Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Opening my Mind

OK, so I don't want my mind to be so open that anything falls out, but having an open mind in the area of what I eat and allow in my body is a good thing. 

I grew up as most of us middle-class American kids did. We ate pretty good food. We ate mostly what mom made from scratch, as there were not nearly as many options out there as there are now. Now, you can have every conceivable combination of food/spices you can think of thrown into a tomato sauce and buy your spaghetti sauce pre-made. There weren't choices that vast in the 70s and 80s. 

When I joined the United States Air Force and moved far away from home, I ate a lot of "chow hall" food and made some small amounts of food from scratch. Considering that we had two stoves for the entire building of airmen (about 300 of us), home cooking often happened in an electric skillet or the occasional crock pot. I liked to cook and enjoyed apartment sitting for my married friends when they went on vacations, but I didn't eat well, even though I thought I did.

Fast forward to being married. I tried my hardest to please him, but he had no taste for anything besides salt and pepper. He liked garbage from cans and boxes. He loved any pre-made pasta. I packed on weight trying to please his palate!  

Two kids and ten years later, and my son was diagnosed with asthma. In a casual conversation with the mom of one of my five year old son's friends, I discovered a crack in the facade of what "the establishment" had been telling us. Raw milk cured her three year old son's asthma. RAW MILK? Was she nuts? Didn't she know that drinking that stuff could kill you? I look back on my naivete now and laugh. Raw milk cured my son's asthma, too.

That one step started me on the path I still continue to trod today. I am constantly growing and learning and changing. I am opening my mind to see that what the FDA, CDC, AHA and all the others is not necessarily gospel truth. I see now that the closer I eat to the way God intended, eating what grows from the earth, not what comes out of cans and boxes, the healthier I become. I have been diagnosed with all manner of illnesses, not the least of which is Fibromyalgia. The more real, whole foods I eat, the fewer and less severe the symptoms. I think I'll continue.

Won't you join me on my journey to better foods and better health?

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