There is a huge diversity of what people consider to be healthy eating, healthy living and a healthy lifestyle in general. My personal choices have been redefined and reinvented many many times, based on both research and experience, but what suits one, may not suit another and what someone thinks suits them, may not actually be doing them any good at all.
A Facebook memory came up today, of me eating a low fat yogurt and the background noise quite clearly indicated I was watching ‘Quantum Leap’. Well a Quantum Leap is what has been made from that day to this.
Back then I believed what the government and big food manufacturers and even general medical practitioners told me was healthy food, was true:
- I ate a ‘healthy’ cereal for breakfast (have come to realise there is no such thing)
- A ‘balanced’ lunch – often consisting of a sandwich, packet of crisps (chips) and skipped the chocolate bar, that I usually had with lunch up until around 2002, but instead went for the ‘healthier’ carrot cake. (All standard ‘Meal Deal’ options in the shop)
- For dinner I ate ‘low fat’ prepackaged meals, often ones that were simple and quick to get ready via the microwave, and perhaps a ‘low fat’ yogurt for dessert.
I ignored the fact that the bowl of fruit always went off and needed to be thrown out, and I ignored the amount of snacking I generally did, which was biscuits, chocolate, crisps and pastries.
And in general I thought I ate better than others – I’d swapped out sugar for honey in my drinks and stopped drinking carbonated anything, so hey, I was pretty aware right – OK I wasn’t eating organic, but who can afford that?
I was a UK dress size 10 (US 8) and as I wasn’t able to exercise (still can’t) due to my disability I thought I was doing great….
OH HOW WRONG I WAS!
However, my misinterpretation of what was healthy – whilst sitting watching hours of television and stuffing myself with starch, sugar, aspartame and the ‘chemical shit storm’ required to make ‘low fat’ anything taste remotely good, was then, and is now, still what many people perceive as healthy. This of course is not helped by ‘government advice’ and the ‘food industry’ in general.
Bear in mind that my diet then, was after almost a decade of researching into canine nutrition and being really strict with ensuring that my animals did not eat starch or sugar, whilst at University studying animal health in depth and after teaching hundreds of others to raw feed their pets.
How on Earth did I not make the connection?
It’s difficult! It’s difficult when we are surrounded by misinformation. I’ve even seen the previous First Lady promoting ‘low fat’ milk to children on Sesame Street! She had evidently been misinformed too, as we know now that ‘low fat’ milk actually promotes weight gain, as does ‘low fat’ practically anything and that actually a diet high in natural fats and low in starch is much more ‘species appropriate’, and yes I use that term on purpose.
After years of a vegetarian lifestyle and spending much time with vegan friends, I found that I would often get sick but a bite or two of meat would soon sort me out. Once I discovered I was pregnant, not being a certified nutritionist at the time (I’m working on that), I didn’t want to risk my inutero child missing out on essential fatty acids for growth and brain health, so I went back to an omnivorous diet.
After a while I was unable to face breakfast or any food at all in the mornings and turned to shakes, with whole organic milk, at least 1 organic banana, and I’d add supplements, spices and coconut oil.
When my son was born we had a huge breastfeeding malfunction and I had to feed formula. The products I was given in the hospital ended up leading to him having a very negative reaction to pasteurised milk, which took quite a while to diagnose. Once home I found an Organic Goats Milk Formula, based on whole milk and his tiny tiny body (born 5lb 5oz, but under 5lbs by the time we left the hospital), began to thrive.
Once it was time for solids, I was determined to keep him to organic, and could not see the logic in cooking fruits before feeding them; so I put organic apples, pears and carrots etc. through the juicer, mixed the both parts together and fed him raw puree. Having found that pretty much all ‘baby rice’ contained arsenic, I studiously avoided it, but when the time came I must admit I did feed toast and bread, organic, but none-the-less starch.
At Eighteen months I got a rebate through which enabled me to send off for MTHFR gene testing for him and the results were frightening!
I often see people in chat forums worried that they have 1 MTHFR mutation, my son has 74!
Having gone through only a few of them I’ve found he is at risk for a whole multitude of horrifying conditions, not limited to, but including, alzhemiers, type 2 diabetes, a number of cancers, multiple heart issues, unable to deal with detox from almost anything, including pharmaceuticals, a lowered immune system and even Huntingtons.
Thankfully, I studied genetics and epigenetics whilst I was taking my Masters in Cambridge, and as I do not know the expression status of any of these mutations, and as I’ve found them early, I can do all I can to mitigate the risks.
Talen has not been vaccinated, he did not have a pharmaceutical form of Vitamin K (I took an organic form and he got it through colostrum), I do not have pharmaceuticals products, other than ‘sodium ascorbate’ (Vitamin C) in the house, and use natural methods to treat anything needed, including herbs, foods, supplements and homeopathy. There is no fluoride in his homemade toothpaste, no SLS, parabens, phalates or other nasties in any cleaning products, or toiletries in the house.
We are now on an almost starch free diet, Paleo/Keto is how I refer to it, with ‘intermittent fasting’. Our dairy products, eggs, fruit and veg are all organic, even my coffee is organic decaf (and not decaffinated via chemical means), and we will move to free range organic meat as soon as humanly possible. As far as ‘but how can you afford to feed/eat organic’, I actually spend around £50 a week on our food, which we get delivered, and that often includes non-toxic biodegradable nappies and wipes.
We have home made smoothies and shakes courtesy of our nutri-bullet on a daily basis and whereas I used to struggle to get my ‘5 a day’, there’s now no risk that we won’t smash it, especially as I now add Super Greens.
I don’t have bread, pasta, rice or biscuits (cookies) in the house – they used to be a staple, we don’t eat legumes, have drastically reduced our nightshade intake, and thankfully I’ve never been interested in forms of squash, the only root veg we have is carrots and we never eat those cooked (cooking alters the Glycemic Index (GI) from low to very high).
I have an entire cupboard full of the cleanest source of vitamins and minerals I can find (our favourite comes in a really tasty drink form) and Talen gets Superfoods, D3 & C daily.
For my weight management I use a pre-made ketogenic system with built in regular detoxes, that is, in my opinion, far superior to all others out there both nutritionally and for quality, and I’m feeling healthier and am much happier that we are both on the right path.
Of course happiness is also integral to a healthy lifestyle, and we enjoy starting and ending the day with giggles, as well as many bouts in between. Stress can also effect health negatively so I’m working on that too. If I can do it, you can do it… x
H B Turner 