Food and I go way back. My mother was Italian, and my father, Hungarian, straight from the old country. They were children of the Depression, and one thing they were great at? Cooking everything from scratch and being able to make a meal out of almost nothing. What’s funny is neither my brother, sister or I like anything packaged. We all love homemade food and nothing tastes as good to us. We were pretty spoiled.
Growing up, I never even knew what boxed spaghetti was until I had dinner at a friend’s house in high school. I remember turning to the mom and saying, “This looks so good, what is it?” The mom looked shocked, “Your mother is Italian! And you never had spaghetti before?” I remember telling my mom that story, who roared laughing and told me, yes, some people don’t roll their own pasta dough!
I grew up on homemade things, nothing preserved or boxed, unless it was pickles or tomatoes, or fruit and jellies that we canned.
In my adult life, I worked hard to eat healthy despite my increasing weight. And even when I started the parade of diets, I tried to eat healthy, but of course, I tried all the Weight Watcher, Lean Cuisine, boxed, prepared, dehydrated with weirdo ingredients you can’t pronounce foods. It was hard not to eat those things because I work two jobs and prep time is quite a commodity.
When I started with Dr. Jack, all of his plan as based on natural foods. And the best part was he started to educate me about choices I might make. He would plant a seed of knowledge in my head, and then after we were done I would go and start thinking, and researching things we talked about. Example, did you know that people with Hashimoto’s disease really should avoid preservatives? Don’t believe that? Read this article for other details.
http://www.naturalendocrinesolutions.com/archives/ingredients-toxic-thyroid-
There of course are other ingredients that can be toxic to your thyroid gland, as well as your overall health. And this is one of the primary reasons why you should try to eat mostly whole foods, buying organic whenever possible, and minimize the consumption of processed foods.
In all the years that I have had this disease, not one single person ever told me that. Stopping to think about all the stuff I used to buy that I believed was healthy and all this time, it was simply causing more harm than good. Dr. Jack knows his stuff, and when he tells you something, it is always something that you can use and incorporate into your life. One thing he has taught me is to really look at what you are putting in you and on you!
When I first started I missed some of those foods. I think they cause their own addiction, and I was going to break that habit. I started cleaning up my diet completely, and suddenly, the cravings went away, and I felt better. I slept better, my skin was clearer. My hair grew and so did my nails.
The longer you can do that, the less you crave things that are not healthy. What do I crave now? My own homemade chicken and veggie soup, organic egg omlets, big crunchy salads filled with great veggies and olive oil!
I try now to take recipes I love and adapt to the way I eat now. I made an organic shrimp and vegetable stir fry with my new favorite veggie…. Baby bok Choy!! Loveeeeeeeeee……
I never look at foods the same way and the second I see something that looks prepared, like a prepared salad in a grocery store, or something like that, my head immediately goes to, “Hmmmm…. I wonder how they made that? Did they treat the lettuce with something! Ewwwwwwww….. No thanks…..I think I will just eat later at home.” A friend told me that turkey from the deli should be okay…. Umm…. No thanks. Did turkey from the deli ever taste like turkey you make at home? What is also funny is the longer you eat this way, other stuff does not taste as good as what you make yourself.
I thought just my metabolism would change in this process…. I was wrong.