Doni and Michelle 11.11.22
DONI AMBROSINE: You know, I feel like everything we're gonna talk about, like you said, being more intentional is self care and giving back and taking care of yourself and your spirit and your culture and your your people.
So we're gonna focus on that over holiday and our whole thing is not really to try to sell, but try to give you value that you would pay. Right?
INTRO: Welcome to Healthy Sexy Nutrition with me, Michelle Fox, culinary nutritionist, health coach, and your host for this podcast. I teach busy professionals how to get more nutrition in their bodies and how to have more fun in their home kitchens. If you struggle with consistency or sometimes forget to make your needs a priority or you avoid planning your meals, you, my friend, are in the right place.
Join me each week for inspiration to increase your energy, discover new recipes, manage your hormonal woes, and so much more. You are a busy professional, but that does not mean your nutrition should suffer. You deserve to live in a body and have a life that you love.
So let's dig in.
MICHELLE FOX: Oh my goodness. I am so excited to introduce you to my good friend, Doni Aldine. This woman needs no introduction. But just for my friends who may not be aware of this powerhouse, let's read her bio. So Doni Aldine is recognized by Folio as a 2020 top women in media honoree. She is a globally mobile Afro-Latina and first generation North American who by the age of 19, lived in and identified with seven cultures on five continents. Doni is passionate about creating community, and that's why we're girls, for cross-cultural populations.
She has presented around the globe as a keynote at conferences, universities, and in media as a lifestyle expert focused on entrepreneurship marketing and cross cultural identity. With this background, Doni developed university curricula for global culture identity and founded Culturs global multicultural lifestyle network, which uses media products and experiences to embrace 21st century cultural diversity because as she says, and another reason why I just love this woman, “everyone should feel like they matter.”
So Doni, welcome.
DONI: Hi. Thanks. That was so heartfelt. I was listening like I didn't know…
MICHELLE: Yes. And that's why, you know, you need friends like me to remind you that, yes, you are amazing. And I'm glad we have the words to say it, but I'm so, so thrilled to have the privilege to share some of your wisdom and beauty and community with my community. So thank you you for being here.
DONI: I'm so happy to be here. I'm glad to be on with your community. This is awesome.
MICHELLE: And for my friends who are watching this podcast on YouTube, just know the lights might go on and off. We might talk about why later. Probably not, because Doni and I have some juicy topics to discuss, which mostly I really wanna dig in with you about holiday shopping with intention. But before we get all serious and into our spirits and into our hearts, I want to bring a little bit of laughter with some rapid fire questions. Are you willing to play?
DONI: Yeah, I'm willing. I'm al good. You know, I'm always willing to play.
MICHELLE: And that's why I love you. Ok. So sweet, salty, or savory?
DONI: Can I have all three?
I want all three.
MICHELLE: Three. Yes.
DONI: At the same time no less. You know me, I'm all about indulgence, sweet salt, and savory. I actually just made whew, roasted pepper, roasted tomato, roasted garlic soup. And it was, and the seasons I used, it was very savory. And then I put apple, roasted apple on top with bacon and drizzled it with honey and had some mineral salt. Like the next level pink salt that has minerals that really put back into your body. So it was sweet, savory, and salty all at once. And just absolutely delicious.
MICHELLE: And Michelle Fox Culinary Nutrition approved. That sounds amazing.
DONI: It was good. It was good. It was all the things, all the colors. It was all the nutrition. It was not—I mean, of course all healthy ingredients, coconut oil I roasted with, and um, lots of garlic, lots of herbs. It had all the good things. All the goodness was in that soup. It was delicious.
MICHELLE: I’m salivating bcause I'm about to make dinner as soon as we stop talking. So I might use that for some inspiration. Thank you.
Ok. Three more rapid fire, which, you know, rapid fire between you and I. It's gonna be…
DONI: It's like the slots in Costa Rica, man. Okay. I'll try to do better.
