Food--- universal language
We have a party-we must serve food.
We have a meeting-we must serve food.
We have friends over-we must serve food.
It is hard to think of a time when people get together, and the topic of food does not come up. I mean, let’s face it, even at someone’s wake, we try to make sure there is enough food for the family.
Here in South Louisiana, we take pride in the fact that people come from all over the world to eat or learn to cook our Cajun Cuisine.
Growing up, my tastes for food were very different. My parents were older when I was born, and we didn’t eat out very much, which meant that my mother cooked many of our meals. I was not too fond of very many vegetables. I only remember liking potatoes, sweet peas (only the very tiny peas and only a particular brand), and the only salad ingredient that I ate was lettuce (only iceberg lettuce.) Yep, that was the extent of my vegetable repertoire. My mom cooked a lot of rice and gravies so I ate mostly meat. As I grew up, my food selection increased gradually, but I always stuck to a more carnivorous diet than anything else.
My old eating habits were never a problem for me, I mean, so what if I didn’t eat many different kinds of food. I ate what I wanted when I wanted, and how I wanted. I thought myself lucky that I always leaned more towards eating because I had to vs. eating because it was an obsession.
LATER......
I found out much later in life that I was hypothyroid, which usually causes a person to retain weight which is contrary to hyperthyroidism, which usually allows a person to be a little thinner. So, you see, I ate what I wanted and still could maintain my weight (not that I didn’t think I could be thinner – which is of course what I wanted, but I was not ever obese.) All of this was.....
Then!
It wasn’t until my daughter Cae’ly was diagnosed with breast cancer that I ever really gave the food that we eat a second thought. I can remember that her diagnosis hit me like a ton of bricks. As a mother, my first thought is, “What can I do?” “How can I help my daughter to beat this?”
You want to take care of the spirit,
the mind,
and the body.
I started reading and listening to doctors. One of the big topics was the food we eat, so I started looking for cancer prevention or cancer treatment helping cookbooks. I remember finding a recipe for a broth that you could make using vegetables that I had never even heard of. You could drink this broth as is or use it as a base for various other things. It said that it would also help with nausea and provide all the vitamins and nutrients from all of those great vegetables.
The Broth
Well, I decided if that broth could do all of that, I would make this for my daughter. You see, I couldn’t take this horrible disease away from her, but I would do whatever I could to help. My husband and I decided to go to a specialty store (this wasn’t our best idea) to look for the unheard-of vegetables. It took us a while to find all of what we needed, and we had to ask a few store workers to point us in the right direction, but we found it all and headed to the check-out counter.
After paying over $200, yes that’s right, two hundred dollars, we headed home to make that broth. Did I mention that we went to a specialty store? Well, lesson learned, even though we had never heard of these vegetables, we later found out that you could get them at most big food chains for a LOT less.
Fast-forward...
a little to when my daughter Carly was diagnosed, she and her husband found remedies and preventions to a lot of what her treatments were going to throw at her, through the art of juicing. She maintained her blood levels, kept her energy level up, and helped with a lot of the side effects. What was the common denominator here? It was the food that was going into their bodies.
I am sure that both of my girls have elaborated on their own personal food journeys, but I had to start with theirs to share mine. You see, as I stated above, I never really gave much thought to the kinds of food that I ate, not until it became a tool that I needed to help my daughter. Isn’t that just what mothers do?
All through my daughters’ fight, I was on the other end of the spectrum with my doctors telling me there were things I needed to do to prevent getting breast cancer. As I was told, with me having the gene and both my daughters having breast cancer, it was like playing Russian roulette. So, I had all the things done to me physically that I could do to put the odds in my favor, and in doing so, it caused me to go into menopause prematurely.
(Well, I couldn’t very well complain about going into menopause at my age when I had two daughters going into menopause at half my age.)
Without being able to take any hormones, I felt an even more lack of energy than I did with my hypothyroidism. I started having physical aches that didn’t seem it was time to have. My overall health just wasn’t where I wanted it to be.
So....
I took what I had learned about eating and juicing and decided to give it a try. Really give it a try. Since I still considered myself more of a carnivore than I know it is healthier to be, giving up eating meat (red meat) daily was a REAL challenge. Even when I do eat red meat, I have learned that you should eat a tiny portion, which is not how we serve our plates where I live.
For years I heard, you need to eat fish at least twice a week. Well, I had to change the way I ate fish because the only way I ate it was fried! Heck fried made everything taste better, but if I was genuinely going to give this way of eating a chance, I knew that I would have to give up (or GREATLY reduce) fried foods too.
I learned to find juices that I liked, adding vegetables necessary to provide me with what my body needed. Many juicing recipes tell you what to use it for, energy, calming, low ….., high……, etc. There are ways to mask the taste of some of the vegetables that you believe that you don’t like with other vegetables or fruits that you do. I say that you think that you don’t like it, because that was me.
I learned that once you understand how these foods can help you feel better, it is easier to try them and give them a chance.
And now…
I try to eat fish (not fried) twice a week. I eat a variety of vegetables (not fried) in many different ways. I drink juices that I NEVER thought I would try. I now do this all because I can feel the difference in my body when I eat right.
I now can tell when I eat some foods that make me feel different. I feel so much better when I am putting into my body the nutrients that it needs instead of just eating because the food is there, or it is easier to pick up fast food than to prepare it. Let’s face it- we know that our car runs better when we put the correct fuel into it, so why would we expect our bodies to be any different.
It becomes a mindset to see food as a way of caring for our body, not just a way of celebrating with friends. However, there is nothing wrong with celebrating with friends and serving the right foods too.
Until next time, Stay Strong and Be at Peace!
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