My Projects & Journey
My story begins with our family. In 2003, my father-in-law, Roy, was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. At the time, we didn’t realize how much this was going to impact all of our lives. We thought we could outsource treatment to the medical profession and move on.
How wrong we were...
For the next five years, Roys days were spent in bed, and his nights were often filled with sweaty panic attacks, the anticipated side effects of his medications. The vicious cycle continued as Roy was on two to three medications for his condition and another two to three medications to curb the side effects. He had gained more than 55 pounds and was increasingly lethargic.
Not one medical professional suggested he change his diet or eating habits, or recommended different ways to handle stress. Their advice: take the pills, and we’ll see how it goes. Not surprisingly, Roy’s health began to deteriorate further. He continued to consult with his doctors, who prescribed more and more medications. The more medications he took, the worse he became...
James and I knew we had to intervene. But every attempt to help was met with keen resistance. “These doctors have spent their entire lives training to help me. What makes you think you can do better?” As Roy’s health and spirit spiraled, James and I continued to look for answers.
I grabbed every book we could find and started researching. I soon learned that healthy food could be used to heal. I also discovered that healthcare, food, and agricultural industries were not particularly concerned about our health. They were primarily interested in profits. For example, I learned that the processing of many of our basic foods was not for any health or nutritional benefit. Instead, it was introduced as a way to increase the shelf life and marketability of the industries’ products.
I couldn’t believe what we uncovered. The new discoveries convinced James and I to formalize our knowledge through the Global College of Natural Medicine’s Nutritional Consultant program. After completing our studies, I felt even more confident that we could help Roy. We started sending him some of the books we had been studying. Unfortunately, getting him motivated to read three hundred pages on natural healing remedies was like trying to make water flow uphill.
We needed a better way.
The Power of Nutrition needed to be Unlocked.
Food Matters: You Are What You Eat
This is how James and I came up with Food Matters. If we couldn’t get my father-in-law to read about nutrition and natural health, we figured we could probably convince him to watch a film on the subject. I had researched many of the films that existed on the topic. Although many were good and some were excellent, I wasn’t convinced that any of these films would win over my father-in-law. Let’s face it, the alternative health industry has a bit of a bad reputation.
When most people picture a natural therapist, they envision a man or a woman in sweatpants or a dashiki spinning crystals in his or her backyard. They certainly don’t picture a doctor who can help them get better. And Roy was no different. I knew he needed to see natural health in a new light. So James and I decided to make a film that would restore the image of the wonderful men and women who, through their life-changing work, live up to Hippocrates’s famous saying, “Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food.”
We invested our life’s savings into making Food Matters. We bought some film equipment and traveled around the world—from Holland, my home country, and England to the East and West Coasts of the United States, and then Australia—to interview all of the doctors, nutritionists, scientists, and wellness experts we had been studying throughout Roy’s illness.
After our second month of filming, we brought the raw footage to Roy, telling him we weren’t leaving until he got well. We were on a mission, and no one could stop us—not even Roy or his team of doctors. As a family, we watched the unedited interviews. Before long, Roy was hooked. What stood out, he told us later, was the story about one of his many medications and how it often caused suicidal thoughts. This was Roy’s worst fear. He couldn’t believe the pharmaceutical and medical industries would knowingly produce and sell a product that could potentially cause people to physically harm themselves.
Not only was modern medicine’s better-living-through-chemistry approach not helping, it was making him worse. Almost immediately, he went from believing in the medical profession to believing in the age-old adage;
“You are what you eat.”
From Six Meds A Day to Zero Overnight
Together, James and I conducted what we like to call a “fridge audit.” I threw out any food that wasn’t real. This included all of the diet products, all of the processed foods and fats, and all of the factory-farmed meat and dairy. I then guided Roy through a detoxification program, adding in more and more healthy foods to his diet. At the same time, we helped wean him off his medications by putting him on a special—and closely monitored—natural supplement regimen.
Roy agreed to our help against the wishes of his team of doctors. They tried to scare him and pushed for more medications. When he told them he wanted to stop, the doctors responded with horror stories about what would happen if he did, including all of the potential symptoms associated with withdrawal.
Within a few months, Roy was back to his old self. Maybe even better. He was out of bed, moving freely and energetically around the house. He lost weight and was no longer anxious or depressed. He slept through the night and woke up each morning refreshed and ready for the day. He even started jogging again, something he hadn’t done in years. He was renewed. A simple commitment to natural foods freed him from the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome that had trapped him for over five years. It was amazing to watch.
James and I knew we had to show our documentary to as many people as possible and explain where the food, agricultural, and pharmaceutical industries have gone wrong.
Since its release in May 2008, Food Matters has been seen by millions of people online, in theaters, on television, on airlines, and even in hospitals and community centers around the world, from Connecticut to Cambodia, in nine different languages. Which is amazing!
But I didn’t want to just leave people with information, I wanted to give them practical ways to apply what they had learned. It started with a simple 3 day detox program, which over the years led to creating 20 different guided programs which are all geared toward different aspects of health and wellness.