MICHELLE: No pressure. Okay, next question. This will be easy one for you. Inbox zero or Inbox 10,000?
DONI: Oh girl, there is no inbox zero in my world. I think I have one hundred seventy-nine thousand unopened emails at this moment.
MICHELLE: Oh shoot.
DONI: If it's important, it'll get sent again.
MICHELLE: I'm sure that people know how to find you, right?
DONI: True. They know how to find me too well, which is why I have so many emails. When you have that many emails. I mean, I don't, there's no way there, you know, one quick story, cause I know it's supposed to be rapid fire, but when I was in the office one day, I left the sound on, on my computer and my door to my office was locked so nobody could get in. I don't know how it got locked, but it was locked. So when I got back to the office, everybody was like, because it ding, ding, ding, ding, like all the notifications. And I would always tell them, “look, stop sending me emails because I get too many. I can't keep up.”
And so I was cracking up. I'm like, “so do you see what I'm saying? Do you see what it's like to get all that?” So, yeah, it's, I don't know how anyone could have inbox zero when you get that much communication. So my thing is if I missed it, then if it's important, they'll come back again.
MICHELLE: Love that about you.
Ok, favorite movie of all times?
DONI: Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand.
MICHELLE: I love the Babs.
DONI: Yes.
MICHELLE: And then last question, one of your favorite childhood memories in the kitchen.
DONI: Oh man, I gotta make sure my mom hears this. Well, first of all, my mother is a chef and she, so she's Trinidadian and she's an amazing cook. Amazing cook. So I don't cook, like cooking isn't my thing, but I do enjoy it and I love food and I'm, I cook well.
I usually don't do recipes, whatever's in the fridge, like I throw something together. That's how I made that soup. Right. But my favorite childhood memory, my mother made everything from scratch and we had a garden. We grew things in the garden, or whatever the case may be. She made cinnamon swirl bread for breakfast one day.
Oh, I still remember it. I still remember it. And that she put the, it was fresh cinnamon. She ground that sucker. She made, uh, the bread from scratch, rolled it up, put in the oven, came out all golden brown. I, I. In my head it's melty, but I don't remember us using, no, we did put butter. Actually, we did put butter in, but it was delicious. Delicious. As as is everything she makes. But I remember that still, and I think I was seven or eight years old.
MICHELLE: And do you think it was the taste of it or was it because it was so different from something that she treated you all to?
DONI: She made that stuff on the regular.
MICHELLE: Oh. Oh.
DONI: But I remember that particular time. She made homemade bread all the time. And when I went to college in Germany, I remember I made bread every week. So I think it's a comforting thing, you know, eating that. And I'm not a big bread person, but bread is delicious. Right? Like when I have it, I love. And when it's fresh and you just made it, and when it's with quality ingredients, because I do feel like the ingredients for food in Africa, in Asia, in South America, all those places are different than the ingredients in the United States.
And so how it's processed by our bodies is also different. So, everything she made back then, even when you think of the United States of yester year and all that, you know, food from scratch that and ingredients that were wholesome. It, it was a feeling. It was how the warmth of the bread, the beauty of the swirl in which, because she didn't always do like a fancy thing like that.
I don't know. All her food was fancy. This was extra fancy. So yeah, it was just like the whole feeling of family was me and my brother and my mom of warmth, of caring, cuz she made this thing from scratch before I went to school and she had a job. She used to walk both ways to work. She didn't have a car for decades, well maybe not decades, years, so that we could have the best of everything. She walked an hour and a half to work and back every day. Still made bread first.
MICHELLE: Oh, that is love right there.
DONI: Yes, yes, yes.
MICHELLE: It's love.
Well, and thank you for mentioning that food and ingredients are different around the globe. As we said in your bio, you have traveled literally all around the world. Not a lot of people can say that.
And so I know you have experience because you pay attention to nutrition and what you're putting into your body. What are some of the things that you have noticed, just on a high level? I know there's a lot, but on a high level, what have you noticed as far as being different than the United States.
