2 Lives - Storytelling Podcast about the moments that transform us. "We all have 2 Lives. The second begins the moment we realize we have only one."

We kick off our sixth season of 2 Lives December 13 celebrating stories of Arizona women.

When Maria del Carmen Parra Cano cooks, she thinks of her mom. It was her mother who taught her to cook. When Carmen battled diabetes, liver disease, and postpartum depression she turned to her mother's recipes -- corn mush and beans and cinnamon tea -- for comfort. Then she discovered if she tweaked the recipes just slightly, a miraculous thing happened. She could heal herself.

"At that point they took off the hyper tension medication and I no longer needed diabetes medication," María del Carmen Parra Cano said. "And it was just really, for me, it was an affirmation of food being used as medicine and healing my body. My husband, he's like, 'we need to help other people. Like how can we help other people?' And within a month we had a food truck and that was the birth of Sana Sana Foods and sanar in Spanish means to heal."

Season 6 is sponsored by the Women's Foundation for the State of Arizona. As a Nonprofit organization, WFSA invests in creating social, political, and economic change to achieve an Arizona where women and girls of all identities thrive. Learn more and donate at womengiving.org.

2 Lives is created by Laurel Morales, story edited by Ruxandra Guidi. Lauren Vispoli is the assistant producer. Annie Gerway is our illustrator and web designer. Music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Become a 2 Lives patron at https://www.patreon.com/2lives

Drop us a note on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. You can learn how to support the show here. Episode transcripts are posted on our website.