There was a period between roughly 2016 and 2020 when giving back became less of an idea and more of a necessity for me personally.

Life had hit hard.

I had gone through loss, grief, recovery, and a long stretch of trying to rebuild myself mentally, physically, and spiritually. Laurie was gone and I was grieving. Michael had also passed 2007. John Backer had died in 2009, but grief doesn’t really move in straight lines. Sometimes it circles back around years later when you finally slow down enough to feel it.

At the same time, I was rebuilding my own health after years of physical injuries and emotional exhaustion. I had spent much of my life learning that when the body breaks down, the mind often follows close behind. And when people are starving, not just emotionally, but nutritionally, it becomes very difficult for them to believe anyone cares whether they live or die.

So I decided to do something simple.

We started cooking food.

Not processed food. Not leftovers. Not products. Real meals made from whole foods, vegetables, grains, greens, sweet potatoes, rice, legumes, and nutrient-dense ingredients prepared in commercial kitchens with care and respect. We packaged the meals ourselves and delivered them directly to unhoused communities throughout Malibu and Los Angeles.

We never treated it like charity content or a marketing campaign. In fact, we didn’t even hand out Elixir products. That was never the point.

The point was nourishment.

Because nourishment is dignity.

A warm meal tells someone:
“You still matter.”
“You are still seen.”
“You are still human.”

And sometimes that matters more than people realize.

There’s a strange thing that happens when you feed people consistently. You stop seeing “the homeless” as a category or political issue. You start seeing individuals. Veterans. Mothers. People struggling with addiction. People suffering from mental illness. People who lost jobs, relationships, stability, or hope. Some were deeply kind. Some were angry. Some were broken. Most were simply exhausted.

Empathy changes when it becomes personal.

I’ve always believed the highest form of intelligence is empathy, the ability to step outside yourself long enough to understand another person’s pain without immediately judging it.

A healthy body cannot solve every problem. But nourishment creates stability. Stability creates clarity. And clarity creates the possibility of recovery.

For several years, we made feeding people part of our routine. Cases of meals. Long nights in kitchens. Deliveries throughout Southern California. Sometimes exhausted. Sometimes emotionally drained ourselves. But it grounded us.

Eventually, local enforcement and policy changes made continuing difficult, and we were told to stop distributing meals in certain areas. But the experience stayed with me.

It changed the way I view health.

Health is not aesthetics.
Health is not vanity.
Health is not six-pack abs on social media.

Health is community.
Health is energy.
Health is emotional resilience.
Health is knowing someone cared enough to feed you.

That philosophy still exists inside everything we do at Elixir MRE today.

Not just creating products, but creating nourishment with intention.

Because sometimes the first step toward healing isn’t motivation.

Sometimes it’s simply being fed.