Tara Carpenter, NC.
Nutrition Consultant specialized in helping people regain natural gut microbiome after yeast, bacterial, and viral infections.
I had a natural upbringing in Tennessee as the middle child of 5. Our mom made all our meals, gardened, kept chickens, ran a ragamuffin consignment, and family day care. When I was 3, we moved to Washington D.C. for my father to work at National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting and my mother to train (in Texas/Italy) to be an AMI-Montessori Teacher. I was 10 when we moved to a seaside town south of Boston for my father to be an Architectural Software Database Engineer and my mother to open Harborside Montessori School. Us kids attended a farm school and many summers we spent living with an Amish family.
My childhood revolved around chores, friends, and food. When I was 11, I opened Fat Mama’s to invite neighbors to dine with a rotating, seasonal menu. A year later, I made a cookbook for parents with kids with allergies. I drove hours with my mother (photo below) to source organic food filling up two grocery carts at Walnut Acres in Pennsylvania for ourselves and others in our town. This was 1980’s and quality food hard to find. A farmer delivered to us gently pasteurized milk from his pastured cows.
In 1993, I studied Early Childhood Education in Boston where I drank beer, ate pizza, and partied well into my 2nd year when I got a job at a Whole Foods Market and met others also interested in natural food, wheatgrass shots, fasting, and doing colonics in tiny dorm bathrooms. Around this time I switched majors to better construct my studies around centuries-old, traditional home remedies designed to eliminate symptoms of disease and strengthen body to be a self-healing organism. In 1998, I graduated with a thesis titled milk pasteurization and the allergic response.
My 3rd year of college was spent abroad at University of Tasmania where I met my closest friend to the day, Kirsten, who was older then me and lived off campus; She invited me for supper one night and when I walked in her home the smell of bread baking, garlic hanging from wooden rafters, and a soup simmering on the stove brought me back to the familiar, natural way of living and eating I had grown up with. Shortly after, I canoed up the Murray River to sit in silence for a 10-day Vipassana Meditation.
On the day of college graduation, I drove cross-country to Chico, California to apprentice with master medicinal cook, Cornelia Aihara; a smart as a whip woman who ran a healing retreat for the sickest of people to heal. She ran a working kitchen with a root cellar full of sauerkraut, pressed pickles, miso, and tamari drippings. We harvested green umeboshi plums and transformed them with shiso leaf and sea salt to a bright pink ume vinegar that was used regularly for cooking. People did get better, often leaving the center without the walker or wheelchair they came with.
I loved to wake early to snap peas with this teacher to pick her brain with every question under the sun until she tsked me away, saying with a smile “be quiet more, listen more, eat more burdock-kinpira”. She was direct and to the point. With her, I chanted, scrubbed my body head to toe, walked barefoot in dew, administered ginger compresses to people with advanced stages of cancer, and prepared food with healing principles applied to the unique constitution/condition(s) of each person I cooked for.
After my apprenticeship, I moved to Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California to bake bread and make yogurt, granola, and sugar-free desserts for a lively community of 250 people. Perched high on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific ocean, I also had the honor to train to be a massage practitioner, deepen my Hatha yoga practice, dance The 5 Rhythms with Gabrielle Roth, and cook (and chant) at Tassajara Zen Monastery.
In 2001, I moved to Floyd, Virginia to homestead and build a home in a community with gardens and goats. Here I became pregnant for the first time which within days my bubble was burst to sail through because I discovered that I am in the 1% of women with hyperemesis gravidarum, a rare prenatal condition that had me in bed for 12 weeks with my first child, 15 weeks with my second child (miscarriage), and 40 weeks with my third and last child who was by far my toughest yet easier because Miriam Erick, a dietitian serving the high-risk antenatal unit at Boston’s Brigham & Women’s Hospital was caring for me.
When my first child started on solid food he became sick with chronic diarrhea and vomiting. This went on for over a year. He lost weight and became dehydrated to the point where his bodily functions regressed to that of a 2 month old. On his second birthday, I admitted him to Intensive Care for further testing and for him to receive his food through a tube. They sent me home a week later with the order to “avoid most gluten” as he showed signs of having borderline Celiac Disease. I removed gluten and top allergens and watched him bloom before my eyes in a very short amount of time. This experience showed me how food can harm and heal.
Since 1996, I have been a Personal Therapeutic Chef preparing healing medicinal meals in home kitchens from the hills of Hollywood to the valley of Vermont where I now live. Though I no longer offer a chef service, I do meet with clients remotely worldwide as a Nutrition Consultant to help people heal digestion and regain natural microbiome after yeast, bacterial, and viral infections. To schedule a consultation or complimentary call, please email tara@happybellies.
May all bellies be happy!
