About Me

I haven't always been a proponent of healthy eating, to say the least. I've always loved to cook, and eat, but I was more the Julia Child's "there's never too much butter" or the Emeril Lagasse "Pork fat rules!" type of cook, anything for rich flavor went. I grew up eating great tasting but extremely fatty, salty and generally unhealthy southern cooking, so both of those cooking philosophies fit right in with my eating history. In 1989 I took informal cooking lessons from a friend and graduate of Le Cordon Bleu in Paris which had a lasting affect on my cooking as far as knowledge, technique and flavor blends and introduced me to 'proper cooking', albeit still unhealthy cooking.

In March of 2011, I had a life-altering event when I had quadruple bypass surgery to repair a damaged heart that was the result of not eating healthy, among a variety of other bad influences, for most of my life. Everything about how I approached food, cooking and eating changed!

As a survivor of near death, one of the secrets that I've learned to eating right is that you must learn to listen to your body and react not only to health in general but how your body reacts to food. Another is that God looks after fools. When I went to the emergency room that day, the doctors said that I would have had a ‘major event’ within a couple of weeks that probably would have killed me. God was surely watching over me...as he has all my life as it turns out. I only wish that I had paid attention to Him and my body, but that’s human nature.We live life based on comfort and pleasure and usually don’t change until we are standing at the precipice of disaster…and then it’s only because we have no alternative. The rest of life is just one rationalization after another. We keep repeating the same thing because we've conditioned ourselves to it. We all deserve to live a happy and healthy life, yes, but all that we've been told and taught about how food fits into the scheme of things isn't exactly true. In order to be healthy, really healthy, we must break the conditioning and old eating habits and welcome in change to healthier eating habits.

Hopefully, you will read this blog because you are looking for a change that is truly healthy and proven to work, a form of eating that you can live with the rest of your life. The first thing you should know is this, unlike the (insert popular or current diet name here) or any other fad diet that either doesn’t work or is impossible to continue for the rest of your life, this blog represents a diet and way of life that has been proven not only by the population of an entire world region but is the only diet recommended by leading cardiologists today. As such, the approach is Mediterranean in origin but the overall idea is to show that food that is healthy; with reduced fat and salt, can still be very exciting and flavorful. First, you need to learn to eat foods as fresh as possible, and stay away from all processed foods as much as possible!

I'm not preaching here, well maybe I am :), but I was once the polar opposite of what is represented here. I ate the wrong foods, was sick physically and spiritually, a smoker for 35 years, a drinker and drug-abuser for 20 years...all of it. It was only after suffering the extreme physical consequence that I made this permanent change in my life. At the heart (yes, pun intended) of this change was my radical salvation through Jesus Christ.  No matter how healthy, happy or content you are, it is only through Jesus Christ that you will obtain perfect peace in your life.

Now, I invite you to cook, worship God and eat with me and let's make ourselves healthier through prayer and cooking healthy food that tastes great! Join me won't you?

If you have any comments or questions, just email me at mark@firstlovemissions.com and be sure to visit my ministry webpage at First Love Missions

God bless you!