A Gut Healing & Homeschooling Journey ~ with Quirky Cooking's Jo Whitton

Are you curious about education options for your children? Or perhaps you're looking for gut health inspiration for you and your loved ones? This is an episode just for you.

As my daughters 5 year old birthday approaches, I can feel the pressure of our schooling decisions for her getting building up. We've always had a Steiner school as our preference for our daughter, however our move to the country wasn't quite close enough to pursue this choice. I'm now leaning towards homeschooling, but understand this is a massive commitment but also comes with a whole lot of beautiful bonuses. Amelia is excited by the thought of our days on the farm, learning through play and life skills and yes, amongst interaction with out-of-the-home activities and sports... but we're still working on hubby.

I just love hearing other Mumma's experiences and today I explore homeschooling from a Mumma of four and gut healing cookbook queen herself, Jo Whitton.

Jo Whitton lives in Far North Queensland where she runs her business, Quirky Cooking, from home and enjoys the country life. Due to food intolerances in her family (herself and her four children), Jo began researching ways to improve their health through diet from the time her kids were very young. In 2008 she began a blog,  Quirky Cooking, to share what she was learning and the recipes she was developing for her family. In 2014, Jo’s son Isaac was diagnosed with severe OCD and anxiety, which resulted in a deep dive into gut health and food as medicine. Not only did Isaac’s mental health stabilise, but her whole family saw massive improvements in their health. Jo has since helped thousands of families to heal with food, sharing the principles she used to heal her own family.  

Jo runs health seminars, cooking workshops, retreats and other events both in Australia and overseas, sharing how to transition to a healing, whole food diet in a doable and sustainable way. She also shares podcasts and videos and facilitates gut health programs to support people working through healing with food, regularly develops new recipes for her audience, and shares daily  cooking videos from her kitchen on social media. Jo is the author of three best-selling cookbooks: “Quirky Cooking”, “Life-Changing Food” and “Simple Healing Food”.  

In this episode we explore:

• An introduction into Jo's family, their personal health challenges that lead them to embark their healing journey.
• The GAPS diet and their incredible gut healing experience.

• How and when they were able to reintroduce dairy into their diet, without reactions.

• What a typical day of meals looked like on the intro and full GAPS phases and some tips for navigating this with a family.

•  What meals look like now they are not following the full GAPS diet and what foods are still potential triggers for them.  

• When and why Jo began educating her children from home.
• What their days looked like while home schooling
• The homeschooling approach Jo took.
• How she found the balance between work life and mum life as a home schooling Mum.
• Most rewarding moments educating your children from home.
• How her children have transitioned into work after home schooling.

Plus more!

PODCAST SHOWNOTES: https://www.glowingmumma.com/blog/episode86 

GLOWING MUMMA INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/glowingmumma.thrivingbubba/

'BACK TO THE PADDOCK' YOUTUBE CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/@BackToThePaddock