Caroline Potter

Colorful Eats Nutrition | Caroline Potter ’12

During her junior year of college, Caroline Cheatum was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, an auto-immune disease. Although she was, for all everyone knew, a healthy 20-year-old, she lost all her energy, felt sick, and fainted several times. On top of that, her participation in the Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program meant that she had to balance an internship, classes, and living in a new city. Her doctors immediately prescribed insulin. According to her doctors, she could eat whatever she wanted as long as she counted her carbs and kept up with her insulin dosage. But when she gained 20 pounds within two weeks of treatment and continued to feel awful, she decided that there had to be a better way to live.

She began researching diabetes, insulin, and other methods for mitigating the effects of her new illness. Despite being a French major with no background in the natural sciences, Caroline began researching scientific studies on insulin, diabetes, diet, and Chinese medicine. She finally found the “paleo diet,” which removes all processed foods including grains, gluten, refined sugars, and sometimes dairy. By limiting her carbohydrate intake, it also helps decrease her body’s insulin requirement.

She explains that the way people eat in modern America is not how people used to eat: “Starting in the 20th century, processed foods became cheaper and more popular than healthy, natural foods. Now it has become increasingly more difficult and more expensive to find unprocessed foods. One of the key components of this diet is the increase in fat intake. The human body is able to convert fats to sugars, when the sugar intake is lower than normal. The paleo diet hinges on this natural biological process. When your body is producing its own form of sugar, there is no need for artificial sugars.”_MG_5702 By following this dietary regimen, Caroline was able to wean herself off insulin completely by her senior year. Caroline remained off insulin for 2 years but is currently back on a small amount each day.

Inspired by her experience, Caroline decided to become a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (NTP) so that she could better understand her own limitations and help others through similar journeys. She got her certification through an online school, which took 10 months of online classes as well as intensive weekends of exams and networking with others in her program.

Caroline got engaged to her husband Stephen Potter, an officer in the United States Navy, the summer after graduation. During the wedding planning process, Caroline realized that she wanted, more than anything else, a wedding cake that was free of grains and sugars, but otherwise looked, felt, and tasted like a normal wedding cake. After extensive experimentation, she came up with the perfect cake recipe, one that was free of grains and refined sugars. This process inspired her to start her own online business, Colorful Eats Nutrition. Through her website, blog, Instagram, Facebook page, and newsletters, Caroline is able to reach out to those struggling with the similar health issues with dietary restrictions. “Many of the modern diseases,” she notes, “are largely symptoms of the processed foods we eat in America.” To help her clients combat their illnesses through better eating, she comes up with custom menus designed to help each individual cut out processed and unhealthy foods from their diet.

According to Caroline, good, homemade food brings people together and gives joy to meals. Caroline revolves the message of her business around the same joy and encouragement that she found in her own lifestyle change. Her excellent photography and down-to-earth story-telling have drawn not only those with health issues, but also those with an appreciation for beauty in every day life. She is constantly inspired by those she works with, like a 9-year-old girl recently diagnosed with diabetes who told her mother, “I’m going to be joyful about this because Caroline is joyful about it.”

For Caroline, her Hillsdale education helped her develop the determination and perseverance necessary not only for fighting her disease, but also turning what was a challenging life experience into an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others. “Hillsdale really pushes you in every way. I never thought I’d be a published author, but Hillsdale taught me how to just go for it and never give up.”

This October, Caroline’s first cookbook, “All-American Paleo Table,” will be published. It is currently available for pre-order on Amazon._MG_5940


Caroline Potter is choosing joy in the midst of difficulty. All photos courtesy of Ms. Potter.