How A Broken Freezer Saved My Life
posted on
April 30, 2025
Hello farm family!
Hannah here.
In case you didn’t know. The month of May highlights Mental Health Awareness nationally.
As we have gone through our journey on this farm eating better quality food, we have found food to be medicine to not only improve many of our customer’s physical health and ailments, but also mental.
And today to kick off the month of May, I want to share a personal story about how our food directly impacted Wanda Farms’ very 1st customer.

Sick, Stuck, and Starving for Worth
It was February, 2017. Depressed, drained, defeated I just desperately wanted to disappear.
There was no anticipated future in my life.
Friends would often ask, “Hey, what is your goal or 5 year vision?”
5 year vision???
Heck I couldn’t see my life beyond 1 year.
And the goal?
It was just to make it through today.
Sadly, this above was my daily life’s reality.
Since I was a teenager, I struggled with depression, anxiety, and worse of all an eating disorder that led me down many dark paths. I was in and out of therapy and treatments. Better, bad, and worse seasons all rollercoasting throughout my teenage years and into my twenties.
I believed that skinny was beautiful. Women needed to be thin to be admired and loved.
So to achieve this, I created rules for myself:
Rule #1: Fat is bad: too many calories. So I leaned towards fish and chicken. I noticed however these meats at the grocery store were sold infused with some kind of sodium to preserve it.
Rule #2: Salt is bad. And what kind of sodium is this anyway? Is it safe? So I grew skeptical and hesitant of meat sold at the store and limited how much I could eat.
At that time I heavily got my calories from fruit, vegetables and chocolate. The deficient calorie intake along with excessive exercise led to a horrible health condition known as anorexia nervosa.
2015 to 2018 was one of the darkest seasons of my life. I used anorexia to handle my stress and give me a sense of control.
My everyday thoughts were about disappearing and numbing out.
All this said, I was very sick and stuck.
Beef, Belief, and a Broken Freezer
In 2018, after being married to Joe for 4 years, he was excited to begin our farming journey on our own farm. He had just finished raising our 1st group of 4 grass-fed only beef. He mainly did it for his mom, sister and my mom. All who were disgusted with commercial organic beef. They wanted the healthiest beef, no industrial corn raised beef.
We purchased a couple old freezers off facebook marketplace and set them up in our dungy old basement.
After filling up our families' freezers, and a few new customer orders, we put the remaining beef in our freezer.
However, 1 month later…..
Bad news.
The upright freezer’s door wasn’t shutting properly and all the beef stew on the freezer door was completely thawed and leaking out of the paper packaging.
So of course I knew I had to do something with it. I mean we just dumped our life savings into raising this beef, butcher fees, and freezers.
It couldn't go to waste.
So that weekend, I cooked up 25 lbs of beef stew to refreeze for later meals. I quickly learned all the things you can make with beef stew meat in the slow cooker. So I got busy in the kitchen making BBQ beef, beef tacos, enchilada, Italian beef, and of course beef stew.
At this time, I was still struggling and somewhat skeptical about the thought of eating beef. My thoughts would distract me; it was only safe to eat small amounts of lean cuts. However, having joined Joe in raising our beef and seeing 1st hand how it was raised and where it came from. I slowly became more confident and open to trying it.
As I battled my thoughts I would remind myself.
“I can trust this. This beef was raised in our backyard under our control.”
I started to eat the beef at first with hesitancy, but each time, I felt that I had more and more confidence.

Finding new hope
Shortly after this, we also raised our 1st batch of meat chickens. Now, the grocery store chicken always left me skeptical and hesitant in buying because I heard all the stories how they infused it with sodium to preserve it.
But….
Our chicken was different.
I saw how this chicken was raised and naturally processed. It was just chicken. All making me feel comfortable to eat chicken again.
Having worked alongside Joe in raising our meat I felt a sense of confidence and control knowing where our meat came from and I started to incorporate meat back into my diet regularly.
2019 was the healthiest year of my life in over 6 years.
This transformation didn’t happen overnight….but
My depression, mental health, and eating disorder were improving.
Then the best thing that ever happened to me.
My DREAMS came true. Yes, I started dreaming again and having HOPE!!!
December 2019, I WAS PREGNANT!!!
It was by far the most exciting time of my life. The feelings of guilt for not being able to bear a child were over.
I felt the best I’ve ever felt in over 15 years that Christmas.

Meat transformed my life and presented healing
We never thought anything of that broken freezer. We wondered for years how my healing came about. All the in-patient treatments, counseling, and therapy during a decade and a half of struggling never really moved the needle on my mental health illness.
However in 2021, Joe and I started to hear stories of folks on the carnivore diet.
After listening to their stories, which to our surprise, many had a similar journey of depression, anxiety, and eating disorder on a vegetarian diet, we heard how they also finally found healing with meat as their primary source of food.
I didn’t follow an all meat diet. However we saw that all the non saleable beef stew that we had to eat and the farm fresh chicken were all at the same time I experienced a turn in the road.
Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but maybe that broken freezer saved my life!
While I’m not here to say meat only created the healing. Meat was the missing piece in my diet. My brain needed those essential nutrients to improve my cognitive and mental health.
Today, meat is an essential part of my daily diet.
While Joe and I don’t live on a carnivore only diet. We no doubt make it our staple product in our household for every meal because we see the benefits it brings to our health both physically and mentally.
If you personally or have a loved one that is struggling with mental health, my deepest sympathy goes out to you.
It’s such a difficult battle.
It takes trusting in God, countless prayers, and a commitment to fight!
Thanks for reading.
Your farmer,
Hannah Wanda
P.S.
We want this farm to be more than just a place you buy food from, but a community where we can encourage each other for a brighter future!
If you have a health transformation story (either mental, weight loss, skin, gut condition, cancer, etc) that you would be willing to share to our community. Please reach out to me at Hannah@wandafarms.com. We would love to highlight your story to our community.