Bios & History

Martie Whittekin, CCN, was host until January 31, 2024. Martie started the show in 1997 on KAAM. A nutrition counselor since 1982 and a Certified Clinical Nutritionist for most of that time, she has studied with some of the brightest minds in the natural health field. That background helped her to pick well-qualified guests and to ask questions designed to give listeners reliable and actionable information and well as translate jargon into lay language. Martie is not into rocking chairs and knitting. Her idea of what today’s senior citizen might be looking forward to doing are illustrated by the pictures here of her on the Texas Longhorn, holding a giant yellow python, on a zip line through the jungle in Costa Rica and enjoying indoor sky diving (lost the picture).

• Martie is the author of The Probiotic Cure: Harnessing the Power of Good Bacteria for Better Health and the best selling book, Natural Alternatives to Nexium & Other Acid Blockers:  What to Use to Relieve Acid Reflux, Heartburn, and Gastric Ailments, (2nd edition published in 2012) and ALOE VERA Modern Science Sheds Light on an Ancient Herbal Remedy (2010).

• She served as President of the National Nutritional Foods Association (which is now the Natural Products Association) during crucial phases of the effort to pass the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. She testified at many congressional hearings and had input into that landmark bill.

• As a founder and head of Texans for Health Freedom (formed to protect a citizen’s right to choose alternative medical treatments) Ms Whittekin helped obtain at least some preliminary protection from the Medical Board for doctors who used nutrition in their practices.

• She was awarded The National Nutritional Foods Association’s 2002 “Crusader Award” and earlier was honored as AWIN (Association of Women in Nutrition) “Woman of the Year in Natural Foods.”

• Martie served on the Board of Trustees of Bastyr University (a fully accredited medical school that teaches natural medicine). • She has been married to Bill Whittekin since 1978. They have 4 grown children and 2 grandchildren.

• Her other hobbies are art (until retirement, mostly just collecting art supplies) and decorating cakes. (Note: the basket, at left…its contents and grass are all edible.) See more cakes (what is shown is also technically edible if not healthful.

Andy Hopkins – Producer and on-air personality
Andy was the original producer of Healthy by Nature and wass often Martie’s lively co-host. He majored in Radio and TV at Ohio State University and worked as an unpaid intern at WNCI in Columbus as the traffic guy. Andy literally hijacked his way onto the air by recording news stories and sneaking them into the news director’s stack for air the next morning. As a result of making the news director’s job easier, Andy was given a full-time job and a Sunday morning public affairs show.

• Andy encouraged Martie to get into radio. Andy has considerable nutrition experience which helped him evaluate in-coming listener calls and help them—whether or not they got on the air.

• Andy is married to Debbie. Together they parent 3 dogs and closely follow the OSU Buckeyes and promote their town of Celina, TX. In fact, Andy is a member of the Celina City Council. Andy owns and operates the area UPS store.

Jim Russell – Geek / Brother of Martie / Uncle of Andy.

Jim helps with website, email and tech issues. His day job is helping customers at the Home Depot in Wylie, TX.

Show History
Healthy by Nature is now broadcast on Salem network in many US cities and is available online live, as archived shows, on iHeart Radio and pod casts. It has aired on KWRD in North Texas since August of 1998. We remember fondly the early days when the show hour was preceded by Doug Kaufmann’s live radio show and followed by that of Dr. Cliff Sheats. In 1997 a prior show, The Feel Young and Healthy Show on KAAM (the oldies station) was hosted by Martie for a year with co-host Jim Judd. That station was sold to Disney and changed format. A highlight of that original program was the train that blew its whistle outside the window halfway through every show. Martie was so nervous and concerned that every moment of the show be useful that she practically had a script. Martie and Andy are very grateful for the listeners that suffered through their inexperience then and still listen today.