DONI: The grains are very different.
Even here, I have to really work hard on my digestion. Right? Um, for a long time I didn't eat grains, but for three and a half years I really didn't eat grains and it helped tremendously, but it wasn't sustainable. So now, I have them every few days, but boy, it's hard for me to digest them. But when I go to South America or Africa, no problems with the grains.
MICHELLE: Interesting.
DONI: Oh yeah. I remember when I was in Switzerland and I had the best yogurts and, and nothing, it did nothing to me. Right. Whereas I, I don't have that much problem with dairy, but here it's a, you know, a little bit of digestion issues, but, um, not issues, but you can notice that you had it, like you're, you feel heavier, right?
Had it in Switzerland, had milk in Kenya, nothing. Everything is fine, right? Just feeling very light and airy. So, and a lot of people who travel, they talk about that. They talk about how they can, they eat things that they normally can't eat here, and how they feel different. And now that I'm older, I mean y'all, nobody tells you, you get to 50.
I think you, you talk about it and you talk about menopause and hormones and nutrition and the gut and all that thing. No, they don't tell you fifties like this. I'm about to be 53. So a lot of people talk about losing muscle and things like that before 50. And I know a lot of people it happens to in their forties, their late forties. It didn't really hit me until 50, but 52 is when I noticed it. Like muscle wasn't staying on like I was used to. Um, As you can see, I'm very energetic.
MICHELLE: Yes. Always. Ever since the day I met you. Yes.
DONI: I teach at, or used to teach at university for the last 11 years and even the 20 somethings they'll be like, “oh my gosh, I can't keep up with you.” Or “where, how do you get all that energy?”
It’s cuz I eat well and take care of myself. But I did notice at 52, right? Like. you know, when you work out really hard, I didn't even know this was a thing until I hit 52. It's called the DOMS, delayed onset muscle soreness. And now I was a major athlete when I was younger. And of course, so the first, you know, few weeks when you're really hitting it hard, when I'm talking, I'm talking about like, like high level working out, right?
But now when I do that, just once or twice, well, not, once you do it consistently, you're good, but you start a program and I didn't have soreness. I had this low level malaise and I couldn't figure out what that was. Actually, green drinks helped me with it as well. Tremendously, but it was the DOMS, which I'd never had before and that's something that happened as I got older. So I'm, I feel fortunate that I'm not, that I, I did fall off that cliff, but it turned out there was a ledge there. I was Okay.
MICHELLE: Yes, you survived. Yes, I know you pop right back up.
DONI: So no, it was, there was a ledge there, but I have to pay attention, like I didn't have to pay attention before. And digesting the food is probably the biggest issue that I've really had to see. And so for me it's grains. I think for everybody it's a little different. It just depends on your body.
MICHELLE: Yeah. Well I talk a lot in my programs how the wheat here in the US is not the same wheat that our grandparents were eating.
DONI: Sure, it's true.
MICHELLE: Cause the chemicals that are being sprayed. But two, because the soil has been turned so many times, it's been depleted a lot of the nutrients, which is why I personally believe everybody in the US is gluten intolerant. I know people disagree, but I find if you can just eliminate the gluten, so many of these issues just disappear,
Now totally different subject, but because we are in the holiday season right now and you have amazing products, I would really love to just invite my community to shop with intention. And so can we talk a little bit about that? , Namely some of the things that you sell and or curate that can bring us more self intention and, and self-love and self care, but also just what you're seeing in the industry about shopping with intention.
DONI: Oh, I'd love to do that. So, as you know, I am head of Culturs, which is a global multicultural lifestyle network, and we focus on people who are in between. So in between, multiethnic, multiracial, mixed race and globally mobile like immigrants, refugees, or third culture kids, which is what I am because I grew up globally. Part of you know, with the important thing of all of those populations is you're culturally fluid and geographically mobile. Very often, even if you're a person of color in a majority situation, your fluidity comes with code switching throughout the day and becoming what you need to be at work or out in public and being different when you come home.
