The Beginning

Vegetarians are on the right track.  They question their food sources and strive for a healthy variety.  Chiropractors know that the body, if helped along naturally, can fight off most common conditions with alignment and exercise.  Homeopaths know how to use natural substances to cure ailments and aid in natural bodily processes.  On the other hand, the field of medicine is vast- with each kind of doctor specializing in varying degrees and types of cures, wellness, and disease including bacterial, viral and fungal.

Where does a meat and vegetable-loving, chiropractic-supporting, homeopathic-following nut belong on the spectrum of health and wellness?  In my own category, that’s where!

I started a blog about being unemployed, which was going well, until the point I was employed again and then I didn’t have much to say about it.  However, with all that’s going on in my life with food thus far, I thought it were only natural to write about my journey on a possibly life-long gluten-free, corn-free, dairy-free, soy-free diet that I started on- a few years into a stressful job and a few years after a trip abroad. 

I guess I’ve struggled with food as long as I could remember including not being hungry and digestive issues, however, the last 5 years of my life stand out as the roughest.  I started a stressful job in ’06 and despite my best efforts, I struggled with mood disorders, extreme digestive symptoms (I’ll keep the details private), inability to sleep more than 2-4 hours at a stretch, dry skin, hot earlobes, dark- dark circles under my eyes, and the most disturbing of all – a largely distended stomach that incited questions of pregnancy at EVERY family gathering and at teaching functions.  After a number of exams and a few tests, I was diagnosed with lactose and soy intolerance, but the problems didn't go away once those were eliminated...

 The numerous doctors I sought out dismissed me.  After I explained my symptoms, a few medicated me.  Most probably saw me as a hypochondriac.  One day, the doctor I saw at a wellness clinic opened my eyes to new health facts I hadn’t been aware of- the healing power and harming power of food.  After seeking information out on my own and reading a few books, I settled on seeing a nutritionist who turned my world (and what I knew about food) upside-down for the better!   

I am not a doctor and don’t claim to have the cure for any illness, but I do believe in the power of being a critical reader and thinker- and that my knowledge is limited to the information I seek out on my own.  I question what I eat and also what I read.   I’m excited to share new information with you- information I struggle with about current food, new and alternative nutritional beliefs and information, and how going virtually corn, gluten, dairy and soy free is going.  And sometimes, how it isn’t going.

In case you’re wondering about the cake in the background, I did bake it myself when I started going on my restrictive diet.  There's a glue stick behind it because I was probably prepping something for my classroom.  There is no glue-stick IN the cake.   Why did I make it if I can’t eat it, you ask?  Because not everyone who has a birthday around me deserves to eat cardboard while I’m learning to cook with alternative ingredients.  This was the real deal- a genuine German Chocolate Cake with 5 separate sub-recipes.

Thanks for reading!