Following battles with health conditions ranging from chronic headaches to joint pain, Terra Channell of Toledo decided to drastically revamp her diet.

Her journey to better health ultimately led to the business of also helping others.

After adopting an anti-inflammatory diet with much-improved symptoms, Mrs. Channell is now the founder and owner of My Personal AIP, where she cooks a variety of fresh autoimmune protocol meals for clients.

The autoimmune protocol diet primarily involves eliminating foods that are prone to causing inflammation. Once symptoms improve, foods can be gradually reintroduced for monitoring, to see if any trigger symptoms. 

The diet is said to help lower inflammation that causes chronic arthritis and joint pain, as well as help to relieve some symptoms of autoimmune disorders.

“I like to help people heal through food,” Mrs. Channell said recently at her kitchen located in Lott Industries, 3350 Hill Ave.

“If they have medication they need to take, obviously they need to but if we can provide meals that will help them heal as well, then that's what we prefer to do,” she added.

My Personal AIP delivers meals for a fee in the Toledo area on Wednesdays, and customers can also pick up orders from the prep kitchen. 

The fresh meals at My Personal AIP are prepared without gluten, soy, eggs, corn, nuts, seeds, or dairy. Additionally, the recipes do not contain nitrates, sugars, preservatives, or nightshade foods, such as potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers, that are known for causing inflammation.

“I used to have a headache that came on every single night at the same exact time for a year. It's called a hemicrania continua,” Mrs. Channell said of the disorder that causes constant pain one side of the face and head.

“The left side of my face would droop and it would absolutely wipe me out,” she said.

Mrs. Channell said a doctor diagnosed her with a condition called leaky gut, or an unhealthy intestinal lining that could allow food or toxins to reach the bloodstream and create inflammation. 

On the advice of her doctor, Mrs. Channell eliminated several items from her diet deemed inflammatory including raspberries, celery, cranberries, sweet potatoes, spinach, almonds, chocolate and coffee.

“I started to feel better,” she said. “And in two to three months, I dropped 35 pounds faster than I've ever dropped weight in my life.”

Her limited diet pushed her to get creative with her meal planning, and after lots of positive feedback to meals she shared on social media, Mrs. Channell said she was encouraged to start the business in 2021.

She now has a roster of about 100 clients across greater Toledo, and two part-time kitchen staff. The snack and meal options range in cost from $3.50 to $13.50.

“One of my customers that has autoimmune issues tells me this [food] really helps her because there's days she can barely get out of bed,” Mrs. Channell said. “To know she doesn't have to cook, and she can just go heat something up helps her tremendously.”

Martha Hartman of Toledo has been a client of the service for two years and picks up weekly meals for her developmentally disabled sister.

“She had a lot of health conditions so her physician suggested a plant based, anti-inflammatory diet,” Ms. Hartman said of her sister. “I started trying to cook meals for her, but then I found Terra, and she was an answer to prayer.”

“My sister is doing much better, and she’s lost a lot of weight,” Ms. Hartman said. “She was about 300 pounds, now she's probably around 135.”

The kitchen’s Asian chicken-over-veggies dish made with chicken thighs, red cabbage, broccoli, shredded carrot and coconut aminos is a customer favorite, Mrs. Channell said.

“I've had customers tell me the meals help them mentally,” she said. “Their symptoms begin to lessen, and they notice a difference with eating my food versus eating store bought processed food.”

My Personal AIP also serves up healthy desserts, the most popular being chocolate chip cookies made with coconut flour and oil, pure maple syrup, gelatin and organic chocolate chunks. She has put together healthy options for Thanksgiving dinner, too.

Suffering from Hashimoto’s disease, an autoimmune disorder where the immune system attacks your thyroid gland in error, Carrie Sund of Toledo recently sought out My Personal AIP for meal prep intervention.

“I need the energy and I want to feel better and not so sore and tired all the time,” said Ms. Sund, who teaches fitness classes. 

Generally speaking, inflammation is the body’s normal way to signal to the immune system that something is wrong which then kicks off healing and fights off infection. But chronic inflammation causes continued pain and can even damage healthy cells, tissues, and organs.

“The best way to figure out what is causing the pain is to get rid of all those things and start from scratch with vegetables and then start reintroducing foods little by little,” Mrs. Channell said.

For more information about the service, visit https://www.mypersonalaip.com

First Published November 17, 2023, 9:34 p.m.