. The dinners, you know, were unplanned for her, but she was still sending the kids to school with stuff that they shouldn't be eating, but all the other kids are. And now her youngest, who is in the elementary school, he would, oh my gosh, would you adore him?
[00:29:41] He loves to cook. And he loves to show me the healthy lunch he makes with his veggie. Some his, I mean, and these are the kids that she was like, they're never going to eat this. They love it.
[00:29:55] Lisa Jendza: That's maybe not the first
[00:29:56] Julie Michelson: time, but over time, they really, and I [00:30:00] believe it's because literally. Our cells are happy when we're actually nourishing them.
[00:30:08] And I think kids can feel that kind of energy. They may not know, you know, in their heads, but they're not in their heads all the time. They're in their bodies, in their hearts and their guts. And, and so I always, it's one of the greatest gifts as you know, is when you change that, you know, I may be working with a mom, but look at the gift for those children.
[00:30:28] The, all of a sudden they're eating real food.
[00:30:32] Lisa Jendza: So we, we think of cooking as a chore. And so I encourage your audience to hear this differently. Kids look at cooking as art. Yes. Adults look at it as a chore. If we can. Provide cooking classes, healthy ones. Cause most of them aren't, they're out there. I've checked many out and they're teaching the same old, terrible stuff.
[00:30:59] And I [00:31:00] mean box mixes and everything. Oh, my daughter had
[00:31:03] Julie Michelson: to drop her cooking class in high school. Because in order to even pass, like the quizzes and tests she had to, she was like, I'd have to lie. Like, cause they're wrong, they're still teaching. You know that old model that got you sick and got me sick is still what's being taught in school.
[00:31:26] And I think she lasted a week and she said, you know what? I just, I'm not going to make it through this semester because I can't eat and won't eat anything. We cook in class and be like, either I need to teach the class or I can't be in there. So,
[00:31:41] Lisa Jendza: yeah, so I do, I do caution that you can't just go to any, just any cooking class, because if they're using, you know, box mixes, unless it's being taught by a health coach, you're probably going to get a lot of the same old stuff.
[00:31:54] Which is why during quarantine in all of my glory and weight gain, and it was. You know, it [00:32:00] was a rough year, but I was like, I have to record my classes. I was doing that because I had 128 students that were counting on me. And I didn't know if we were going to still be in quarantine or we were going to be able to be back in the kitchen.
[00:32:13] So I recorded my whole first semester on my iPhone. They are, you know, terrible. Quality and everything, but, but we made it through the year with that of my hundred and 28 students. This past year, 40% of them ended up remaining remote and doing all of their schooling from home. So they were able to do the, the video, follow the recipe and send me a picture.
[00:32:39] So we were able to do so. It was a great pilot for doing these classes at home. And what was so cute. Julie is all these moms. I got emails and text messages, and some of them would come in to see me. Cause I would tell them when I was available at the kitchen and I always invited them in. Even if they were virtual students, they'd [00:33:00] say we watch your videos too.
[00:33:02] I had these two moms getting together with their daughters one day and they. We watch your videos too. And they were like embarrassed and I'm like, don't, don't be embarrassed because I've been teaching adults longer than kids. So everything in there. Content for you to, I'm trying to teach the whole family, which really, as soon as I heard that from some of the moms in the very first semester, I started doing video messages.
[00:33:25] So all of my emails to the parents are video messages. And I explained to them what I'm using, where I'm getting it from, why I'm using it. And I say, please watch the videos with your child because they're learning in my kitchen, but they're living in new. I love that, and that will create more confusion and I don't want them to come to you and say, well, that's not how miss Lisa does it.
[00:33:49] Julie Michelson: That's all you need. I want to make sure before we run out of time because I, I know a little bit about this already. I want our listeners though, [00:34:00] to, to hear from you share what is your vision for the future, because it's good.
[00:34:07] Lisa Jendza: It is, it is a really big vision. You know, freedom kitchen is about setting ourselves free from a corporate, from the corporate structures.
