Joanne Anderson is a homeopath and nutrition advisor. She helps people turbo charge their healthy eating habits. Joanne was introduced to the power of food as medicine growing up on a farm in New Zealand.
She also turned to food to treat her daughter when she developed a life-threatening illness.
Joanne uses her 30 years of experience in homeopathic remedies and nutrition to help others.
I met her at a local supermarket where she meets her clients to help them make better food choices. She shared her incredible story of how she brought her family back to life by making more informed decisions.
Meeting Joanne at Sainsbury’s supermarket one weekend afternoon. She coaches her clients on healthy eating and their weekly food shopping habits.
Hi Joanne, and thanks for meeting me. To begin with, what is homeopathy for those who may not be familiar with the term?
Homeopathy is an alternative approach to medicine that uses natural substances to restore health.
Typically, a small amount of plant, animal or mineral tissue is used to help balance the body.
The beauty of homeopathics is it’s gentle. It can’t cause harm and works to stimulate your body to heal itself, which is your body’s natural and preferred way of working.
The benefit of homeopathy is its diagnosed holistically, based on your current and past as well as emotional and physical state. It’s personalised, so there’s no one size fits all. The focus is on finding the root cause and not just putting a band-aid over your symptoms.
You can also treat animals with homeopathic remedies.
How did you get into homeopathy and nutrition?
I always knew about homeopathy from childhood as a way to manage illness.
I grew up on a goat farm and saw my dad treat the animals using homeopathics. He also used it to treat my seven siblings and me, as we lived two hours from the nearest medical facility.
I have five children, and use this approach on them too.
Over the years, I’ve grown more wary of antibiotics and drugs, which change our body’s chemical balance. I focus on prevention as a first line of defence.
Joanne grew up eating food from the farm she lived on. To her, eating healthy is eating locally sourced fruits and vegetables.
When did you get into the healthy eating side of things?
I focused more on nutrition when my eldest daughter was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 15.
She became seriously ill, lost half her body weight and couldn’t walk anymore. She was in constant pain and came close to dying.
The doctors kept increasing her dosage to stronger chemotherapy and experimental drugs every three months. But these had side effects just as bad as her rheumatoid arthritis.
By the time she was 18, she didn’t want to take these medicines anymore and told us she’d rather die.
What we went through as a family was every parent’s worst nightmare. I knew we had to try something different.
Her body couldn’t process food anymore, so with my second daughter, who will qualify as a doctor this year, we did some research and came across a leaky gut.
It’s a condition where bacteria and toxins pass through your intestine into your bloodstream. With an imbalanced gut, your immune system can’t work properly. You then have to restore the balance between the bacteria which is harmful and helpful to you.
We spent 18 months finding out what my sick daughter should and shouldn’t eat to regain that balance. It was trial and error of spending hours in supermarkets reading the back of the packets until we settled on a simple organic diet. After being on a very clean diet for six months, she started to get well again.
She’s now 25 and lives a full life with no daily medicines. She only experiences her symptoms of arthritis when her stress levels are high, or she’s had a poor diet over several weeks.
I’ve seen with my own eyes how people can heal themselves even when close to death. I’ve since been sold on nutrition as medicine.
Did that experience leave you feeling let down by medical help?
I’m not against doctors and medicines. I believe they do their best and have the welfare of their patients at heart. But doctors are over-worked and under-resourced. As a result, they can struggle with the burden and risk put on them.
They receive very little nutrition training. Their medical training is based on diagnosing symptoms and prescribing allopathic medicines (drugs, radiation or surgery). They work in a fragmented way and have restricted time with patients.
I’m a big fan of functional medicine, which focuses on identifying and addressing the root cause of a disease. I hope this is the route my second daughter takes as a doctor. She chose to go into the profession because of what she saw her older sister go through.
I also believe that people must take responsibility for healing themselves by considering all the contributing factors to their illness, including diet.
Joanne firmly believes in eating organic for a nutrient-dense and quality diet.
I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you and your family. Now that you’re using your experience to help others, what are the most common conditions you treat?
It can be a relief for people to have a name for what’s bothering them, but diseases are just inflammation of the body.
Once that’s unravelled, most conditions can be relieved or healed.
I deal with physical issues relating to the functioning of the digestive system: diabetes, metabolic syndrome, fatty liver, gout, auto-immune disorders, allergic and skin disorders, Alzheimer’s, menopause issues and endocrine problems (hormonal imbalances), to name a few.
I also help with emotional traumas such as adverse childhood experiences, post-traumatic stress syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorders.
Many physical illnesses have an emotional link that isn’t always taken into account. It should be looked at holistically by shifting stuck emotional energies. We can bring our body back to homeostasis or balance by addressing these.
As a practitioner, my job is to signpost people to where to begin treatment to heal themselves.
People often think healthy eating means having to spend more. Is that always the case?
Good quality organic food can be bought at local farmers’ markets and supermarkets in the UK for reasonable prices. It’s better priced here compared to other countries like New Zealand.
Having nutrient-dense food that isn’t loaded with chemicals and antibiotics is better for our gut microbiome. These are the microbes in our intestines that are crucial to our health.
