I wanted to talk about diet today and some of the changes I’ve made in my own diet. My dietary philosophy has changed a bit since I started this blog and I wanted to say something about that. When I first started Art of Balanced living I only ate fish and no meat or poultry. My dairy consumption was very limited and I drank soy milk and ate tofu occasionally. I avoided fats especially saturated fat and used vegetable oil in cooking regularly. I was always on the look out for the healthiest oil, but it was always some sort of vegetable oil. I only wanted to eat healthily and I wanted to feed my family the healthiest meals possible. I still do, but the way I approach it has changed a bit.
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Since moving to the UK, I’ve been doing a lot of research about food and health. My research has led me to change my eating a bit. Firstly, I eat meat and poultry now. It’s funny because when I moved here I honestly thought I was just a step away from becoming a vegan, but I started eating meat mainly for convience. It was only supposed to last for until we moved into our own place. I just thought it would be easier when we were staying with other people if I ate meat. So I started doing that. I hadn’t been a vegetarian for very long so I didn’t really have the negetive side effects that many people who switch from being a vegetarian have. My system hadn’t yet forgotten how to digest meat.

I’d started eating a semi-vegetarian diet because I was trying to shrink my uterine fibroid tumor and read a lot of things about fibroid shrinking and diet and thought that was the best thing to do to shrink it. I also wanted to do the best thing for my health. So many people in my family have high blood pressure and high cholestrol. I didn’t want to be one of those people.

Honestly, even though I told people that I felt great I felt tired much of the time when I was a vegetarian, but I was so sure it was the right thing for me to do that I was determined to stick to it. I wasn’t a junk food vegetarian. I ate fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. Most of the food I ate was freshly prepared.

I used to think that their was one way to eat and that all people needed to eat that way and that way was vegetarian. I believed that eating meat was the cause of most of the disease in society today. I really believed that. That’s what all the studies say, right? But now I think that’s not necessarily the truth. If you compare the health of a vegetarian, who is pretty health conscious to a meat eater who is eating a standard diet consisting of processed foods and factory farmed meat, of course the vegetarian will be healthier.

If you look at the diets of indigious people throughout the world, they eat a variety of foods. Some eat diets that are rich in sweet tropical fruits, some survive on mostly meat. Though we’re all the same species we don’t all thrive on the same diet.

I don’t try to get rid of the fat in my food now. I drink whole non-homogenized milk that I get directly from the farm instead of soy milk because I learned that soy milk contains anti-nutrients. I eat only free range organic meat,  poultry, and eggs. All of my cooking oils are cold pressed and I only use extra virgin olive oil, extra virgin coconut oil and butter for cooking. We eat a lot of fresh vegetables in season and fruit in season. I soak and cook my own beans and legumes. I avoid using canned food.

My family still has a sweet tooth. We still like cookies sometimes and pies but I make raw desserts and when I do make sweets that get baked in the oven they are made with buckwheat or quinoa flour and sweetened with honey.

So why am I telling you all of this? I’m telling you because if I can do it I know that you can too. Cutting out processed food and eating healthily is challenging at times but it can be done. If you make the commitment to do it, you’ll be able to. There is a food revolution going on. Don’t you want to be part of it?

Photo by Selma90
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