Whether you have different ethnicities at home or different racial makeups at home that you, and different cultures that you work with. And so, Having to be on all the time and having to switch like that all the time and not necessarily always be quote unquote yourself. It's really important. Self care is very important.
You know, living with attention, making sure that you're paying attention to your mental, your spiritual, your physical being. And so that's what we think of when we talk about shopping with intention. So it really has some mental health components, some spiritual health components, as well as physical being components to it.
So for Culturs, we, all of our products are created by our team and they're amazing. So every destination that we go to, so of course we have the magazine, which you see the magazine back here too.
MICHELLE: Wait, and for our listeners, the magazine again is called.
DONI: Culturs Global Multicultural Magazine. So you'll notice there's no E in cultures and that stands for the hidden diversity of our population, right? So a globe there in place of the E, but we really, pay attention to people of color.
So you see right here, there's a native cover, there's an Asian cover. Here's another one, this is a Kenyan Filipino couple that I, um, just saw in Kenya and right now it's the year of Latin America for us. To honor my father who was Costa Rican and unfortunately pass of Covid. But anyway, he's part of this whole live with intention, right?
And to really take care of yourself, nurture yourself for the things that you need physically, mentally, emotionally, because we're all coming out of a of lockdown really. Like yeah, we're all coming out of states that we didn't even really understand how much they affected us, and probably over the next few years we'll start to see what that looks like. So this Christmas season, we should pay attention. So every, every issue of the magazine, we have a destination. This one was for destination Kenya, as you saw the cover with the Kenyan Filipino couple. And every, one of the things we have is a membership where we bring the globe to your door.
MICHELLE: Tell me more about that. That sounds amazing.
DONI: Yes. So it has the curated content from the magazine, which tells you about all these people who are in between cultures and how they are thriving with their in betweenness. And then we bring you the all natural bath and body created here in the Rocky Mountains. Lots of organic ingredients, essential oils. So heavenly, feels so great. Bath bombs, body scrub, everything to really take care of yourself inside and out.
Next we have our symphony of life planner system. So as you know, you talk about this all the time. This is one of our covers, right?
MICHELLE: Gorgeous.
DONI: Actually, these are pens. Michelle used to know me back in the day when I had another company, and this was called Penn Flores. And people have been asking us to make some custom for their Symphony of Life Day Planner covers. So life is a symphony. Play it well. And that's what this is about. So our day planners are for you to live with intention, to plan as you do your meals, plan your…
MICHELLE: Yes.
DONI: Plan your days doing that really keeps you focused. And make sure that self care is a win for you.
You know, the great thing about Symphony of Life is it's broken down by what you need. So if you're a super mom or a superhero that has a number of schedules to track in a day, we have a planner for you. If you're techie and you only use your phone and you don't wanna write things down in your planner, we have a planner for you.
Um, I personally use the Zen when I'm getting a little outta control. I actually go back and forth to the different styles. We do have a traditional that I often use. But I just because it's fourth quarter and things are busy, went back to the Zen, which shows you visually, work life balance. So when you're getting out of balance, you can say, okay, I need to go workout out today, or I need to meditate, or I need just five minutes to myself, or I just need to smell a nice candle to bring me back, right?
I need to take off my shoes and ground myself with the earth. Just walk in the grass or in the snow as we'll have soon, whatever the case may be. So that's what the Zen is about. So that's our symphony of life planners. And then we have culture celebrations, which as you talk about nutrition, we have healthy foods that we create a dinner party kit in every single culture that we go to.
You get the magazine in our membership kit that comes to your door four times a year. And then you get the, and that has the destination in it. Then you get the bath and body that embodies the destinations, brings you the feeling and the sight and the smells of that destination. Then you have the dinner party kit where it gives you everything to send invitations to your friends, gives you the recipes and videos on how to make them so you can have a cultural dinner party as well in your own home.
