About Hollis
& Savvy Sage

 Hollis was raised in a big family headed by her mother, a dietitian and food service administrator (the original Super Mom!). “Homemade” was just how we operated. Growing up in the 1960s and 70s Hollis was drawn to the popular “back-to-nature” movement. She found her way to the mountains in 1976 and began her quest for knowledge in natural healing arts.  Learning from a community of homesteading Seventh Day Adventists in the California Sierra foothills, she soaked up information like a sponge. Hollis is extremely grateful for such a fantastic introduction to a natural and healthy lifestyle.  She was able to study and experiment with cleansing diets, fasting, herbal medicines, iridology, and alkaline diet, learning the nutritional advantages of eating foods as whole and fresh as possible. Huge gardens, processing and preserving the harvests, milking goats, making healing tinctures, salves and remedies was a lifestyle she had longed for and now fully engaged in.

In the 80s, as a mother of three and a lay midwife, Hollis expanded her knowledge of natural healthcare to include the special needs of childbearing women and their families.  She and her family moved to Kauai, Hawaii in 1988. For the last 20 years, she has enjoyed working as a licensed massage therapist supporting her clients’ health and happiness by providing integrative and therapeutic services.  She is a certified Qigong instructor, taught by Grand Master Hong Liu, whose focus is disease prevention and longevity. She has been happily teaching Qigong and leading practices since 2004. 

Considering how the quality of our food sources in the US is in fast decline, Hollis adopted a whole food plant-based lifestyle to avoid the common health issues often suffered by those who eat a diet rich in animal products.  She doesn’t see herself as a purist and is not interested in judging others’ food choices. After studying whole food nutrition, Hollis was inspired to help people adopt this lifestyle and reclaim their health. 

Taking pleasure in cooking and being a bit of a foodie, Hollis embarked on a mission to make plant-based foods just as tasty and satisfying as foods made with animal products. She completed a culinary course with Forks Over Knives in collaboration with Rouxbe Cooking School and is now Plant-Based Certified and enthusiastic about sharing her culinary creations with friends, family, and students.

To improve her coaching skills and assist people in making lifestyle changes, Hollis attended Life Coach Institute of Orange County, and is a Certified Life Coach.  To learn the importance of proper nutrition in a plant-based diet, Hollis completed the certificate program with T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies, through eCornell. This has emboldened her conviction that a whole food plant-based diet is the best preventative and curative diet known to humankind.  She is excited to offer coaching and guidance, and to share the many resources available to those wanting to turn their health around by adopting this healing lifestyle.  

In her free time Hollis enjoys music, gardening, cooking, swimming, and cycling. She truly values her family, friends, humor, love, and joy in all things.

Contributor

Anita Cook is an amazing artist in so many ways and forms including Feng Shui, sculpting, garden design, Taiko drumming and of course her food styling and photography. Her eye for showing off the beauty of food, is one of her many talents. Thank you Anita for making my dishes look so gorgeous and yummy and for being so fun to work with!