How this all began…

Buckle up, Buttercup. This is the story of how I became a startup founder when all I was trying to do was fix my own digestion. 

On the outside, I looked healthy. On the inside, I was anything but.

For years, my body would betray me at the worst times. Spontaneously deciding to turn itself inside out, sending me racing for the nearest ladies room (if you know, you know). My joints hurt, brain fog, bloating, etc. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. 

I spent thousands of dollars on tests and endless appointments. I played specialist roulette to the maximum permitted by my insurance Even after expensive and time-consuming elimination diets, hormone panels and allergy testing. No answers

After a particularly determined effort, a series of 22 tests at 200 dollars a pop (my copay,) I finally got the answer. 

And what was it?

Anxiety. 

And I was told this by a doctor who looked like he still asked his mom for lunch money.

Honestly, when I got to my car, I cried. 

Well, who wouldn’t have anxiety? I didn’t have anxiety before my body hurt. Before my digestion seemed to only work sporadically. Cause and effect were backwards here. Anxiety did not give me a broken digestive system, though the reverse was certainly true. And anxiety’s bff, depression, as well. 

My problem was not mental, except, by this point, I was exhausted.

I gave up and just tried accepting that my body would not work anymore and maybe the problem was that I still wanted it too.

Fast forward a year of trying to live with my lot, I traveled to Egypt. Since my digestion was a dumpster fire and Egyptian cuisine is heavy, eating was tricky. For the first three days, I lived on crackers and mango juice. Then I met some Egyptians and learned about their lighter foods, most of which I had never heard of before.

The main one I ate every day they called molokhia. It looked like kale and tasted a little like cabbage, not really a taste sensation. But I ate it with rice every day because it was easy to digest and readily available. 

And I noticed something strange; my body stopped hurting. My digestion settled down. My mind cleared. The bloating went away, and I lost weight. I wondered briefly if there was something about this plant that was different, because I’d always eaten my share of greens. And one leaf is basically like another, I thought. Mostly water, a little roughage. Was this different somehow?

But I am a busy person, so I forgot about it. 

I went back home and the symptoms returned.

And I remembered the Egyptian cabbage kale thing. 

But I wondered if it was a placebo. I had a strong suspicion that my digestion was better simply just because I was away from America’s toxic industrial food culture. 

How could I know?

Intensely interested now and motivated by my own health, I cut back my spending for a while and saved up so I could  hire a woman who had a PhD in botany and nutrition. She did a survey of all the scientific literature about Egyptian molokhia and explained the findings to me. I believe in science. I’d been burned too many times by viral internet “cures”. I wanted to see data.

The report I got back knocked my knees out from under me. The kale cabbage thing  was an honest-to-God superfood that Egyptians have been eating for thousands of years. So highly valued that Images of molokhia are carved on the tombs of the pharaohs. It has cells called mucilage polysaccharides that dampen inflammation in the body and slow down starch digestion. There was plenty of research that showed molokhia assisted in weight loss and in the prevention of regain. (The studies are on the Green Papyrus blog. I encourage you to see for yourself.)

As I sat there in my living room, I saw an image in my mind. People helping people. I saw one hand reaching out to another, superimposed over a field of deep green molokhia: no big companies, no big marketing scams. Just a single pure ingredient that could actually help us. And telling each other about it. That seemed manageable, something maybe I could do. 

So I began talking, building a team and eventually found myself building a start up company to bring this extraordinary plant to America.  Green Papyrus imports a green powder we handle at every step because I need the exact thing that helped me before . Grown in the black dirt, watered by the Nile river, under the hot Egyptian sun. Not a sibling adapted to growing in northern countries. 

Also, I’m American. I need something I can mix into my smoothie on my way out the door. Convenience counts. But one scoop a day is a small effort for the benefits Molokhia provides and is something I could do as part of my existing routine. 

I thought about the vision I’d had in my living room. For a chain of one person helping another to happen, the way I’d seen in my mind, someone had to start it. That was how Green Papyrus came to be. 

It is me reaching out to you. You feel the benefits.

And then you pass it on. 

Love,

Margaret