I've been thinking alot lately about how my grandmother ate and why she was never sick, ever.
I lived with my grandmother from about age ten till she passed away when I was about 23 or so. During all that time, she never got a cold and she never got a flu. It was incredibly rare for my grandmother to ever not feel well. She had the energy and stamina of twenty people.
How did she eat? This is so key. She NEVER ate packaged, processed or frozen foods. And I mean NEVER. My grandmother would look at the boxes of junk we'd bring home and she would make a big deal out of it and say it was full of chemicals and she would never touch it. She used to tell us to toss it all in the garbage can. And we would always think she was nuts. Well, she was the healthy one and me and my mother would get sick often.
My grandmother made her own noodles from scratch. I'd watch her make them with flour and water and egg and her rolling pin. She would either use them for a homemade chicken soup that was also made from scratch or she would make the noodles with cottage cheese. She was fond of cheese, not the weird concoctions of today, but the full fat kind.
My grandmother drank whole milk, often. She ate only pure sour cream, used only butter. She wouldn't touch margarine. She said it was evil.
She would buy large bags of imported sticky white rice from Japan, and then she would make it with pure butter and salt.
Everything she cooked was without any chemicals. She would buy fresh meat or fish and make a dish from scratch with fresh veggies. She never ate canned fruits, she only ate fresh fruit. She even made her own jellies once in awhile.
The only time my grandmother ever deviated from her diet was if someone took her out to dinner or we brought some food in that she was willing to try. But that wasn't often. She wouldn't even drink soda other than ginger ale and that had to be the full sugar one, she wouldn't touch diet. And I don't think she ever had aspartame in her life. She only used real sugar.
So while my grandmother was eating a basically chemically free diet, me and my mother were eating take out, fast food, processed food, canned and boxed food. And we were the ones getting flues and getting sick and having alot of rounds of never feeling good. But my grandmother had energy, she was never in pain, she did tons of things all the time.
What eventually got my grandmother was a form of cancer. She came down with some kind of spinal and stomach cancer. We never knew if it was a genetic thing or not. If she hadn't gotten cancer, she probably would have lived alot longer. But prior to her getting cancer, she was healthy. And she ate whole fat foods her whole life and was never fat, ever. That used to drive me nuts. She'd eat ice cream, that was her one indulgence. All that butter and sour cream and regular cream and whole milk and she was never fat a day in her life. Maybe she just worked it off doing stuff, I don't know.
But the point I'm trying to make is, that diet of pure foods kept her well for most of her life up into her eighties. Maybe if we had payed attention to her and what she was eating, it would have helped us and we wouldn't have gotten sick.
I lived with my grandmother from about age ten till she passed away when I was about 23 or so. During all that time, she never got a cold and she never got a flu. It was incredibly rare for my grandmother to ever not feel well. She had the energy and stamina of twenty people.
How did she eat? This is so key. She NEVER ate packaged, processed or frozen foods. And I mean NEVER. My grandmother would look at the boxes of junk we'd bring home and she would make a big deal out of it and say it was full of chemicals and she would never touch it. She used to tell us to toss it all in the garbage can. And we would always think she was nuts. Well, she was the healthy one and me and my mother would get sick often.
My grandmother made her own noodles from scratch. I'd watch her make them with flour and water and egg and her rolling pin. She would either use them for a homemade chicken soup that was also made from scratch or she would make the noodles with cottage cheese. She was fond of cheese, not the weird concoctions of today, but the full fat kind.
My grandmother drank whole milk, often. She ate only pure sour cream, used only butter. She wouldn't touch margarine. She said it was evil.
She would buy large bags of imported sticky white rice from Japan, and then she would make it with pure butter and salt.
Everything she cooked was without any chemicals. She would buy fresh meat or fish and make a dish from scratch with fresh veggies. She never ate canned fruits, she only ate fresh fruit. She even made her own jellies once in awhile.
The only time my grandmother ever deviated from her diet was if someone took her out to dinner or we brought some food in that she was willing to try. But that wasn't often. She wouldn't even drink soda other than ginger ale and that had to be the full sugar one, she wouldn't touch diet. And I don't think she ever had aspartame in her life. She only used real sugar.
So while my grandmother was eating a basically chemically free diet, me and my mother were eating take out, fast food, processed food, canned and boxed food. And we were the ones getting flues and getting sick and having alot of rounds of never feeling good. But my grandmother had energy, she was never in pain, she did tons of things all the time.
What eventually got my grandmother was a form of cancer. She came down with some kind of spinal and stomach cancer. We never knew if it was a genetic thing or not. If she hadn't gotten cancer, she probably would have lived alot longer. But prior to her getting cancer, she was healthy. And she ate whole fat foods her whole life and was never fat, ever. That used to drive me nuts. She'd eat ice cream, that was her one indulgence. All that butter and sour cream and regular cream and whole milk and she was never fat a day in her life. Maybe she just worked it off doing stuff, I don't know.
But the point I'm trying to make is, that diet of pure foods kept her well for most of her life up into her eighties. Maybe if we had payed attention to her and what she was eating, it would have helped us and we wouldn't have gotten sick.
