Hi! I’m Lauren Vaknine, welcome to my blog, Organic Spoon. I used to run another website for my ‘real’ work – writing and public speaking – but every so often I’d post pictures of my recipes on Facebook and people kept saying I should ‘do a cookbook’ – like it’s that easy! So I decided to create a blog where I could share all my recipes and it seemed more sensible to merge the two sites and have everything in one place. So here you will find all my recipes, my natural health and natural parenting-related articles, information about my book, ‘My Enemy, My Friend’, and news of other stuff I might be up to, including campaigning and public speaking.
My photography skills have improved somewhat over the past two and a half years since starting to share my recipes so I do apologise for the quality of pictures on some of the older recipes. I’m still learning so no judgement please!
I have been following a ‘cleaner’ way of life for many years now, and falling pregnant and having my son, Braxton, in 2015, only strengthened my reasons for following this ideology that we can only be truly healthy when we live as naturally as possible and here you can see how I’ve implemented this into my every-day life from food, cosmetics and lifestyle, to the way I parent. You can read more about exactly what is involved in my lifestyle over at Philosophy.
So how did it all begin?
I was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis at the age of two, and Uveitis in my right eye the year following that. My poor parents didn’t know what to do; in 1986 there weren’t many options. They researched as much as they could and decided that the steroids the doctors wanted to prescribe were too strong for a two year old so instead we tried everything from homeopathy to spiritual healing. The homeopathy helped to keep my immune system strong and helped keep my joints from being damaged by the disease, which was a major achievement, but it was always like there was a piece missing from the puzzle because I was never free of the disease completely and I would have dreadful yearly flare-ups that would result in time off school and a watered-down version of childhood.
With very swollen knees on my 5th birthday
With my sister in 1992 after a severe flare up of the joints and eye
When I was seventeen, after starting performing arts school, I suddenly had a huge flare up that wouldn’t go away. I ended up being put on a chemo-based drug that changed my life forever – and not in a good way. It damaged my liver, caused me to lose my hair and left me wheelchair-bound. I left college and never got to go to uni, or go travelling with my friends; I really lost out on those late teenage years but what I did instead was find a way to get healthy again; I found the missing piece.
I taught myself everything about food and nutrition, found a homeopath who practiced not only homeopathy but also craniosacral therapy, reiki and kinesiology – a complete integrative approach –, researched gene mutations and other contributing factors and my lifestyle changed drastically. I began meditating, practicing yoga, and the healthier I became the more I was able to exercise.
I qualified as an interior designer in 2003 and after working for a wonderful company in the City, I ran my own company for seven years. In between, I wrote a book about my life with arthritis and how I overcame it with a holistic lifestyle. After that I was invited to become a trustee of the British Homeopathic Association and spokesperson for the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine.
My book, My Enemy, My Friend, can be purchased here
I eventually gave up interior design to focus full-time on my ultimate passions: writing and teaching people how to get healthy. I have since become Parliamentary ambassador for Juvenile Arthritis and I now spend my time writing health-related articles for publications such as Huffington Post and Natural Health, doing public speaking engagements – when motherhood allows for it! – creating new recipes, and I am in the process of writing my first novel. I also spend as much time as I can campaigning for the awareness and accessibility of natural health options and informed choice for parents.
Giving a talk at Parliament on the importance of informed choice for parents and accessibility of natural health options
Many years have passed since I stopped all forms of conventional medication – including pain-killers – and I have been in remission for three years. I believe that in order to cure, we must heal from the root cause, and after that, we must focus our energies on preventing more disease.
I live in London with my husband, Daniel, our baby boy, Braxton, and our lovely dog, Milo.
I hope you enjoy my blog! <3
Love & health,
Lauren Vaknine
Read this blog – The Pursuit of Happiness – Writing My First Novel – to hear more about the novel I’m writing and how remission from arthritis led me to writing fiction.