Carrie Saum

Last year, Ashton Kutcher tweeted about the Teal Pumpkin Project for Halloween. The food allergy community lost its damn mind in the best way.

My friends, food is getting fancier.

The first time I ate a mushroom at Gram's summertime table (with me sporting a full coverage one piece and neon shorts, and her in a ruffled pink bikini), it was raw. All I tasted was dirt. I swore off them forever. So, she made them for dinner.

Food is fun and chicken soup is hard to mess up. Truly! Enjoy this Lemongrass Ginger Chicken Soup recipe from my heart to your stove.

Soothing warmth from the inside out to help ease your aches and pains, help you rest, and stop coughing.

The shame was overwhelming. Why was my body broken? What had I done to my baby? I began to spiral into self-loathing. Gestational diabetes felt like a failure.

I didn't have even an ounce of energy to spare to process my own feelings. Everything I had went to my son.

If you tend to eschew your inner child and prefer to feel somewhat sophisticated and faux-healthy, you can call a frozen wine drink a smoothie and it totally counts. Because we are all of a legal drinking age here and there is no shame in consuming your daily super fruit serving in a nutritious, fermented, frozen liquid form. The best part about all of this is you don’t need GOOD wine, you just need not-chardonnay.

[CN: emetophobia] I wish my son's gut could handle more than a few foods. I wish there were a magic Google function that could tell me and all of Echo's doctors how to manage this jerk of an allergy.

Because here's the thing. Kindness is the antidote to the poison being pedaled by the Trumps of the world. Your anger is valid and important, and your despair should never be overlooked. And you can be all of the things, feel all of the feelings, ardently and vigorously defend the most vulnerable among us, say all of the words you need to say, and act with an undercurrent of kindness.