And then you also get, oh, how could I forget? Oh my gosh. Our hidden diversity greeting cards. I actually wasn't even expecting to talk about this, but I always have all these items close to me. But, um, our hidden diversity greeting cards, we have a whole line of greeting cards. This one says Global Soul.
MICHELLE: Beautiful card. And for my listeners, it’s a gorgeous card with two brown hands looking like they're giving grace to a, is that a dandelion?
DONI: Yes. It's growing through the mud.
MICHELLE: Ah. Love it.
DONI: Yes.
MICHELLE: Oh, that is powerful.
DONI: A quote from Pico Lyer. “Is a person who has grown up in many cultures all at once, and so lived in the cracks between them.”
So the dandelion is coming up through the cracks.
This one says, “Being cross-cultural is to be divided into many places.” And the gentleman who's also brown, this guy actually happens to be Mexican. One of our Mexican staff members drew this. She lives in Maryland, Mexico and she went to grad school here in the US And here's the mountains. And the ocean. So she's split between those places where she grew up and also lived and studied.
So you get colorful things to bring you together, but then also to ground you and to remind you of who you are and to, to keep in touch with your heritage and the importance of family. So everything that we do really focuses on that, and it focuses on people of color.
So I think that's something though, that you could take to all of your shopping for the holiday. Right. To have that intention to take a moment instead of getting caught up in the frenzy and, ah, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. And I gotta do this, to just take a moment, take a deep breath, whether it is just breathing very deeply, whether it's doing a few seconds of yoga, a little stretch when you feel out of sorts. You know, as I said, grounding your feet, taking a bath. Ugh. Our bath bombs are amazing and that's what got me through the pandemic. I stayed in my home 13 months by myself. No human touch whatsoever. So I'll tell you…
MICHELLE: Oh, Doni.
DONI: Yes. That that tub was like a hug, a warm hug every night. Right? Those little things are really important, and some people see them as extra. Some people see them as luxuries, and I feel whatever works for you as the necessity that brings you back, then that's a necessity for you. That is what keeps you whole. And then taking that intention and using it every day, including the holidays is what's important.
MICHELLE: I love that. And what I especially love is that these gifts are created and curated for the individual. And so everything you've said, I'm like, I want that. I want one. And I'm already thinking of three girlfriends that I could buy this for as well. Cause I'm like, that could be an amazing gift to receive. And so, hint, hint, wink, wink. Anybody listening, feel free to send a girl some of this stuff. Cause that sounds amazing.
Um, but, but to be real and truthful, I do truly encourage people to go, please tell us where would people go to shop for some of these items?
DONI: So to keep it easy, because we're in a lot of places and stores around the globe, but the easiest place is to go to cultursmag.com.
So again, without an e, Culturs is plural. Cultursmag.com.
And you can go to our shop and you'll see all of the items. We're gonna have specials over the holiday for our membership, which is four times a year, every quarter, getting the globe delivered to your door. We explore a new culture. We give you all the goodness to stay in touch with yourself and with cultures around the globe, as well as the products that help you stay grounded and keep that intention.
So through the holidays, through the beginning of the year and all year round, you make sure you're taking care of you so you can take care of others.
MICHELLE: Mm, preach. Actually, can you say that last part one more time? I think for the people in the back who really need to hear that, let's hear that one more time.
DONI: Take care of you so you can take care of others. You know, it's so funny, we, at this point that seems, and I've been saying that before it was even a thing because I was a columnist for the Denver Post, and I don't know if you remember, we, I had a column called Enricher Life and it wasn't popular. Way back went, gosh, that must have been 20 years ago by now. To say things like that. Now it's super popular. You hear it everywhere, but it's not trite. It's really important. I even with a staff of almost a hundred, I see it all the time and I realize when I don't make the tough decisions for them, it ends up affecting them. Sometimes the boundaries I keep, they might be frustrated with me in the moments like, I need your time. Well, no, here's a boundary because I need some space. That space allows me to be a better person to come show up better, to have a better attitude, to treat them like they deserve to be treated, not to be short or frustrated in the moment, or even, you know, when you don't give your full attention to someone, you might not notice it in the moment. They might not notice it, but you both feel it, right?