Hungry for Change: Your Health Is in Your Hands
What struck me most about Roy’s recovery was the reaction from his friends and family. At family gatherings and events, the first thing they would say to Roy was “Wow, you look amazing! Your skin is vibrant, you’ve lost so much weight, and you even look younger! What have you been doing?” They had little interest in hearing about how he kicked his medications and conquered his illness. They only cared about his physical appearance and how they too could lose weight, improve their appearance, and regain more energy. At this point I knew that we had another film on our hands and that it had the potential to reach an even wider audience.
I discovered there were so many people who have tried—and failed—to lose weight through the latest fad diets or weight-loss products. All too many people, we realized, deal with excess weight, bloating, acid reflux, skin irritations, food cravings, emotional eating, high blood pressure, and an addiction to processed and sugary foods.
All of these are signs that the body is out of balance. Many turn to diets and diet products and become slaves to an endless cycle: what we call the diet trap. But the good news is that a total health transformation is possible through a natural diet of fresh, delicious, and wonderful foods packed with life-sustaining nutrients.
Hungry for Change is dedicated to helping people escape the diet trap. The food industry has led us to believe that its products are going to make us healthy, happy, sexy, and young. These promises are as empty as the food and drinks they’re trying to sell us. The truth is we’ve never been fatter or in worse health. Hungry for Change reveals the diet, weight-loss, and food industries’ deceptive and manipulating strategies that keep us coming back for more, even when we know we shouldn’t.
James and I wanted to show people that the only way to achieve the body and health we all want and deserve is through a natural diet. But we couldn’t do this on our own. Just as we did for Food Matters, we enlisted the help of the world’s leading natural health and medical experts, and men and women who discovered lasting weight loss, abundant energy, and vibrant health after years of being sick and overweight. Their stories prove that it’s possible to break free from years of bad eating habits and start on a journey to better health.
The Ultimate Health-Film Library of Over 1000 Health & Wellness Documentaries At Your Fingertips!
Over the years of sharing our health & wellness knowledge with the world, there was one request that kept coming up in our community, “I want to watch all the films you stock online!” It took our team back to the boardroom and we thought about how we could give the world what they wanted and needed.
After living in the U.S., it was evident that online streaming TV is the way of the future, and one day DVD’s will be relics. So, why not create Netflix for health and wellness! In March 2014, after over a year of building and sourcing, we created FMTV, an online subscription channel that offered a growing library of over 1000 health & wellness documentaries, expert interviews, recipe videos, and more. The ultimate health-film library to be inspired anytime, anywhere.
TRANSCENDENCE - Live Life Beyond the Ordinary
As James and I continued to grow the library of content on FMTV, we also continued to learn about the many facets of wellness, and we began to realize the enormity of it all. In our first two films, we had mostly focused on food and the nutritional side of health. But we soon realized that was only one aspect - after all, if you’re eating all the right nutrients, but your body is constantly in the ‘fight or flight’ mode, you’ll never actually absorb those nutrients in an optimal way.
So we began to brainstorm different ideas, but it wasn’t until January 2016, after spending time at a silent ashram, James arrived home to an email that stood out like none other. It was from Jelena Djokovic, wife of world tennis champion Novak Djokovic. Inside was a special invitation to attend an upcoming tennis match and meet Novak in person. We were on a plane the next morning and after meeting them both, it turned out that Novak and Jelena were huge fans of our documentaries, Food Matters & Hungry for Change, and FMTV.
We chatted all things health and wellness and Novak shared his personal journey to abundant health, which quickly led to the idea of making another documentary to share with the world.
Soon, James and I embarked on the journey of capturing world leaders, exceptional athletes, nutritional doctors, and high achievers to find out what it was exactly that contributed to their ability to do the things they do and how everyday people can too. We traveled to Spain, America, the United Kingdom, and we managed to pick up some interviews in our home country, Australia.
What we uncovered through this journey was so profound we had to make it a series, not just one film, in order to properly cover all the groundbreaking information we uncovered.
TRANSCENDENCE - Live Life Beyond the Ordinary, a 5-part docu-series, features the world’s most recognized doctors, high-performance athletes, thought leaders, and everyday people who are living a life on purpose through the power of food, mindset, and self-discovery. From personal stories and experiences of those who have been in the darkest trenches, have healed their trauma, and recovered from great adversity to transcend the limitations in their own lives through practical and approachable tools, to now be able to shine light on others to help them step into their calling, follow passions, and live the life of their dreams.
In late 2019, we announced the next stage in our journey. FMTV became one with Gaia, to create the largest conscious streaming network in the world. By the coming-together of two communities, we are able to share the message of holistic health and collective consciousness for a more beautiful planet.
The wonderful thing about this journey is that it’s never-ending. There are bountiful opportunities to share this way of being. A vision of mine is to create a space where people can come to heal, to rejuvenate, and to transcend the bounds of a normal life. There’s no better space to do this than our beautiful, tropical island home of Vanuatu - the happiest nation in the world.
I envisage these retreats as a restorative, transformational journey to find inner stillness. If you are interested, please contact retreats@foodmatters.com to receive more information as it comes to light.
I look forward to bringing you more knowledge, more enlightenment, and more opportunities to evolve into your best version of self.