Meet Christina Laham Paganelli

We were lucky to catch up with Christina Laham Paganelli recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Christina, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
I was 25 years old when I heard the news that I had stage 4 cancer. With such an aggressive diagnosis, surgery was an emergency while I was 5 months pregnant. After the baby was born two rounds of radioactive iodine treatments were necessary to suppress the growth of tumors in my lungs. At the same time, I was also battling Multiple sclerosis (MS) a chronic autoimmune disease that affects the brain and spinal cord.

After the treatments, my goal was to heal from the side effects of these radiation treatments and improve my quality of life. Little did I know my path of self-healing, through food, would take me on a journey extending two decades.
I have raised 2 children, grown a business, dabbled in research, and inspired so many people into their own personal healing and discovery.
Shortly after my radiation treatments, I began eating only raw fruits and vegetables. Although these foods were healing, I noticed weight loss and that I wasn’t absorbing all the nutrition. I immediately started blending all of my meals. Shortly after, a number of friends and family requested a batch of my elixir drink. I started making and selling as much as I could produce. After 2 decades, I am still making and selling as much as I can produce across the USA and Canada. I have definitely found my purpose through adversity. I am providing not only a product but a lifestyle, and hope. Hope that things can get better. There isn’t one exact recipe for how this works, as everyone’s challenges are different. But hope is the same all over.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I would like to explain the meaning behind my brand name. It is called DRINKME. The world first saw the words “DRINK ME” on the label hanging on the green potion that sat on the table in ‘Alice in Wonderland’. In the story, Alice drank the potion, and it transformed her. Of course, this is a fictional story, but the metaphor and parallel is that of a product can transform lives through balanced nutrition.

Similarly, DRINKME is a line of green beverages made with whole fruits and vegetables. If it is edible, it is in our drinks, including peels, seeds, stems, and pulp. These hearty products provide high nutrition, fiber, and various serving sizes of fruits and vegetables in a delicious, bottled beverages.

DRINKME is more than just a product. It is an awareness about proactive health, wellness, and prosperity. People need real plant-based nutrition at all stages of life. In fact, the average human needs between 8-10 serving sizes of fruits and vegetables every day, with 3 of those servings being exclusively from leafy greens. The drinkme products provide this critical nutrition that satisfies most of these daily requirements, and also provides an awareness that we just need more to fuel our bodies and lifestyle.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Firstly, my education in Chemistry has been critical in allowing me the credibility to speak on my research and development. I will admit that my discovery was unintentional and coincidental but perhaps there was a larger force at work that led me down this path. For whatever reason I selected a degree in Chemistry and graduated with it, years before I would use it in my invention. Secondly, the fortitude to pursue my endeavor with all the passion and every fiber of my being is next on the list of skills, which hasn’t been an easy path. I think that in the event that I was presented 20 20 visions of the future, I still would have taken the opportunity to pursue my passion and arrive exactly at this spot.
Thirdly, perseverance is my third quality, because the length of time it has taken to develop a business from nothing has required a lot of patience and a belief that I am providing value to the world. There have been many times in which giving up is the much easier option, except keeping focused on the long-term vision wins.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
There are many different levels of partnerships such as our own collective of brand ambassadors and organizations that align with our mission, vision, and values right within our community. These include not-for-profit organizations dedicated to the betterment of people, animals, and the planet. Also, much larger partnerships that can provide much-needed investments and strategic direction. Within our supply chain we have valued partnerships, and we consider anyone in this channel as our family who deserves respect, trust, and communication at every stage.

There is simply no way to navigate this landscape without win-win partnerships provides value big or small. We welcome any of these levels of partnerships. We are always accessible through our website or our social handles.

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Image Credits
Christina Paganelli

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