The journey so far

This is the brief story of my food journey. I may go into more detail on some things in later posts.

As a kid, my mom followed the "healthy" wisdom of the day. That meant eating margarine, the "healthier" cereals (i.e. not tons of sugar), low fat milk, and the sort of whole grain bread that you can still get today.

When I was a teenager, she began to learn about the value of freshly-ground grains from my aunt. She bought a wheat grinder and started making breads, muffins, and pancakes from freshly ground wheat. She also moved towards replacing margarine with butter and other improvements.

Then I went off to college, where I ate cafeteria food almost exclusively for four years. During this time I started having stomach issues - nothing major, but consistent discomfort and the like. At one point I quit taking birth control (which I had been using to control acne), after my mom read that stomach issues are a possible side affect. This and taking fiber before meals seemed to help, but I continued to have some symptoms.

After I graduated and got married, I started cooking regularly. I was motivated to cook healthy food, especially with my stomach issues. My goals were to cut out processed foods, keep sugar to a minimum, and eat a semi-low-fat diet. (To clarify the last point, I didn't think fat was bad, but I did think that eating a lot of fat was unhealthy).

I continued to have stomach issues and did a colonoscopy, which fortunately came back normal.

I met with a nutritional consultant who is also a long time family friend (Mira Dessy at grainsandmore.com). She encouraged me to make sure I was eating enough protein, getting enough protein, and encouraged me to eat plenty of bone broths. I've definitely seen improvement in my stomach issues since meeting with her.

Recently I've been reading Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions. I feel like I've learned a lot, not just from the recipes but from the many commentaries which refer to studies and observations by various people. I'm excited to start implementing some changes based on what I've learned!