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About me
I grew up on the Standard American Diet (SAD) - a hodge-podge of sugary processed foods; fast food at least 2-3 times a week, with some homemade and some half-homemade meals like Cheeseburger Helper thrown in for good measure. We had over 12 varieties of 12-packs of soda in our basement at any given time.Don't get me wrong - my folks are great cooks. I don't blame them - I blame the marketing industry, the FDA and the corporate food industry. What I didn't know then, is that for some reason, I was intolerant of gluten and soy. Consuming them caused me to have a circadian rhythm sleep disorder, PCOS and Endometriosis that immediately disappeared when I stopped eating these foods, and started consuming all organic and homemade foods. Starting at age 12, I self-medicated with caffeine to wake myself up in the morning, and by the time I was in H.S., I drank 8 cans of Coca-Cola a day. I suffered hypnopompic and hypnogocic hallucinations, sleep paralysis and bouts of tachycardia. By the time I was in college, I suffered strange memory loss - i.e. ACTUALLY not remembering to go to certain classes and suddenly "waking up" weeks later and realizing this. When I finally got to the point that I was passing out from exhaustion while trying to digest my meals, I finally gave up hope on help from the Western medical system, and I tried a holistic practitioner. And I was so glad I did! She took one look at me, and told me I was suffering from years of food allergies. I did an elimination diet, discovered my "allergens" and stopped taking any and all western-pharma, such as aspirin or tylenol. I did a colon, kidney and liver cleanse - in that order - and by the end of it all, I lost over 90 lbs from when I first started making changes. 30 lbs came off from getting off of all soda, the next 30 lbs from changing my diet, and the last 30 from bike-commuting year round. Now my favorite beverage is water, and I can happily eat plates full of yummy veggies, a feat I never would have tried in my youth. So to me, food is more than just taste - it's a prescription for life. When I'm not baking or cooking (since I cook all my and my son's meals daily), I'm an activist - fighting for affordable access to fresh local chemical-free food, for peace, for clean energy sources that don't harm people or the environment, for the environment, for human rights, for civil rights, for immigrant rights, for animal rights, and against the toxic chemical industry. While I'm not vegan now, I was, and I want to try to get back to that. Also, I started gardening this year, and have a blooming all-native rain garden, other native flora, two rows of sunflowers for phytoremediation, and fresh herbs. If you want to chat, feel free to friend me on facebook! (link below) Bon appetit!