My Food Philosophy is Growing.....

Our style of eating as shifted lately, and I have been putting off writing a post about it for a while.  Not because I didn't want to share.  I did, and I do.  I just wasn't sure how to approach it, or explain it.  So here I am, taking a deep breath, and jumping in.

John and I have cooked the majority of our food at home for a while, at least most of the time.  We liked to cook and we did it often, but we also used convenience items to make life easier.  Things like baking mixes and canned paraphernalia gave the IMPRESSION of home-cooked, but without all the time and cost.  While this was helpful, I had a nagging feeling like I was cheating.  I started to make more foods from scratch, and I loved it.  The more I cooked, the more I wanted to cook.  I started reading cooking blogs and cookbooks and felt more and more inspired by each recipe.  I read, and I cooked, I read, and I cooked.  Many of the reading materials I was stumbling across were full of  "healthy" recipes, but they didn't sit right with me.

I reached a brick wall.  ::Warning-What I'm about to share might be too much info, so feel free to click away now!::  I had been dealing with digestive issues for as long as I can remember.  I recall sharing a theory with a friend as a young teen, and I think my theory sums up a part of it, even it if isn't scientifically sound.  I told her that when I ate, the food rushed into my intestine.  It waited there until the next meal or snack came.  When the next food came, it pushed the first meal out.  Forcefully.  Ouch.  In addition, I was lactose intolerant.  So, in a nutshell, I would eat, I would bloat, I would... let the food out.  You get it.  And I would be hungry.  All the time.  So I stopped eating lots of dairy.  I found that preservatives and artificial things in food were making it worse.  So I started cutting that out.  I never liked using them all that much anyway, but I became more aware of them.  That helped, but something was still wrong.  I started gaining weight, and I had never struggled with that before.  It didn't make sense.  The "healthy" recipes and ingredients were not making my digestion better, and I was gaining weight. 

So I gave up.  

I stopped looking for "healthy" recipes and started just started to follow my instincts.  I cooked what I wanted, when I wanted.  The food I wanted to make or cook was never really "bad," but they weren't "healthy."  They included meat of all kinds.  They included carbs.  They included dessert.  When I wanted ricotta cheese, I didn't get skim.  I gravitated towards blogs with the "whole food, whole person" view that my instincts had originally been guiding me towards.  This time?  I didn't fight it.  I started losing weight and feeling better.  My food stayed in.  I felt full.  So I continued.  Around this time, I read Nourishing Traditions.  It resonated with me, and for the first time, I felt validated.  I felt like my crazy way of feeling better wasn't so crazy.  I felt like my instincts were right. 

I tried to get John on board.  He was cool with trying the crazy recipes I was finding, as long as it did not too off the wall.  He ate all the things I cooked, and even liked some of them!  I wanted him to read about the logic behind it, but I knew Nourishing Traditions would be too much for him at first.  I mean, it is a lot of information, not really an introduction.  Enter Nina Planck and her books.  I knew her first book would be the perfect introduction for him.  I may or may not have forced him to read it on our honeymoon.  

The result?  Well let me just say that the day after we got back from our honeymoon, we went food shopping at Fairway for grass-fed butter, milk, and meat, along with free range eggs and other fun things.  

So far, John and I have been both feeling better and looking better.  Our lives have changed for the better.  So, you may be seeing some new things on the blog, or maybe you have already noticed.  Either way, I hope you continue to enjoy and join me on this journey!!

And if you are still reading at this point, you deserve a medal!

This post was listed on Fight Back Friday @ Foodrenegade.com!

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