[00:34:19] There are 10 corporations that control all of our. And I won't get into all of the details today, but suffice to say that two thirds of our world's food supply is controlled by the pharmaceutical companies. And I don't think people understand that. Say that again. Yeah, two thirds of the world's food supply is controlled by the same corporations who control the pharmaceutical companies.
[00:34:46] So the
[00:34:47] Julie Michelson: same corporations that are treating the diseases that are being caused by the lack of nutrients and nutrition in our food are controlling the
[00:34:57] Lisa Jendza: food and we get [00:35:00] confused. You know, there's a lot of confusion. Confusion to clarity. You're going to hear me talk about this a lot, because all we want to do as health coaches is help you cut through the confusion so you can gain clarity.
[00:35:12] So many of the listeners may have heard when Teflon was deemed a Carson. Yeah. And everyone says, oh, I throw my Teflon out. Now if it's scratched, well, why do you wait till it's scrapped? That's what they told us to do on the news is if it gets scratched, when it gets scratched, throw it out to you by the
[00:35:31] Julie Michelson: though, if you already know.
[00:35:33] Lisa Jendza: Yeah. So did Teflon go away? Cause they said they were going to stop making it. They changed the name. They moved, there's a whole documentary on this. They moved from either Virginia or West Virginia down to North Carolina. They created a new company, they turned it silver. It still exists today. It's still polluting our water, our wildlife, our earth, and it's polluting us.
[00:35:59] [00:36:00] And so we have to stay vigilant. If we fight for freedom, this is why we have that, you know, the Marines and the army and the Navy the air force, because we have to fight for our freedom. Well, I, I'm not saying let's fight in our, you know, for our freedom in our kitchen, but I am saying stand for the freedom in your kitchen.
[00:36:24] Yes. And and I believe that health coaches have so much more to offer. Then people realize, so there is a bigger vision to this. Yes. And that is to help more consumers become more empowered so that we can stop the insanity because to feed our kids, chemicals and dyes and trans fat is it's really a, it's a crime against humanity.
[00:36:52] That we've all been perpetrating and it's time for all of us to become awakened and empowered [00:37:00] and create a, a new movement, a movement of real.
[00:37:05] Julie Michelson: I love that, which will bring a movement of health and its wake. And so as, as you know, as a health coach, you know, as people learn how to implement how to eat real food that, that is not only does that give them their, their health back, but they, whether they realize it or not, they are becoming people that are taking the stand.
[00:37:26] To change that broken food system, just like the broken medical system. So I love it. So I know you're, you're gifting our audience, your ebook from confusion to clarity and the links will be in the show notes and any one. Small steps. So I know you've got lots of steps. We, you and I, both lots of ideas, lots of steps, but I'd love for you to give our audience and it can be, you know, from any range of things.
[00:37:58] But if there's, [00:38:00] if they could take one small doable step today to start to improve their health, what would you have them do?
[00:38:09] Lisa Jendza: Well, my mind goes to. If there's a child in your life. The one small step would be to include them in the kitchen to start empowering them so that they can be personally responsible for themselves.
[00:38:26] Julie Michelson: I love that. And nobody else is going to say that you guys can listen to tons of episodes. So Lisa, you are a jam. I, you know, I so value what you are doing in the world and, and the way that you do have this big vision and are working in so many different area. To to support really not even just our country, our world with its food supply and the way we can take responsibility for our own health.
[00:38:55] So I'm so grateful you joined us today. I know you gave our listeners a [00:39:00] lot of value.
[00:39:01] Lisa Jendza: Thank you so much, Julie. It was really my pleasure.
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Lisa Jendza
Healthy Eating
Freedom Kitchen transcends time and space to offer cooking classes and education to those who value food and health. It is a place for health enthusiasts to gather.
Lisa has owned a Wellness Spa, co-founded a Commercial Kitchen, Cooking School, and is a business coach and health coach. Freedom Kitchen is a place to gather, to nourish and to love. A professional community for health enthusiasts to collaborate and leave a the world a better place.