Chef Laura Rodriguez

Chef Laura Rodriquez didn't know anything about cooking (and eating) anti-inflammatory foods until she took a job with The Heimerdinger Foundation seven years ago. The foundation serves free, healing meals to cancer patients and after a few months of creating and cooking recipes there she felt the need to dig into why they were serving the types of foods they were.

One day, the founder, Kathie Heimerdinger, graciously brought her a huge box of books that she had used when she was helping her husband through his own battle with cancer. “I remember the day fondly because I thought, ‘Wow. That's a lot of books! How am I ever going to read all of these?!’" Laura recalls.

But once she got started, it was easy. She read through the box with a new outlook on life and a new personal mission for herself. You see, Laura herself had struggled with joint pain, chronic migraines, and eczema for years. Three months after she started cooking anti-inflammatory foods for herself and her family, her conditions subsided.

Gardening is a big part of the anti-inflammatory equation. Laura has been gardening since 2008 when she would ride her bike a few miles to plant in a community garden plot in a suburb of Chicago. After years of backyard apartment gardening, she longed for the space to live more sustainably and grow more food. They found the perfect little farmhouse in Portland, Tennessee, set on one of the first plots of farmland on that street. 

Since then, she's raised chickens, ducks, rabbits, and dozens of different organic fruits and vegetables for her clients. Currently she has a budding fruit forest growing in addition to the five mature mulberry trees on the property. She calls it a micro farm because it's set on the back 1/4 acre of their 2-acre lot, but it's changed her life and fulfilled her family's dreams in a much larger way.