Ep 22 Dr. Elizabeth Yarnell – Food Sensitivities and Glorious One-Pot Meals

Meet Dr. Elizabeth

Show Notes:

ABOUT 

• I am board certified naturopathic doctor
• My whole journey began in 1999 when I went to sleep one night and woke up the next morning blind in my right eye
• I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis
• And here I was 2 weeks before my 30^th  birthday and what I was learning about MS is that, 80% of MS patients have significant mobility issues
• So, I had a perspective that by the time I turned 40, I was going to be on a wheelchair?
• I didn’t want to sit around and wait for it to happen to me, so that’s when I really dove into natural health
• I tried the drugs for a while and they made me really sick and I had hives all over my body for 3 years
• But my new husband at the time, was a competitive athlete
• He really said to me that my diet was crap
• Maybe it was not such a surprise that my body started to fail on me
• I started researching what we eat and how we feel as a result
• What I gathered in all the research that I did, was whole foods were better for you than processed foods
• The problem was, I really didn’t know how to cook and I didn’t really know what a healthy diet looked like
• So, I started taking cooking classes and watching the food network
• What I quickly learned was that, if you want to have a whole food-based diet, you are going to spend a lot of time in the kitchen
• I didn’t really have a lot of energy to spend on this
• One night, my husband and I were watching an infomercial on T.V. and the guy was like, “look I can make your whole meal in this”
• And I thought it was brilliant and wanted to make my whole meal in one pot, but I didn’t have that kind of an appliance
• I went into my kitchen and went over to my oven and I loaded up some fish fillets, herbs and vegetable and put it into the oven
• About half an hour later, it started to smell like dinner
• That just became the way we cooked
• My college roommate came over and she told me to teach her to cook, the way I cooked
• She told me that the way I cook is so quick, easy, light and delicious
• Finally, after 5 years, I either had to do something or abandoned the whole effort
• I had a bunch of people who wanted a cookbook, but nobody would publish it
• I decided to go ahead and self-publish which turned out to be the best decision I ever made
• After a year, I sold 15 thousand copies
• They republished it in 2009 and now, that cookbook called Glorious One-Pot meals has sold 60 thousand copies and is still selling
• In 2019, it will mark the 10-year anniversary
• If all you do in your life to make a change is to focus on eating more whole foods than processed food, then your health will improve
• But it wasn’t the whole story, I realized this because my son, who was born during this time, was really sick from birth
• He was vomiting 20 time a week until he was 6 1/2
• He had terrible constipation. He could not sleep at night because his stomach was burning all the time
• Finally, I took him to a naturopath and that was the first time that I thought that inflammation could be the root cause of problems that weren’t visible
• What I have learned since then is inflammation is the root cause of all symptoms
• So, we find this blood test and it is a food sensitivity test
• We did this MRT test, and my son’s test came back
• 1/3 of the items that we tested were inflammatory for him
• All the things that we thought were healthy, were not healthy for him
• Once we pulled them out of his diet, it was amazing
• I realized that when I completed my studies and became a naturopathic doctor, what I really wanted to do was to focus on helping other people reduce inflammation in their body
• Now, I run a nationwide food sensitivity clinic
• MRT is a Mediator Release Test
• What I do with my clients is we work over the phone, they purchase the testing kit from me, I will mail out the kit and I will help you find a Phlebotomists in your area
• And I will give you the FedEx prepaid mailer, it will arrive in the lab here in Florida and 2 weeks later, we both get the results
• Our first conversation is a 2-hour long phone call where we review all the result
• Instead of sending you away with your results, we look for the very least inflammatory foods
• My goal is to make this a sustainable way to live
• What the MRT test does is it looks in the blood stream, and so we are going to the root cause of the inflammation
• From my research and my work, nothing can heal in the presence of inflammation
• We remove the inflammatory triggers so that the body can heal itself
• There’s all of these things that I can see through the urine, that I can’t see from the blood
• The third I do is an herbal parasite cleanse
• I believe that hidden parasitic infections are often the root cause of chronic inflammatory issues
• Food sensitivities do change and I rarely retest
• But I retested my son 
• What we found is, out of the 41 foods that turned out reactive on his food test, now there are only 17
• And out of those 17, 1/3 of them are similar
• I was always interested in helping people and both of my parents are doctor, but I was not attracted to medical school and pharmaceuticals
• It was really my diagnosis that got me into that
• I am not a medical doctor
• I focus on healing through herbs and homeopathy and dietary interventions
• I don’t do anything with surgical and pharmaceuticals
• I don’t think MS is unique in autoimmune disease
• I really think the difference is how they are manifesting
• The first 5 years, I really just focused on eating whole foods
• When I simply cleaned out my diet, that made a big difference for me
• When I got off of the MS drug, the hives went away
• What I have found is that I can intentionally trigger MS by eating the foods that I should not and I can also recover very quickly by avoiding and going back to my clean eating practice
• I did another trigger for myself with eating lettuce – any kind of lettuce, but not arugula, kale and spinach and avocado are on my list
• The last time I ate an avocado, I had another issue
• Mushrooms, wheat, cow’s milk are on my list and many more
• I started studying natural health after my diagnosis
• Because I did not want to accept the fact that I was going to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair
• To suffer like that is really frustrating
• I started studying natural health and courses
• When I wrote my cookbook, I really needed some credentials for this
• So, that’s when I started studying and began with getting my certified nutritional consultant certification
• And then, I went on from there to become a naturopath
• When I found out about the MRT, I realized that I did want to practice as a traditional naturopath
• You need to be a little bit motivated to go through a dietary change
• If you have the money and you want to do it for your long-time health, longevity and really clarity of mind and mental thinking, there’s no reason why you can’t do the MRT test
• My son is now 16 years old, so it is harder to control him
• And sometimes, he goes out of his way to eat something that I don’t want him to eat and then he’ll pay for it
• He’ll have a migraine, he’ll vomit or have a vertigo
• But most of the time, he is good
• There’s even a lot that he can eat with his friends now that he can tolerate now
• His biggest hazard is soy
• I have a talk on my website that you can access called Poisons in our Everyday Foods
• I received my license at Trinity School of Natural Health that is based in Indianapolis
• I started studying in 2005, I got my degree in 2011 and passed my boards in 2013

WHERE CAN PEOPLE FIND YOU

• Website: elizabethyarnell.com
• Cookbook: Glorious One-Pot Meals available on Amazon and on the website
• Twitter: Elizabeth Yarnell
• I am working on a new book about inflammation
• I am about to launch a podcast in 2019

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