I have a confession. My diet and eating habits have been less than spectacular. Shocking, I know. As most Americans that were born and raised here, I grew up eating Rice Krispies, Pizza Hut, McD’s, and all sorts of candy while washing it all down with a can or bottle of soda or glass of Kool-aid. Not everything I ate seemed so bad for me; my Gram made lasagna, baked steak and salads and my mom made goulash, tater-tot casserole and porcupine meatballs. Sometimes, there was even a salad made from iceberg lettuce, carrots and cucumbers. At supper, there was a relish dish on the table that usually included green onions, radishes, pickled beets, black (and sometimes green) olives, pickles and celery with cream cheese. We drank skim or 1% or 2% milk and, for a while, used margarine on our white bread.

When I was a teenager, I worked at a pizza place and ate lots of pepperoni and mushroom pizzas. Sometimes I had a Greek salad or cheese steak sandwich, instead. After a while of eating like this, I started to gain weight…and I knew exactly why. It had to have been the pizza and Cokes, so I decided the best thing to do was to switch to Diet Coke. I later found that the switch was a BIG mistake! My health and skin suffered from the aspartame used to sweeten the Diet Coke; however, it was about three years later before I discovered my mistake. The effects didn’t show up immediately, so it took some time to realize that all of my problems were due to one offender. Of course, after I realized my mistake, I made the switch back to regular Coke. Hmm…

Fast forward a few years. I was married to my wonderful hubby and we were happy. Neither of us was making much money, but we didn’t care. He worked at Pizza Hut and I worked at a movie rental store. Life was perfect! If we weren’t eating pizza, we were eating ramen noodles (which I had made “healthier” by adding chicken and a handful of frozen veggies), stir-fry, or spaghetti. I didn’t think I had anything to worry about; I was skinny and had enough energy to rollerblade every day PLUS play roller hockey 3-5 days per week for almost 2-3 hours each time. At that time, I didn’t link my dandruff, dry skin and random acne to the food I ate.

A few years later, I found an old book written by Nathan Pritikin. He advocated eating a low-fat, high carb diet. It seemed to make a lot of sense, so I changed my eating habits in that direction. I didn’t last long on the diet, though. I’ve always felt better eating lots of protein and fats. In the years that followed, more and more nutritionists seemed to agree with Pritikin. Everywhere I turned, everyone was saying fat was bad. Next was the “good fats, bad fats” advice. It was very common knowledge that saturated fats were bad and that unsaturated fats were good. “Don’t eat butter, eat margarine instead.” “Soy is a much healthier source of protein than meat.” It seemed to make so much sense, until I started doing my own research. From my previous experience with artificial sweeteners, I knew that I needed real foods, as opposed to fake foods. It became obvious to me that butter had to be better for me than margarine. I didn’t know why, but I just felt it in my heart. Even with this important revelation, I still thought that too much saturated fat was bad. The most important part of the revelation was that I was starting to think about what I ate and understand that “new” foods were not what my body needed.

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother. She even lived with us for a few years. She cooked with real butter and cream, made lots of meat and potato meals and loved her pickled foods. She ate eggs and/or bacon every morning for breakfast. In fact, I’d have to say that bacon was her favorite food. Once, when I was an adult, I took her to the store for some grocery shopping. There was a sale on bacon, so she bought 10 pounds. I asked her why she bought so much, and she replied that she cooked a pound a day. I was flabbergasted! But, she was in her 80’s, and I had no right to “correct” her way of eating. She would tell me that when she was a child, her favorite treat was a lard sandwich. I used to think that was so gross! (I still don’t think I could eat one.) How could anyone just take a big slab of lard and eat it? She would take a chunk of the solid cream that rose to the top of the milk and put it on her mom’s homemade bread. She ate real sauerkraut from the barrel that was kept in the cellar. It was made the old German way, with salt brine, not vinegar. She lived to be 89 (well, one week before her 89th birthday). Most of her 12 siblings lived well into their 80’s and 90’s or older! Even though I would scoff at her diet, thinking I was so much more advanced in that department, I would still make the comment, “She must be doing something right to be so healthy at such an old age.” Oh, how little did I know!

Gram passed away on January 18, 2007. It wasn’t until a little while later that I found a forum online that talked about Traditional Foods. My eyes were opened and I realized that I knew absolutely nothing about nutrition. I needed to clear my preconceptions and learn a new way of thinking. It’s been around 2 years since I first heard about Traditional Foods. It’s been a very slow change, eating new foods, cutting out others. Part of the reason for the slow change has been my husband. Not every change has been well-received at first, but eventually has become normal. Another reason for the slow change has been me. It seemed like a very daunting challenge to change everything about how we ate. My saving grace has been baby steps. I’ve had many relapses into my old way of eating. Even Sunday, I had a Dr. Pepper and some of a Totino’s Pizza. (gasp!)

So, here’s the deal. I’m not perfect. I make a lot of mistakes. But, if I can take two baby steps forward and only one step back, I’ll still be ahead. The positive, permanent changes that we’ve made include drinking organic, grass-fed/pastured cream top whole milk (unhomogenized, but unfortunately, pasteurized), and using coconut oil, olive oil, and butter and eliminating most vegetable oils and canola oil from my homemade cooking. We also drink a lot of kefir and take cod liver oil. I regularly make good, homemade 24-hour chicken stock. We no longer buy white sugar, but use sucanat. And, I’ve replaced my Coffee-Mate with real half and half, from the same dairy as our milk. I tried to make my own bread, and it worked for a while, but it was a lot of work and I don’t do it right now. It is on my to-do list for this year. There are a lot of things on my to-do list, and I’ll share those in a later post.

For now, I will continue to do the things that are already normal and work on the things that aren’t, yet. An online friend sent me some water kefir grains and I can’t wait to try my first water kefir. I have milk kefir grains, which I plan on using again, too. Making my own water and milk kefir is my next baby step.

So, I’m a recovering Standard American Diet (S.A.D.) eater. I’m also a newbie Traditional Foods (TF) eater. I’ve got so much more to share with you, but I think this is enough, for now.