Our Food Journey Part 3

God outlined a diet for our family of six that started with a cleanse. Three days into the cleanse my daughter was digesting completely 100%. I was thrilled and grateful. We did the cleanse when it was spring time. After the cleanse we started a mostly raw, meat-less, wheat-less, and dairy-less diet. About 95% raw and 5% cooked. My husband and I both lost around 50lbs of excess weight and we were full of life, energy and enthusiasm, and great mental clarity. However the best thing was the increased ability I now had to hear the promptings and impressions from God. With all the toxins and food cravings gone it was so much easier to focus during prayers and actually hear God when he responded. Life was amazing!

I spent the summer outlining our meal plans with God. Always all these raw dishes would come to my mind, and anything cooked was very rare, which our bodies appreciated. So, once again, I naively found myself assuming we were "raw eaters." That's how God intended us to be. Boy, was I wrong! One morning, as the summer season began to ebb and the mornings became more chilly, I found myself in my weekly meal planning session with God suddenly visualizing cooked dishes and endless potatoes. Up to that point a baked potato during the summer was a once - maybe twice - a month limit. If we tried for more our stomachs felt heavy. But here I was, visualizing potatoes galore and other cooked fare including meat! At that point it dawned on me that we were "seasonal eaters!" 

Suddenly a lot of things made sense. All the synapses of my brain began to make connection after connection as I thought about the food that was ready and growing in the spring, summer, and fall. Why our fall harvest will store throughout the winter season on a shelf in my basement, and spring foods don't. Think about it: a pumpkin harvested at the end of the season will last for months in a cool storage room, but a basket of strawberries on that same shelf won't even last the week. God did that for a reason.

We have been seasonal eaters now for a couple of years and we are still thriving. For the most part Meat-less summers and salad-free winters. Choosing to only eat strawberries in the spring and cooked pumpkins in the winter. My children are growing, my husband and are still fit and trim, and my knowledge and appreciation of Heavenly Father''s endless miracles of whole food in the proper season amazes and astounds me with every passing season. 

If you missed parts of our food journey go back and read them: PART 1 and PART 2

Our Food Journey Part 2

    The last of my four children threw me for a loop. She could eat tomatoes like none other in the summer, but if she touched a raw tomato during the winter she would break out in a rash.  She handled nursing just fine but when I stopped nursing her at 18 months she couldn't do dairy anymore. She could eat grains with gluten but if she touched red or white wheat she would vomit. And then one day she stopped digesting her food. She chewed, she swallowed, and that's what she pooped. So what does one do at that point? Panic!! 

I'd spent the last five years or so studying nutrition, diets, and human anatomy in my own spare time as a fascinating hobby(and possible addiction after having such poor health). So I took the knowledge I had gained at that point in time about digestion, prebiotics, probiotics, digestive enzymes, etc. and applied it all. We got her back to 60% digestion but still something was missing. On my own I lacked the answers. 

Thankfully there is a loving Heavenly Father who knows all things and is there waiting to guide us. All we have to do is turn to him, and believe he will answer the pleadings of our humble heart. Around the time that we had achieved 60% digestion for my youngest, I felt prompted to attend a nutrition class I had not planned on attending (the prompting came about an hour prior to the class starting). During the class, a yeast cleanse diet was mentioned. My naive thought was "Oh, we don't have issues with that!" Then the Spirit chided me and I wrote down every detail I could about the diet with a resolve to contact the clinic and find out more. Less than a week later I found the number for the clinic and called. I ended up with one frustrating phone call. The clinic wouldn't tell me anything at all. When they asked what our diet currently was like, I explained it was minimally processed and a variation of the Weston A. Price diet with a good deal of Ann Wigmore. They said, "Your diet is great. There's nothing we can do for you." In despair I hung up, and hung my head. At that point I felt God say, "Talk to me. I will help you." I had done my part, now He would do His, and He did!

To continue "Our Food Journey" read: PART 3

If you missed the beginning part of "Our Food Journey" go back and read: PART 1

Our Food Journey Part 1

I was raised by Hippies who had converted to Mormonism, so for most of my growing up years eating habits were pretty healthy with our "live off the land" attitude combined with the Word of Wisdom found in Doctrine & Covenants Section 89. With a mom who at one point in time had traveled the world and developed a love for other cultures eating cultural foods was more of the norm than not. However about the time my youngest sister came along more foods entered into the scene. So much so that chips and soda became the norm. Things for the most part were still made from scratch and I blissfully went off to college unaware that one could even bake a potato in a microwave, squeeze a cheese-like substance out of a packet or can, and no clue what hamburger helper even tasted like.

My first two years of college was on the typical "shoe-string" budget and midnight splurges at Dairy Queens. Then I met and married my husband, and ate my first and only box of Hamburger helper and my first and only twinkie. My husband loved eating and I delighted in cooking for him. Betty Crocker and I were inseparable. However four years and three kids later my health was different. All the changes to my health, prescriptions and weight had happened gradually, so much so that I didn't notice the change.
 
Then one day I was sitting in a continuing education class on making Homemade Bread, when the instructor said something and I suddenly had a light bulb moment. My not so great situation was suddenly brought to my awareness and I knew changes for the better needed to be made.
So slowly but surely we began to make changes to our diet. Mostly back to the way that I was eating in my early childhood with my once hippie parents.

By the worlds standards we were pretty healthy. We went from our white flour "Betty Crocker" existence to a Weston A. Price Nourishing Traditions way of eating. There were no orange bottles with white lids lining my bathroom shelves and the food tasted great. However something was missing. For how healthy we were eating I had no energy, and was dragging by 6pm everyday. Albeit I had recently delivered our fourth child, and the usual late nights and feeling tired were par for the course. But it wasn't that I just felt tired, my body felt heavy and my brain felt sluggish. In my mind there was a disconnect between the way we ate and how I thought my body should be feeling, because of it. And while I was feeling confused, God decided to throw us a curve ball with our last child... 

to continue "Our Food Journey" read:
                                                      PART 2 and PART 3