Kathy
Owner of Kathy’s Kitchen,
Katherine Alston
(Article courtesy of
Los Angeles Sentinel Newspaper)
“I’ve always had a passion for health and wellness.
My inspiration stems from being a mother/wife and my concern about the food I was feeding my family.”
Born in Brooklyn, NY, Kathy grew up in Neptune, NJ and graduated from Neptune High School in 1980. Kathy graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1984 with a Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and Columbia University in 1986 with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering majoring in robotics and control theory. She later graduated from Cal State San Bernardino in 2004 with a master’s degree in computer science. She is a credentialed Project Management Professional (PMP).
Kathy’s career field was aerospace and defense where she worked for large firms such as Boeing, Northrop, and Lockheed as well as small research and development firms. She has held the following positions: design engineer, project lead, project manager and general manager. Kathy has decades of experience leading aerospace and defense engineering teams in the development and integration of software and hardware projects for manned and unmanned aerial systems. Her work has supported Space Station, Delta IV, F-18, F-35, B-1, B-2, and Space Launch System (Mission to Mars).
“My father and grandfather both died at the age of 57 from diabetes and other health related issues. “My mother died at the age of 67 from diabetes and the resulting congestive heart failure. Several relatives have also died prematurely from diabetes and other illnesses. I have decided to dedicate my life to combating poor health, premature aging, and premature death.”
Kathy has spent the past 30+ years researching and studying nutrition and healthy eating in order to improve her well-being and the well-being of those around her. In March of 2018, she retired from corporate America to pursue her passion and Kathy’s Kitchen was launched in order to provide natural delicious nutritious products that heal. She also established Katheral Wellness Center, a non-profit dedicated to teaching Health through Nutrition.
Kathy strongly believes
“No one deserves to live a life that is marginalized or compromised ”.
Q&A from Kathy
Engineer to Juice Lady….What’s the connection?
I am someone making juice based on research and data gathered over 30 years. I am a scientist so I make sure that my products are healthy for one’s body based on verifiable information. I selected ingredients that have positive results on one’s body and health. These realistic and repeatable positive results have been proven to be true over the course of thousands of years. I use ingredients occurring naturally in nature that aid your body’s natural normal functions. For example, turmeric is a natural remedy to help your body fight inflammation. It’s not debatable. It’s not a discussion. That’s what turmeric does.
The connection of my juice business to my engineering career is that I worked in the Aerospace and Defense industry and I am also a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). Not only have I been trained in the details required to make high quality products, I also understand how to fully manage million dollar projects from inception to completion. Everything I did had to be right. Precision and accuracy are required to ensure repeatability of desired results. Everything had to work with a high reliability rate. Failure could mean death. The landing gear on airplanes simply can’t fail. Something as simple as a bracket holding a fuel line can’t fail. You don’t want your fuel lines unsecured and rattling during flight and possibly getting damaged to the point that they rupture. So even brackets are important and must be designed correctly. I’ve worked on something as sophisticated as cables that are used on the Mission to Mars. They have a 99.9% reliability rate. They simply can’t fail. While a bracket can loosen and be retightened, there is no technician available who can fix a cable that fails while on a rocket that is traveling to Mars. I therefore have very high standards and I know how to produce extremely high quality products. Your body is a high quality machine. I consider my juices to be the high quality fuel for one’s body. Kathy’s Kitchen knows how to make high quality products. After 30 years of researching nutrition and 30 years of training in the Aerospace and Defense Industry, you can trust that Kathy’s Kitchen produces the best possible fuel that one can consume in order to keep our bodies functioning properly.
What was it like in corporate America?
It was hard and full of micro aggressions. We have to work twice as hard for ½ the pay. As soon as I showed up on a job, people wanted to know why was I there and How did I get there? Everyday, I felt like I had to show up and speak for the whole black race because I was usually always the only black person, let alone black woman or even woman. Somehow the black race is viewed as one unit. So what I did was reflective of what the black race was doing. So I was always trying to show excellence beyond measure. See, I really am smart…Black people really are smart. I felt an unreasonable burning desire to show up and prove I was better than everyone else…that I deserved to be there. Never mind an engineering degree from MIT and two masters degrees. Corporate definitely broke a big part of me so I didn’t look back when I left after 30 years.
What is the secret sauce at Kathy’s Kitchen?
Kathy’s Kitchen produces “Nutrition u can drink from Produce u can recognize and taste". It’s funny that we spend money on who knows what, made from who knows what, grilled, fried, food coloring, chemicals, preservatives, artificial ingredients, pesticides, Please super-size it and give me more…And we ask No questions. People come to Kathy’s Kitchen and spend at least 5 minutes questioning me. I explain that the farmer picked the produce on Wednesday, I bought it on Thursday, and now it is Friday and here is some juice from farm fresh organic produce. This juice is cold-pressed for the highest nutritional value. There are no sweeteners, preservatives or artificial ingredients added. One guy who eats fast food was still skeptical about trying my juice after my whole long explanation. But he wasn’t skeptical about purchasing typical American fast food. I asked him if he ate fast food. He said yes and listed a few common fast food restaurants. Look how we have been hoodwinked, bamboozled and led astray. We can’t even trace our food to the source. When someone like me tries to promote health and tracing our food to the source (namely plants), I am hit with a barrage of questions and skepticism. Luckily that is changing and more people are shifting to a healthier way of eating. That’s really why I am here. That’s why I do what I do. Kathy’s Kitchen is available to provide nutrition you can drink to those seeking high quality fuel for their body.
With that said, Kathy’s Kitchen is also trying to specifically be here for our community. We need access to food that heals. Our neighborhoods are rampant with food that destroys our bodies. Alternative solutions should be available for those seeking nutrition. Also, having parents and close family members who died from diabetes and other health issues drives me to provide both education and products that can reverse the trend and negative impact of poor eating on our health.