Christina's blog

Every holiday season I struggle. I struggle with gift giving. Do I simply make a large donation to a worthy cause in all my loved ones’ names? Do I make gifts, like jams, breads, cookies or pickles? Do I make watercolor paintings or drawings?

It’s that time of year. Our hearts warm (while the rest of us is chilled) and we begin to count our blessings. You do count your blessings, right? I try to count them each and every day, but this time of year always reminds me just how blessed I am.

It’s Giving Tuesday, the day where we open our hearts and support the work we believe can make a difference. It’s a great feeling to give back, which is why I founded The Christina Pirello Health Education Initiative, dedicated to making our communities healthier through education.

It’s that time of year. Our hearts warm (while the rest of us is chilled) and we begin to count our blessings. You do count your blessings, right? I try to count them each and every day, but this time of year always reminds me just how blessed I am.

It’s that time again:

I am asked this question all the time, but I realized that I have never really dedicated an entire blog to the topic of soy and the fear that has been created around this humble bean.

I was just recently described as a badass since, it seems, I speak my mind freely. As I get older, I find that I do it more and more…and more easily at that.

So here I go again.

Many of you know that I LOVE to read my husband’s Men’s Health magazine. I love the fitness tips and workout advice that serve me in my own workouts.

It’s National Vegan Month, which got me to thinking, as these various month-long commemorations often do. Sometimes they evoke a rant from me and sometimes, I want to just ruminate.

What does it mean to be vegan in this modern time? Is it elitist to eschew meat, a cultural phenomenon reserved only for the wealthy? Is it for celebrities looking for their thigh gap? Is it just for people who are dysfunctional around food? Or just for puppy lovers?

I am at it again, ranting about cancer and the fact that we continue to “wage war” on this disease but yet, what are we accomplishing?

It’s the time of year when we will once again, Stand Up to Cancer, watching on all networks as celebrities in their designer tee shirts ask us to donate to groundbreaking research to end cancer. Again.

I am an avid listener of the NPR radio program 1A. Well, I was an avid listener, until last week.

I find the show and its host, Joshua Johnson to be intelligent, unbiased and open-minded to all sides of an argument or issue. Again, until last week.

I often go on record as saying that I’m “not that kind of vegan.” You know the ones, lecturing everyone, preaching, waggling their fingers in your face.

When we think of the Mediterranean we think of azure blue seas and leisurely days. I think of robust feasts served in olive orchards on one of our many trips to Italy with clients, family and friends. The image of the table laden with freshly cooked whole grains, beans and seasonal vegetables prepared in deliciously simple and imaginative ways, transports me there.