My Story - Gina Symonds
Food Fix 4 Life Life Nutritionist / The Silver Spoon Italian
Everything Comes Full Circle
This is the story of where health and nature live in perfect harmony. Growing up in an Italian community, we were surrounded by fresh produce, tantalising food, and family. My Nonno (Grandfather), who lived in a flat at the back of our house, tended daily to an enormous fruit and vegetable garden that fueled our meals. Of course, little did we know back then how lucky we were. This was just normal to us. This was the natural world where nature, physical health, and mental health were enhanced by the healthy habits of a Mediterranean diet, rich in antioxidants and unprocessed foods. Every single gathering was based around food.
Not just eating food, but sourcing food from the best possible suppliers (if not homegrown), cooking food from scratch which was abundant in taste, flavor, and variety, and then joining together as a community to enjoy it. Family, communion, good food, good moods, and love flourished. It was the natural rhythm of life.
Can you imagine making your own wine each autumn, pasta from scratch, sauces that simmered on the stove all day long to develop the most intense flavor you could ever envisage, and coffee served unadulterated with the bitter flavor of the seed and nothing else? It was like utopia!
Lost Traditions
Going to school as a child of a migrant family was an eye-opener. Suddenly, the outside world opened. Children going to school with square white bread Vegemite sandwiches, ordering meat pies every Friday with a Fruit Box to drink, and eating a bag of salt and vinegar chips became normal. Oh, what an exciting and wonderful world this was for a young and naive daughter of immigrant Italian parents. However, as the William Shakespeare quote goes, "All that glitters is not gold."
Rejecting the ‘old-fashioned’ traditions was now becoming trendy and being replaced with more processed food choices as the world of food became more and more convenient, or should I say more and more removed from nature!
Supermarket shelves were filled with convenience foods, prepackaged meals, sugar-loaded, preserved, flavored, and colored foods. Everything came in a packet, just ready to open and serve.
Of course, the supply at home was always true to our traditional eating habits, but that didn’t overcome the enormous pull of mass marketing, choices available on the supermarket shelves, and just fitting in with the crowd.
The Connection Between Nature & Health
Marriage and starting my own family changed all of that. One day I was awakened by a bright light and I said, “That’s enough!”. My roots were calling me home, and I’ve never looked back since.
Starting work as a Nutritionist, I was surprised by the percentage of women I was seeing who were being prescribed drugs to treat depression, anxiety, health concerns, menopause, migraines, weight issues, skin conditions, hormonal issues, pain, and sadness.
This was a sad state for me to see, when ultimately the outcome was often the same. There was NO outcome! I could see the high financial and mental cost this was placing on women.
It was my time to start becoming an ambassador for women’s health, or could you say, “it was my calling to do something”.
My Passion for Women's Health
So, now we come to the world of ‘Glow from Within’ – Foods for Feeling & Looking Fabulous. A women’s only created space that supports the health and wellbeing of women using wholesome, fresh, in-season, and natural food options through meal plan recommendations, cookbooks, recipes, tips, and know-how. Designed to be easy, affordable, socially inclusive, practical, and accessible to all. Anything from chronic disease, menopause, weight gain, bloating, discomfort, and mood can be influenced by the food choices we make every single day. ‘Glow from Within’ is now here in one easy and convenient place for you to grow and GLOW 😊.
My Little Patch of Joy
Today I enjoy food from my own vegetable patch, lovingly tended by my husband. Our own veggie patch is a menagerie of fruit, vegetables, herbs, flowers, trees, and happy chickens supplying us with freshly laid organic eggs daily. It’s a living medicine, gifted from mother nature. Not everything can be perfect, but anything can be better, so I’m here to help you give it a try. After all, eating will never go out of fashion. We all must do it to survive. It’s human nature!