Christina Pirello

Christina Pirello, Emmy Award winning host of the television series, "Christina Cooks," (airing on over 135 public television stations nationwide, 50 countries internationally, through the Discovery Health Network, and on Comcast's CN8 Network, is a bright, free-spirited, vivacious redhead who found her way to Philadelphia by opening a map and dropping a pin. Her relationship with food began at young age, cooking with her mother and later, while she was living in Florida, working as a caterer and pastry chef. But the real pivotal point in her life came at age 26, when after being diagnosed with terminal leukemia, she decided to forgo conventional medical therapies and turned to a nutritional approach - whole foods - and cured herself. The passion and commitment which made that happen is what makes her so wonderfully inspirational at what she does.

For the last sixteen years, Christina has been teaching whole foods cooking classes, and conducting lifestyle seminars and lecturing on the power of food in our lives nationwide, in a variety of settings - from natural food stores to corporate board rooms to network TV. No lives are left unchanged when she leaves the room. Even if they think she’s nuts (but nice), they'll never think of food in the same way again...which is her goal.

Since 1989, she and her husband have been publishing a bi-monthly whole foods magazine, Christina Cooks, with national distribution and circulation, as well as operating Christina Trips, a travel company that specializes in healthy vacations to exotic destinations. The author of the best-selling cookbook, Cooking the Whole Foods Way, Christina has released her second and third books, Cook Your Way to the Life You Want, and GLOW, A Prescription to Radiant Health and Beauty, and will release her fourth book, Christina Cooks, Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About Natural Foods, but Were Afraid to Ask in January 2004.

Christina has won a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award in the category of "Best Host" and is beginning her seventh season of her PBS series. Featured consistently in newspapers and magazines, as well as on TV and radio, she has been featured in: Newsweek; Prevention Magazine; Seventeen; Natural Health; Natural Healing, (a publication of Rodale Press); Women First; in the weekly Food, Newsmakers and Entertainment columns of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Inquirer Magazine; on the cover of Philadelphia Weekly; and in newspapers nationally through several AP feeds. She has been on: The CBS Early Show; NBC's The Other Half with Dick Clark; Home Matters on The Discovery Channel; Women's Day TV on The PAX TV Network; and on In Food Today, on The TV Food Network. On radio, she has been featured on Voices for Health and Here’s to Your Health, nationally syndicated radio programs; and she continues to be a featured chef/author annually in Philadelphia's prestigious, internationally-renowned, The Book and the Cook.

In addition, she is on the faculty of the culinary school of Drexel University. She also serves as chairman of the Philadelphia chapter of The Chefs' Collaborative 2000, a culinary organization dedicated to the creation of sustainable agriculture and preservation of the quality of our food supply. In addition, she is an active member of Women Chefs and Restaurateurs and the International Association of Culinary Professionals.