I’m Hannah!
From the outside: I’m a full-time student navigating my 20’s, an avid distance runner, and recipe developer. The invisible: I’m an IBD fighter, eating disorder overcomer, and lover of all things health and wellness!
People are like onions (hopefully that’s how the phrase goes anyways) so I think its only fitting to present myself in true onion form: starting with the outside layers first. I feel like those are the easiest anyways! The cold hard facts if you will.
I’m currently a student at Penn State pursuing my Master’s degree in Food Science with a focus in resistant starch and the human gut microbiome. I have my B.S. in Food Science as well (Class of 2021). Cooking and baking has always been a passion of mine. It wasn’t until I fully recovered from my anorexia diagnosis when I was 15 that I realized how closely food and health are tied together. Battling an eating disorder for 2+ years led to many, many health consequences that standard prescriptions from my doctors weren’t helping. This is about when I started to view food as medicine instead of the enemy. THANK GOODNESS because I really don’t know what I would be doing if I hadn’t gone the Food Science/Nutrition route.
Ever since that very transformative year as a lost 15-year-old *cue “Fifteen” by Taylor Swift*, I’ve spent most of my free time in the kitchen creating feel-good recipes with wholesome, nourishing ingredients and sharing them on Instagram. If I wasn’t in the kitchen, I was on the trails training for my first marathon (which was the best day ever, by the way). Life was good! Then came February 2020…
The ulcerative colitis diagnosis hit me out of nowhere: I could barely leave my bed or apartment for 3 weeks. For a 20 year old college student, this was almost not even a feasible thing to wrap my head around. I was supposed to be young and invincible, right?
The doctors told me it was one of the most severe cases they had seen and proceeded to give me ALL THE MEDS to try to cover up the inflammation. They told me that my diet would have no impact on it, and I believed them at first! They told me I would probably get more debilitating “flares” in the future, since UC is known to be a chronic autoimmune disease.
After diving back into old Nutrition notes from classes, talking to a family friend impacted by IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease), and doing my own research on how I can manage my symptoms, I was convinced otherwise. Soon after, I stumbled across the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. I HATE the word “diet”, but I like to use this term to refer to the lifestyle change specifically developed to help reduce the inflammation that causes the “flares”.
I was still in pain with UC symptoms despite the extremely high doses of medication so I really had nothing to loose when I jumped head-first into the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD, for short). Although there is no full-blown clinical trial on this diet, I’ve read so many encouraging testimonials from people who have been able to achieve long-term remission by adhering to it.
Within 1 week on SCD, my symptoms finally started to change for the better! That was enough to convince me to fully make the lifestyle switch to heal my gut: gone are the days of complex carbs, most dairy, soy, sugars, and grains (staples for runners, right?!). Sure enough, I’ve never had more energy and I feel almost normal again!
With that said, I never thought I would ever start a blog. I’m not really a writer and I’m very far from having my life figured out. BUT I just couldn’t wait any longer to share my favorite SCD-based recipes that gave me my life back. I hope this page inspires and encourages you, and I can’t wait to continue to share my story, fun gut-healthy recipes, connect!
Love, Hannah
