Today we’d like to introduce you to Mayra.
Hi Mayra, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My journey into this work started with my own health. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, and the only answer I was given was to wait until it got worse before starting medication. I wasn’t willing to do that to my body. So I started searching for a more natural path — and when I couldn’t find someone to guide me through it, I decided to become that person myself.
I went back to school to study holistic nutrition, very intentionally choosing that over a conventional program, because conventional approaches hadn’t gotten me anywhere. Around that same time, Oscar — who was a close friend before anything else — was the one who introduced me to foods like liver, which is such a nutritional powerhouse but not exactly easy to love at first bite. Somewhere between the cooking lessons and the healing, we fell in love, and eventually got married.
Roots at Heart really comes from that combination — my drive to understand the body through nutrition, and Oscar’s gift for making healing food genuinely delicious. At the core of it all is a belief in going back to what our ancestors already knew: real food, herbal wisdom, and traditional ways of eating and healing. In a time when so much of life is digital and dictated by outside rules, we wanted to hold onto that knowledge and share it — honoring what nature, and our Creator, already gave us to thrive.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has not been a smooth road. We started Roots at Heart right as we were coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, which made launching a business its own challenge. It was just me and my husband, with no business background at all — we had to learn everything from the ground up.
Slowly, we built connections with local clinics, businesses, and nonprofits, and became more consistent with farmers markets and cooking classes. Word of mouth has really been the foundation of our growth.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Roots at Heart Nutrition is a personal chef and holistic nutrition practice based in Bend, Oregon. What makes us different is that we bring both sides of healing together under one roof — food and nutrition, chef and practitioner, husband and wife. Oscar handles the culinary side: personalized meal prep, in-home cooking classes, chef’s table dining experiences, and drop-off catering, all built around organic, seasonal ingredients. I handle the nutrition side — consultations, live blood analysis, and bioresonance testing — always rooted in whole foods and herbs rather than a reliance on supplements.
We’re bilingual, serving both English and Spanish-speaking clients, which matters a lot to us — good nutrition and real food shouldn’t be limited by language.
What we’re most proud of is how those two pieces work together. It’s one thing to tell someone what to eat. It’s another to actually cook it for them, and show them it can taste incredible. We want people to walk away from working with us not just healthier, but with a completely different relationship to food — one based on real ingredients, ancestral wisdom, and what naturally supports the body.
How do you define success?
For me, success means being able to help even one person outside of my own family — helping them improve their health without relying on pharmaceuticals, man-made supplements, or manufactured products like protein powders. If someone can reach their health goals through hard work and natural, whole-food approaches, that’s already a win in my book.
Success also means being able to sustain this business — covering the basics, affording organic food, which isn’t cheap — so that we never have to go back to working for someone else’s dream instead of our own. Long-term, success looks like continuing to grow, and hopefully traveling to see how nutrition and natural healing are practiced in other cultures around the world.
But maybe most importantly, success isn’t about never taking a wrong turn — it’s about knowing how to find your way back when you do. If you’ve never had to fail and recover, I don’t think you’ve truly experienced success at all.
Pricing:
- Initial nutrition consultation in person $170
- Virtual initial consultation $150
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.rootsatheart.com
- Instagram: @roots_at_heart