MICHELLE: Yeah.
DONI: It would always be your best and to show up, it would a hundred percent. You've gotta give back to yourself. You've gotta have those boundaries and those are reasons to tell people, you know, it took a while to train my team. I'm like, look, I'm, I started saying I'm doing this for you. And then they wouldn't say anything after that.
MICHELLE: Wow. So before we wrap this up, I am just dying to know that the nosy, rosy in me with all of your curated packages, which, which one is your favorite baby as far as the experiences you've curated?
DONI: Oh wow. That is a good question.
You know, that's tough. Kenya's up there, but they're all so good. I wanna say to you that in Mexico right now, because it's the one that's coming out now, the short answer is probably the one that's most recent because the memories, as we go through and with the locals and do the cooking, the authentic cooking, and we make the videos and we come up with the packages and we do the designs and we figure out the sense and we try to recreate the experience.
So the memory is what makes the most recent one the best, but I would have to, uh, but I also, I'm sure to add in Costa Rica. We have Costa Rica coming up. We just did Trinidad. Trinidad was a special one. Um, but we're gonna do Trinidad again, so I'm gonna stick with Kenya. Kenya is my favorite so far. Yes.
MICHELLE: I love it. I'll be sure to check it out. Wonderful. Well this has been so amazing to talk to you. Thank you for making the time cause you are literally one of the busiest people I know. So thank you for this time. Is there anything else you wanna share before we close?
DONI: Thank you. This has been wonderful. I love what you do. Uh, you know, it's so interesting. I was thinking to myself, I like my, again, I, back to the story with my mom. She's talked about health and nutrition since I was little. We didn't get to eat sugar. Shoot. I didn't tell you the story about the one Halloween I got to go to and how I made that candy last for a year. But, um,...
MICHELLE: I love it.
DONI: It's hilarious, but you know, so I think, I always think to myself that I'm really good at this and I am, but every time I see your reels, every time I hear your podcast, I'm like, okay, as soon as fourth quarter is over, cuz you know, holidays crazy and I have to set my intentions and keep boundaries to make sure that I'm taking care of myself. But I plan to be in one of your classes. I cannot wait. It's gonna be so fun because I really wanna, you know, I wanna see you, what you're talking about with the planning. That's one thing I don't do is plan my food. I might plan it when I'm making it, like what I'm going to make, but I don't plan for the whole week cuz it's just me, right?
And so I really plan out how I store my food so that it stays fresh for a long time. That kind of thing. As I mentioned. I cook, I just look in what's in the refrigerator. I'm gonna do this today. But um, yeah, I would be interested and I'm always opening to learning and doing new things, so I'm excited.
MICHELLE: Yay. Well I can't wait to have you in one of my classes, although you and I might be giggling the whole time, so I'll, uh, I'll ground myself. You're the best. So tell us again, where can people come find you and your amazing products and your beautiful magazine?
DONI: They can come to cultursmag.com and they'll find all the things there.
MICHELLE: Wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing your time. Thank you for reminding us that we can bring intention to this holiday, especially bringing intention to our self care and taking care of our bodies.
You actually, I probably don't tell you enough, but you have been an amazing role model for me. I remember back in the day, you were the one that introduced me to yoga, and that was over 20 years ago. So I have you to thank for a lot of these parts of my journey. So thank you for being you. Thank you for showing up for our community, and thank you for putting your intentional message in all the things that you do.
DONI: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. Thanks for having me. This was fun.
MICHELLE: Thanks so much for listening to Healthy Sexy Nutrition. Have you been driving, doing laundry or walking around the neighborhood? Sweet. I've got show notes for you at michellefox.com/podcast. Click over there when you are ready. I will let you know that on the page you will find resources to support what you just learned on today's show.
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You deserve to live in a body and have a life that you love.