Eating poor-quality food costs more in the long run because you need more to satisfy you. You get cravings, so you eat more as your cells don’t get what they need to produce energy. The added cost is getting sick.
This costs you your wages, time spent going to the doctors, feeling unhealthy, and your quality of life.
Healthy eating can be more expensive in the short term, but in the long run, it costs you more in other ways.
Joanne advises us, like she does her clients, to always check the ingredients before buying food products. If it has more than six ingredients, it’s probably pumped full of things that aren’t good for us, she warns us.
On your website, you talk about good freedom and freedom of choice. What do you mean by that?
By that, I mean you can’t perform at your best and to your full potential without a healthy body, clear mind and cleansed soul.
We need to heal ourselves both physically and emotionally.
I experienced a loss of freedom when I was in a 20-year abusive relationship.
Healing from that allowed me to understand how precious it is to have access to information and know your options for a better quality of life.
I also believe what may have contributed to my daughter’s illness was the trauma of witnessing the domestic abuse I went through.
Our trauma can manifest itself both emotionally and physically. Food can become a crutch through emotional eating, withholding food, or not making informed choices.
We have to celebrate and help people by looking at all areas that could be making us sick, as we all deserve to live a full life. Freedom comes from having knowledge.
When you meet clients in the supermarket to help them with their food choices, what’s your advice on things to get and avoid?
My advice for better healthy eating is:
Stick to food that’s in its original form – go for in-season vegetables and eggs, dairy and grass-fed meat that are organic. Also aim for sourdough over other types of bread and single-source coffee.
Check the back of the packets – put it down if it has more than six ingredients and you see preservatives such as sulphites, malitol, sucralose, carrageenan or strange-sounding additives. Make it yourself or find a better-quality product.
Don’t be afraid of meat – it’s the most nutrient-dense food you can put in your body. Focus every meal around protein.
Check for added sugars and avoid those – even dried fruit will have it.
Don’t use vegetable oils (except avocado oil) – oils can be poisonous under heat. Stick to organic coconut oil or extra virgin olive oil. These are good sources of fat. Don’t be afraid of fats either, as many of our body’s systems and organs, including our brain, need good fats to function.
Avoid packaged cereals and grains – these are inflammatory and long-term consumption leads to osteoporosis and low thyroid function, especially for women. Go instead for organic oats, millet or buckwheat.
Avoid ready-made sauces, vinaigrettes and gravies – these contain additives, colouring and preservatives. Make your own.
Use Himalayan pink salt or rock/sea salt – good quality salt is a good mineral for your body. But avoid iodised salt.
Buy personal care and makeup that have ingredients you recognise – as what you put on your skin absorbs into your bloodstream.
You can’t go wrong with a simple diet. Your taste buds will change, and you’ll have a better appreciation of food. You’ll feel healthier and stronger.
Despite going through some very difficult and dark times, Joanne is all smiles and radiates positive energy. She’s passionate about helping others live a full and healthy life.
You provide your clients with various health tests. Tell us about these and what they do?
The hair, tissue and mineral analysis (HTMA) is the most accurate way to measure your overall health.
It costs £50 and is a good starting point for chronic conditions that need unravelling or for those who want to achieve better health.
It shows you where your mineral imbalances are, how the body is detoxifying and measures your adrenal, blood sugars, thyroid and vitality ratios. It’s a non-invasive test that takes a hair sample.
The HTMA is an indication of your health as your hair holds minerals for the past three months.
It’s much better than a blood test which is only a snapshot of a few mineral levels for that particular day. Many people are told they have ‘normal’ blood test results when they have abnormal thyroid action or metabolic syndromes.
The Gastrointestinal Microbial Assay Plus (GI Map) is a test for more persistent and disruptive problems. It’s fairly costly at £300. However, it can be worth it to see what’s causing you problems.
The test determines what microbes are in your body and in what quantities.
It reveals the presence of parasites, opportunistic bacteria and microbiome imbalances. It eliminates any guesswork when dealing with gut problems.
If you’ve been suffering for a while, this test can give you the answers you need.
These tests are the best places to start for any chronic condition.
Today has been super informative, Joanne. Thank you for sharing your story and journey. Any final tips you want to leave us with?
- Drink plenty of filtered water every day.
- Track your eating patterns and intake until you understand how your body works and what’s actually going into it. This keeps you accountable, teaches consistency, and helps you make better choices.
- Practice time-restricted eating to give your body a break. Your body needs time to digest and repair.
- Sit down for your meals and eat mindfully. Digestion begins before you put anything into your mouth. Chew slowly and thoroughly.
- Value yourself and eat the highest quality food you can manage. It’s an investment in your future.
Realise food is medicine. It can heal or destroy you. Desire the best for yourself and those you care about. Make it a priority.
You can learn more about Joanne and how she helps clients with healthy eating habits on her website Revita Life Health.
This is a really inspiring and motivating read. I value how Joanne encourages readers the process of how to select healthy food rather than give prescribed lists along with simple suggestions of tips that are realistic and manageable!
Thanks for reading and for your feedback Sangy. Indeed Joanne’s tips are something to inspire and motivate us all