For Gisele Barber, it took a life-altering event to find her true calling.
At the age of 42, Barber, a single mother, was suffering from irritable bowel syndrome and a host of other digestive ailments. One day in 1998, while watching a Katie Couric segment on “Dateline NBC” about colon cancer and its symptoms, Barber’s jaw dropped.
“I sat there thinking, ‘Oh my goodness. I bet this is what I have.'”
Little did Barber know that this horrific discovery would lead to a new career as a natural foods chef.
Barber went back to her doctor to begin testing that eventually confirmed the disease. Four days later, she had the entire right side of her colon removed.
Barber followed up with chemotherapy sessions that led to a collapsed intestinal tract. The incident led her to believe that her diet had to change for her to beat the symptoms of chemotherapy.
“All my doctor said was, ‘You’re going to be sick,'” Barber said, referring to the chemotherapy treatments. “But nobody told me what to eat. Nobody told me I should be with a nutritionist.”
Barber turned to natural remedies to help ease the difficult days following a chemotherapy session, taking CoQ10 and blue-green algae to boost her immune system and give her more energy. She also changed her diet to include organic foods and alternatives to what she calls “the standard American diet.”
“I also knew that the foods I ate played a major role in making me healthy and making me feel good,” she said, “especially trying to eat and being able to digest my food on a daily basis without any bouts of problems.”
Without a job and still battling her disease, Barber sought to make a difference doing what she does best – cooking. She found Our Daily Bread, an outreach program through St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Sunnyvale that feeds the needy, and she began to volunteer her time making salads. At Our Daily Bread, Barber befriended the organization’s coordinator, Bambi Green.
“I was watching her cook and thought she was very knowledgeable” Barber said of Green.
Green directed Barber to Bauman College, a culinary school.
“She is a dynamic, wonderful person,” Green said of Barber.
Barber started her own business, Personal Cuisines, to focus on teaching clients how to cook and personally shopping at grocery stores for those suffering from cancer, AIDS or diabetes.
“Being a cancer survivor “I knew people could really use this service,” she said. “The ones I want to focus on are the ones with compromised immune systems.”
She incorporates ingredients such as kudzu, a sea vegetable that can be used as a thickener in recipes in place of flour. She also uses stevia, a herb, as a sweetener in recipes that call for sugar for diabetics.
“What I learned through Bauman is that there are alternatives to foods that we can choose and still have the same flavor.”
She believes small steps can lead to big changes.
Barber stresses the importance of presentation as well. “If it doesn’t look good, they’re not going to touch it,” she said.
By cooking with natural foods for her clients, Barber strives for proper digestion, which can be troublesome for cancer patients.
“The most wonderful and rewarding thing is, as they consume all these healthful foods, they notice that they feel better,” she said. “But also, they’re able to digest their foods a lot more soothingly and evenly.”
Barber said there are several meat alternatives, such as tofu and tempeh, a soybean and brown rice patty that can be prepared by steaming or braising.
For Barber, educating others about healthy food choices and cooking for them is part of her daily routine, like the mornings she spends at Our Daily Bread fixing salads for those in need.
For more information, call (408) 245-5426 or logon to www.personalcuisines.com.
