FOOD DRINK and
goodness grows
How one woman’s quest for healthy eating inspired a return to her rural roots and a new path in agriculture B Y AN N A- RHESA VERSOLA PHOTOG RAPHY B Y J OHN MICHAEL SIM PS O N
V
alarie Jarvis has beef with
meat. The geriatrics nurse, who grew up in a “no stoplight kind of rural” area, returned to her farming roots after changing her perspective on food. Valarie holds a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Virginia and was working as director of nursing at a skilled nursing facility when her brother was diagnosed with colon cancer. “He was the one who started teaching me about food and its correlation with our bodies,” she says. “You would think that we would learn this in nursing school, but most doctors and nurses aren’t trained on nutrition and how our food really affects our bodies, particularly the chemicals and the additives.” Valarie says her brother, who worked in computer science for a company in Research Triangle Park, shared research articles and published studies about the correlation between certain additives and cancer. “He was very much a fast food guy,” she says. “You know, busy working long hours, fast food at every meal. I watched him go from that to a very clean diet.” Her brother went on a medical leave of absence and took the time to carefully prepare his meals. The cancer went away. He returned to work and his previous lifestyle. “The cancer came back, and he didn’t survive it that time,” Valarie says. That was in 2012, and she began delving into the materials her brother had shared. “It literally altered me,” Valarie says. “I was still
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working in the nursing home, and the more I learned, I was like, ‘This is probably the reason that most of my patients are sick.’” She began paying closer attention to the nutritional value of food and how it was processed, choosing to avoid meat from animals treated with antibiotics and preservatives.
Recollection
Valarie grew up in Spencer, Virginia, where her father and grandfather grew tobacco. Valarie’s dad also raised pigs, butchered them on the farm, and stored the meat in a freezer. She recalls how the meat her family raised tasted differently than the processed meat she would buy from the grocery store. “It tastes nothing like the meat that I had back then,” Valarie says. She decided she wanted to consume chemical-free meat but couldn’t find organic meat producers nearby. “So at that point,” she says, “I might as well just grow my own pig.” As her personal hobby expanded, Valarie started selling the meat to offset costs. It wasn’t long before Valarie’s husband, Immanuel Jarvis, supported her interest in developing the project into a side business. “Not only did I want [a source of ] meat, but I felt like I had the opportunity over time to solve that problem for other people,” Valarie says. “We just wanted to eat better,” Immanuel agrees, “so then, we kind of just took a deep breath and started plowing through it.”