Hi! My name is Irish Orozco. I’m a Registered Clinical Nutritionist, a member of Clinical Nutrition Association in New Zealand. I’m a wife, mother of two beautiful girls, passionate cook, breastfeeding advocate and lover of whole foods and herb geek.
Being brought up in a rural area, consuming fresh, natural nutritious foods, I assumed this was how everyone in the world worked when it comes to diet. Only when I moved to city in 1994 to study in college, I became exposed to the phenomenon of processed ‘convenience’ foods.
On 1998-2004, I worked as a Sales Engineer acting as a marketing and technical person, a very stressful job and I was completely overwhelmed. I would often miss lunch and then come home at night and eat take away, definitely not ideal and not nourishing to say the least. I always felt bloated every after meal which I thought was normal for me.
Fast forward, on 2012, I had to deliver my youngest daughter two weeks earlier because my blood pressure was through the roof. I also had a breast abscess and MRSA and was on pain reliever and antibiotics. My blood pressure was 200/120. I was on three different types of blood pressure medications, but my blood pressure was still not on the safe levels. I spent so many hours in the hospital running tests and MRI, but everything was normal. The doctors could not give me a clear cause of why it happened. I had so many trips to A&E in an ambulance due to panic attacks. The doctor wanted me to take anxiety pills, but I refused to take it.
When I told my friend my experience, she suggested that I read Dr. Libby Weaver’s book, Rushing Women’s Syndrome and her Real Food Recipes. I learned so much from this book about how our body works and the importance of food and nutrients to maintain a healthy body.
Although very scary, this event turned out to be such a blessing in my life. I started shopping at health food stores. I love being in charge of what I put in my body. The more research I did, the more I became interested in food and nutrition. I decided to study Diploma in Nutritional Science to bring my knowledge into the next level. My study in nutrition at Naturopathic College of New Zealand deepened my respect for food and it’s role in either keeping us healthy or making us sick. I appreciated Hippocrates statements:
- Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food.
- Every disease starts in the gut.
My practice in nutrition was born out of my personal health needs. I had hormonal imbalances and gastrointestinal issues which left me very nutrient depleted. I am aware that good digestion and good health go hand-in-hand. If digestion is impaired, nutrients may not be broken down from our foods or absorbed into the body. If a variety of whole foods is not consumed, imbalances in nutrient uptake can occur.
