My Story
Meet Mariélli Pahim
Certified nutritionist, specialised in traditional and nutrient-dense diets. Her goal is to guide people to free themselves from the confusion of the modern world, helping them discover better solutions for healthy and sustainable eating.
1. Unlearning at the University
I was always very interested in health food and wanted to know more about it. So in 2007, I decided to study nutrition at the University in São Paulo, Brazil, where I was born.
It was 4 long years of frustration! For me, at the academy (at least where I studied, a place considered to be the best university of nutrition in São Paulo), they were not teaching "real nutrition". They were just talking about industrialised food and worrying too much about counting calories. There was a big lack of information about nutrient density and quality food.
So I decided to travel to understand more about myself and discover my real passion (because at that moment, I thought nutrition was not for me!).
2. Learning Around the World
I embarked on a journey with my husband 11 years ago searching for a more healthy and sustainable way of living and we ended up living with David Holmgren (co-founder of permaculture) in Australia. He and his wife were really living from the land and eating mostly what they were cultivating and raising. This was the beginning of a awareness and life changing for us!
We continued our travels searching for more people living from the land and we had the chance to live for 2 months with a traditional community in Tonga, an island in the Pacific Ocean. They were still fishing, hunting, cultivating some root crops and fruits and raising some pigs and chickens. We were vegetarians on that time, and eating the traditional diet with them it was not easy for us. The basis of their diet was animal food. I remembered one day for breakfast, they were frying cassava in lard and I was so scared to eat this "unhealthy food". But fortunately, things started to change in our mind and we started to understand that meat and all animal products were not unhealthy, unsustainable and unnatural. The meat they were eating was not coming from the industrialised world of corporate farms. They were eating meat, but not destroying the environment. On the contrary, they were regeneratively raising animals (improving soil structure and content). They were hunting and fishing in a very small family scale. They understood the cycle of nature. And actually, for me, those people were the most sustainable and healthy people we ever met!
I believe that when you really want something, somehow, the right thing or the right person comes to you. Just after this amazing experience with the Tongans, while we were staying with a beekeeper, the book "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" from Weston A. Price came into my hands. Price was a dentist that in 1930 travelled around the world studying isolated indigenous cultures proving that traditional, non industrialised diets are the secret for optimal health, vitality and no chronic diseases.
It was mind blowing! Everything we experienced with the Tongans made so much sense for us. So we tried to find more of those people that were still living from the land and had minimum contact with our modern world. We visited some communities in Fiji, traditional rice farmers in Thailand and Indonesia, traditional farmers in India, isolated shepherds in Turkey, Romania and Norway. And indeed, animal food was very sacred for those people (even in India!). But not just that. They all have the same principles: 1. Eating just natural, wholefoods; 2. Animal food was always present; 3. Emphasize nutrient–dense foods (like organs, animal fat, raw dairy, eggs...); 4. Eating fermented foods; 5. Preparing seeds and grains properly; 6. Eating animal fats and not industrialised seed oils; 7. Special diets for pregnant woman and babies, etc.
Understanding more about "real food' brought me back to my real passion: nutrition!
3. Sharing the knowledge
I have participated in some very interesting projects that I really believe! I worked as a farm chef at Ridgedale Farm (a regenerative farm created by Richard Perkins, in Sweden) where we were cooking following all the principles of Weston A. Price in the kitchen. Also I had the chance to work at Green School (a school in Bali that focus in sustainability and help children to discover their passion and become environment activists), where I was the nutritionist consultant at the student village, working together with the cooks and students to create a more health and sustainable (nutrient-dense) menu and daily habits for the students.
We have been in Europe for the last 6 years. When we have the opportunity, we still visit some isolated people living from the land because they have so much to teach and life is a school and we do not want to stop learning. And that's why we are still in movement.
But we feel a big connection with France, where I have been making cheese for the last years, living in the countryside together with my husband who works and is passionate about farm animals, specially cows.
French culture is still very strong. They are very activists with their traditional foods (specially raw milk, cultured butter and raw cheeses). They know those are their ancestral foods and they need them for good health; most of the people still go to farmers market to buy their food and they make sure to get to know and support their local farms/farmers. So we feel that it is a place that goes together with our principles.
My dream is to spread "Real Food" nutrition to as much people as possible because for me every one has the right to know about this knowledge that is being lost and so much misunderstood.
Medical doctors do not learn about "real nutrition". Lacking this essential understanding, physicians often prescribe medications to address conditions that could be more effectively managed with diet. Drugs do not treat the roots of the problems and usually comes with lots of side effects. So I am here to teach you how to improve your health with no drugs, but "real food". I can tell you if something in your diet is causing you problems, and what could be missing from your diet that will help. Let's work together!
Let’s Work Together
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