Do you know that gut health can equal to brain health? Carrie Miller sits down with renowned chef Elizabeth Johnson to talk about how your brain and gut are directly related. Referred as “the medicine guru” by the James Beard Foundation and the chef and mastermind behind the most anti-inflammatory restaurant of its kind called Pharm Table, Elizabeth shares how she surfaced into the industry and why she has such a unique advocacy towards gut health and anti-inflammatory diet. Don’t miss this episode to learn more about plant-based proteins, doing away with industrialized food, and what you can do at home to keep your gut healthy.
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How You Clean Up Your Gut Health to Heal your Body and Prevent Disease | Elizabeth Johnson
I’ve got a special guest for you. She’s been featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Conscious Company Magazine, and a variety of other magazines and news publications. She’s referred to as the Food as Medicine Guru by the James Beard Foundation. She’s the chef and mastermind behind the most anti-inflammatory restaurant of its kind. Welcome, Chef Elizabeth.
Thank you so much for having me.
You’re welcome. We’re excited to talk with you here on the show and learn all about you, your amazing restaurant and why you do what you do. First, right off the bat, I’ve got to tell you all about Chef Elizabeth’s restaurant. You’ve never encountered a restaurant quite like Pharm Table. It is the healthiest array of the cleanest, most delicious foods under one roof that I’ve ever tasted. I’m going to add that your plating is absolutely beautiful, spot-on.
Thank you so much. We try to get out of the way and let Mother Nature sing with all the ingredients that we put on your plate that are great for your brain, heart and rest of your body.
Chef, why don’t you tell us a little bit about where you got started in the food industry?
I went to cooking school in Mexico and when we came back to the United States, I worked in New Orleans. I also worked in Santa Fe, New Mexico and then I came back to Texas in 2007, after having been gone for a little over ten years. At that point, the Culinary Institute of America was establishing their third campus in the United States in San Antonio. I was hired to help them get that project off the ground and create an archive of all the foods of Latin America for the school. That’s what brought me back to San Antonio. I was with them for six years working as a chef instructor and Latin cuisine expert. I had a calling to heal people with food. I left my job at the end of 2013 and here we are. The rest is history.
I’m glad you made it back to Texas.
Thank you so much. They say, “You can take the girl out of Texas but you can never take Texas out of the girl.” I’m proof that everyone can get pulled back to this great state.
I want you to take us back to when you first had the idea of opening a restaurant. What exactly was going through your mind when you decided to plop a healthy Tex-Mex cuisine restaurant in the midst of this San Antonio area?
I’m going to throw you a little bit of a curveball because I never planned to open up a restaurant. Honestly, the way Pharm Table was conceived was supposed to be a disruptive food business. I did not want to have a restaurant. I wanted to create a subscription-based meal delivery service. After having done that for the first six months of our initial launch,