Are we really what we eat?

I used to hear that a lot growing up. "You are what you eat!" At one point I actually believed it. I love chicken so much I thought perhaps I would grow feathers and start laying eggs, which would be really weird considering the fact that I love eggs too. One day I just had to ask my mom why people say that. Well one reason was to keep us kids from eating too much candy, the other was because eating what is healthy will keep you healthy and eating  too much of the unhealthy things will make you unhealthy.Simple enough. Oops let me hide the chocolate bar! She had a good point too. I have seen people drink themselves to death due to alcoholism, develop high BP because of eating to much fats and the like, and the pains of diabetes because of diets high in sugar. I have also seen and experienced the good effects from eating a healthy diet.

We live in a society now where the new catch word is organic, non GMO, free range, and the list goes on and on. For good reason we need better food. You look on the back of a box and you can't even recognize the words in the list of ingredients.  Even the stuff that claims fat free or low sodium, substitutes what is supposedly bad with another ingredient that is manufactured. Headlines in papers, "EVERYTHING IS BAD FOR YOU". I had never even head the word organic until I moved away from home. We raised our own chickens for eggs and grew vegetables. What we didn't raise was bought from farmers markets or The Mater Man! Organic stuff was the cow manure that fertilized our gardens! Still we never claimed that put us on any higher level than the kid who ate hot dogs and french fries everyday and sat in the house playing video games. It goes back to my original thought, are we what we eat?

That apparently unhealthy eating kid, grew up with the same habits and has never been sick. Yet the kid who ate healthy and still does as an adult gets sick.. Does being ill automatically mean that you don't eat well?  Does is mean that you didn't eat enough organic or non GMO and so on? Or, that starting now will some how cure you? Its an observation I have made because even before my illness I made great changes to be as healthy as I could be, Junk food and sodas were the first to go. I love ice cream, but I can literally count on both hands, and maybe a few toes, how many times I have eaten it over the past 3-4 years. That was my biggest hurdle. I stopped drinking sodas which i never did much of in the first.  I love to cook anyway so we starting doing that more instead of going out. We never did that much either because its too expensive and I cook way better. I always eat fruits and veggies despite the belief otherwise. I simply added more to my diet. My meals were more balanced and I felt good. The excess weight fell off. To date I have lost 40 pounds and it has stayed off. I increased my activity over the past 2 years in preparation to become a fireman. You can't be an unhealthy recruit. I honed my body into a fine tuned machine. I was the fittest I had been since my twenties. As of June 1, 2014 I have an illness that came out of nowhere. What happened?

Who knows? Does anyone but our heavenly father? No. It just bothered me that as soon as one becomes ill the first hing that happens is folks want to throw everything out of the house. You didn't eat enough of this, or do enough of that. Take this, read these, go here, do that. Could it be that it was going to happen despite the best efforts to do everything right? All of the advice is great because sometimes when one becomes ill, it is good to have that second set of eyes to help him/her. Change is good when it helps overcome illness or cope with it. On the other hand how much of the advice is actually practiced. I have preached advice that I know I did not practice before. I think about that a lot. We have to be careful not to do this. Never make someone feel that their illness is result of not doing something right. The feeling of guilt is already there. We don't always have to figure out a solution. Lets just care for each other. Listen closely, observe, then help. What one needs may not be another thing to read but to know you will always be there. Have fun, laughter is the best medicine. Good company revitalizes. Love is food for the soul. To me this is the only organic thing on this earth.

Love, now I can never get enough of that!