Food. I'm really into it.
Not as much for cooking creatively or pleasurable eating, but I'm very interested in how food makes me feel and what foods can DO for me. Let me start by saying if what you are eating and drinking is working for you and you feel good then I say stick with it!
Enjoy it! Do what makes you feel nourished and happy.
I don't think I have found the holy grail of diets or a one size fits all solution.
I do think I have figured out which foods make me tired and inflamed and which foods make me feel fluid and energetic.
I think we all have different needs when it comes to food and even different emotional metabolisms. I have been interested in health and nutrition since I was a teenager.
My grandparents on my dad's side were dairy farmers and grew a huge garden full of delicious vegetables.
They had fruit trees of every kind and berries and grape vines for home made grape juice.
They would make their own wheat bread, jams and yogurt and their milk was unpasteurized unhomogenized, cream on the top, deliciousness.
I loved their root cellar full of potatoes and onions and other root vegetables.
My grandparents ingenuity was fascinating and wonderful to me.
They grew flowers from seed and had a green house that my grandpa had built.
They had a big tractor and a big swing in their beautiful old willow tree.
They lived in Cornish Utah when they had the farm and then next to the Bear River in Mink Creek Idaho after they sold their farm.
They always had a lot of land where they grew a gorgeous huge garden that could have fed a few hundred people in my child perspective.
It was a magical place for me as a kid.
I loved being in the country with the sound of the river out the window.
One summer my sister and I went to stay for a couple of weeks.
My grandma took us to the neighbor's house who's cat had just had kittens. Grandma told us we could each pick out a kitten for ourselves! It would have to live at grandma's but it would be our kitty.
The miracle of this to me as a city kid was shockingly wondrous.
We had so many fun times there. My grandma was always very concerned with getting your vitamins and would drink brewers yeast. Nasty stuff but she would endure the taste for the health benefit. I admired this very much and I think I have taken her love of healthy food and have tried to eat the healthiest I know how in my day and time.
For the last 10 years I have been eating less and less meat and eating more and more "super foods" however unpleasant I am willing to endure if I think it's good for me.
I also ate my share of deserts and cheese and chips and all the yummy junk food.
I ate these things in what I considered to be moderation but I still ate them.
This June I wanted to see what I would feel like if I only ate what was actually unprocessed, real, grown from the earth, food.
I wanted to see if I could NOT eat sugar and treats.
I have NEVER gone off sugar. I've watched my friends go off sugar for a month and thought it looked like terrible torture. How can you just NOT eat chocolate cake?
I also wanted to see what it would be like and how I would feel to not eat meat and dairy.
What do you eat if you don't eat meat and dairy??? I didn't know. Re fried beans from a can?
The older I've gotten the more I have taken comfort from nature and animals.
I started to feel sad every time I ate another chicken breast.
I felt like a traitor since I have 6 pet chickens of my own. I wondered if they could smell their kin on my breath when I went out to pet them and talk to them. ;) Emotionally it was getting uncomfortable for me to feast on the flesh.
Well, for multiple reasons, June of 2016 is when I just had to try something different to help myself feel better physically and emotionally.
I felt pretty good but was dealing with some health issues that I didn't want to see get worse. I had no interest in weight control since my weight pretty much has held steady after my twins were 3 years old.
I thought I looked fine and was not going on a diet for weight issues. I was going on a real food diet for health issues. My goal was not how few calories I could eat but how many nutrients could I pack in.....really, how many nutrients could I pack in?
My biggest concern about going "vegan" was fear of what others would think, or worse, offending my parents and in laws by not eating what they served for Sunday dinner.
But then I realized that I should have the last say when it comes to what I put in my body!
If I offend someone or someone thinks I'm weird, well, I'd just have to be OK with that.
Again, if I don't have the last say about what I put in my mouth then how much of my power and choice am I giving away to what our culture says is normal?
One of the reasons I felt like I could make the plunge into a new world of eating was that in my ward/neighborhood there is a Health Coach. A real life nutritionist. I met with her and set up meetings with her twice a month for 6 months. She gave me recipes and tips and taught me the ways of healthy eating without meat and dairy. I even stopped eating my chickens eggs.
After 6 months of sticking to this way of eating pretty strictly this is what I discovered.
1. My body has a hard time with dairy. It makes my throat congested and makes me feel like I'm on the verge of a cold and makes me actually get a sore throat then a cold. My whole life I wake up in the morning and have to clear my throat over and over. Soon after we were first married, Nate jokingly asked me if I had turrets because I cleared my throat so much. It also makes my tummy bloat. It also make the taste in my mouth unpleasant. Since going off dairy I digest better. I don't have to clear my throat all day. I don't get colds or flu. I haven't all winter. No stuffy nose or congested throat for me. Wow.
2. Wheat bread isn't the health food for my body that I thought it was. Maybe its the fact that the commercial yeast they use these days is fast acting and doesn't break down gluten and other things in the wheat that can be hard on the body. Maybe its the fact that I ate so much bread with this commercial yeast plus lots of sugar that I had a yeast over growth in my gut and through out my body. Or maybe its because in the 1970's they hybridized wheat to be able to grow in dryer climates and it just isn't the plant that it originally was.??? I don't know all the reasons but wheat seems to cause inflammation and ache in my joints and gut. My tummy has flattened out since going off wheat bread. Arthritis pain in my joints has drastically reduced. Wheat bread toast used to be my go to snack food. My all purpose meal. Now it is a green smoothie :)
3. I was a complete sugar addict. I had withdrawl when I went off. I felt sick and crabby and so tired. Part of it could have been the yeast die off that wasn't getting all the sugar it needed to live in my body so it died in my body and made me sick. For 2 weeks I thought about cookies all day. I felt sick and tired and craved cake and chocolate. Sugar is so addictive! I had no idea how it was making me moody and tired. I'm already prone to mood swings but sugar exaggerated the problem. Sugar is not a food. It is a isolated component from a plant which literally makes it a drug. No wonder it gives me 60 seconds of bliss followed by a crash in mood and energy levels. As I have gotten older I'd have to take a nap every day to recover from the desert I had at lunch.
4. Emotionally I feel better not eating meat. Physically I smell better not eating meat. It also gives me an unpleasant taste in my mouth. But, I also miss meat. Its just so salty and tasty! My spirit loves not eating meat but my body misses it and asks me to eat it. At Thanksgiving I ate the full delicious meal. Christmas I did the same thing. It was great and I really enjoyed all the food and meat. I did feel happy to not keep eating that way though. I really do feel better so it makes it easier to give up the old ways of eating. Because I have felt a bit protein deficient I drink plant based protein shakes and protein bars. I also eat some smoked salmon and my chicken's eggs occasionally. I really have loved adding back in the smoked salmon. It is so good on my salads.
5. There is a whole world of food I didn't know I liked. I also love eating big quantities and not feeling like there is a lead ball in my stomach. Fruits and vegetables just sit in the tummy nicer.
Next time I'll give you a list of some of the new foods I've discovered. Also, I'll tell you how I live without normal chocolate. I found something better.
To be continued.
:) :) :)
Kristen
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