Wellness Wednesday

..... a journey of baby steps

Conversation 1973:
"You want us to eat what?"
"I want us to switch to natural peanut butter and wheat bread."
"Well my mom always bought natural peanut butter but you want us to eat that weird brown bread?"
"Yes."
"Gross!"

And so began our journey into the world of good nutrition.

squash, onions, garlic, peas, green onions, pepper, sprouted tortillas,
tomatoes, fruit, broccoli, cucumber, organic green tea, romaine,
 raw nuts and seeds, brown rice, whole oats
butter, yogurt, kefir, cheese, eggs

In case you're wondering, the person who instigated this conversation was my husband who was in the USMC. I no longer remember why he requested this, he had also grown up with white bread, but unlike me, he had always used the fake peanut butter. He kept a jar of peanut butter, a jar of jam and a loaf of bread in the refrigerator on base so he could make PBJ's fresh, for himself every day for lunch.

I didn't eat the "weird"  bread at first but got curious and tasted it one day. I liked it so I started eating it too. I wasn't a fan of PBJ's, never having been served them as a child, but I did like natural peanut butter, so, that change was easy.

We ate at that time what was considered a normal diet. A typical dinner was baked chicken (probably the kind with flavoring or salt added), a tin can of green beans, boxed re-hydrated potato flakes with margarine, biscuits made with a white flour baking mix topped with margarine and an iceberg, tomato and cucumber salad with my homemade wine vinegar and polyunsaturated vegetable oil salad dressing.
Dessert, if there was one, was usually from a box mix of some sort.

When we found out  we were expecting our first child I began to read books on pregnancy, attended La Leche League meetings and we went together to childbirth classes. All of these promoted good nutrition. Honestly, I had never thought of food other than the taste and calories before.
During that time there was little interest in nutrition for the most part.
 In spite of  that, our healthy diet journey continued.

The next changes in our diet were switching from white sugar to brown, from bleached white flour to unbleached (don't laugh, at least we were trying) and later, freshly ground whole wheat.  After our baby was born I began training to teach natural childbirth. The Bradley Method was very big on nutrition so I learned a lot more at that time. I began to make whole wheat bread by hand and later with a Bosch mixer. We toyed with being what back then was called vegetarian (vegan, at that time, meant something totally different). We made a 7-grain cereal by cracking our own soy beans, wheat kernels, whole oats, rice, barley and I forget what else and cooking them for just a few minutes. This porridge was so heavy, crunchy and bitter and apparently indigestible since it gave us horrible stomach pains as did the Brewers' Yeast we sprinkled on everything. We were assured that our bodies would eventually get used to these foods. But, after two years, they did not, so we discontinued the more offensive foods---the heavy carbohydrate grains. We felt so much better and had greatly increased energy and no more pain.
 The pendulum had swung a little too far.....we had gone overboard and suffered for it.
But such things happen on journeys.

We grew tomatoes outside the quadraplex we lived in sharing the fruits with our landlady.
When we moved here we planted our first garden. Later we raised chickens for eggs and once for meat.
We kept turkeys, pigs and bought a lamb and my husband hunted and fished.
Our freezers were filled --- one with meats, the other with vegetables and fruits. Once we got gardening down and the soil built up, our shelves were stocked with hundreds of home-canned, pickled and fermented vegetables and fruits. We stored about one hundred pounds of winter squash and pumpkins in baskets all over the house. About 200 lbs.of potatoes and 50 lbs.of red and yellow onions were stored in burlap sacks hanging in various places. Corn that was past its eating-prime dried on the cob by our wood stove to be ground into corn meal, the cobs used for kindling, while homemade fruit leather dehydrated into chewy deliciousness in our greenhouse bay window.We bought raw milk. I churned our own butter. I made yogurt with the milk by incubating it in a gallon glass jar in a goose-down sleeping bag in a warm closet overnight. We fondly, and often, recall one Thanksgiving, sitting, the three of us, at our big window in the candle-lit dining room watching the falling snow satisfied  that everything we were eating we had hunted, raised and made ourselves. It was a wonderful feeling. During this time our health changed for the better.

That is how our journey started. Over the years I have witnessed many take the first baby steps on their journeys to good eating.  We eat a good portion of our food raw, we buy organic and non-GMO food whenever we can grow, find or afford it. We eat things that support different systems of our bodies concentrating on weak areas. We still enjoy a good steak out or a fast food juicy hamburger occasionally and I only wish my husband enjoyed Asian food out as much as I do. We do eat graciously and thankfully at other homes even if the food is not what we'd normally eat.
But the majority of the time we eat in a very healthy way.

We are probably still on that journey learning new things all the time. But there comes a time after this many years, when except for the supplement or health food du jour we have pretty much seen it all. We throw out what we feel is a food fad or information that will simply change again in a few years. Everyone is familiar with good nutrition even if they choose not to follow it. "New" things that are coming out we have seen before----things come and go but the basics of good nutrition stay pretty much the same.

I will strive  to encourage you to think about what you eat, make wise choices.

You have been given a body to be a good steward of so I urge you to do the best with what you've got.
And  I hope to help you save money as you go.

I will continue this subject every Wednesday. It will be more in depth as we go along. But first I wanted to give you an idea where I am coming from and where we've been.

I hope you decide to start out, or continue on your journey of good nutrition. Take it one step at a time.It's not that hard and the benefits outreach your own health and that of your family.

Kathi~