It was not really a field trip going through the rudiments of changing the family diet. We were not junk and fast food eaters. I call us just the conventional Pinoy family. The call of the all-natural eating meant bidding goodbye the processed, man-made, synthetic food that we conventionally have (despite not realizing it).
And the most we have to kiss goodbye to – Sugar! Not just desserts, but some food that automatically become sugar in our system. Our medical doctor, Dr. Susana Balingit, who is practicing natural healing through natural food lead us through this transition.
It was a weekend of revamping the whole pantry! From then, I have to deal with menu planning, label-reading, researching and trouble-shooting my twosome’s whims of wanting cookies for snacks! While it happened, I felt that I have to die to myself to give my family, especially the husband, the best! The dessert -lover in me has to stay put for now.
There was just too much to juggle in my life! A day’s 24 hours seems lacking for my family’s needs – my husband and two kids, my own career, my book project and all those homely matters I need to be attended to. Before I knew it, it was me who was having my own crisis. It seems that I have pushed myself for months, to my limits!
What is it for me?
I am so grateful for the health issue that allowed us to see beyond what we cannot have, but to enjoy the food and things we can have. We got comments here and there, that made us feel we are so freaky with what food we are having! In all these, I deliberately committed that I do not ever want to pity or feel “kawawa” that my family cannot all the food in the buffet table, and have all the desserts to our content.
How does it affect me?
I focused instead on enjoying what we can have and of course, what all-natural eating is doing for my family. If others commented, “nakakaawa naman kayo!” I usually mum to myself, “Really now! Isn’t it that this is the more better options?”
Both the stigma and the the purchasing and planning of meals can actually be tiring. Feeling that we need to explain a lot when asked can actually be exhausting too! It can be challenging and even frustrating (excuse the human side of me)!
But we learned to cope. And we keep learning in the process. We answered questions patiently as they come. And we do not let their comments make us feel less human. My husband and I just continue to enjoy and hope to gain the benefits of this life!
What are the meanings, and growth-points I gained from it?
“I focus on the goodness it brings – my husband’s condition improving, my kids having less and less of allergies and coughs. And we are learning more and more about food! Looking through, we all have to experience the bitterness of having health bouts and the purging from conventional to all-natural food. We give ourselves “treats” of some conventional food sometimes, but we do not abuse what is not good in our lists.
We focus on the bigger purpose of living healthier – medication and disease-free. And for us – we eat to live, not only to heal, not just for fad diet and slimming purposes. But we eat well because we want to enjoy life longer – for us as a couple and for our growing kids too.
We are not turning back on this healthier choices. The sugar free life or less sugar free life is so sweet, after all!
So what meaning does all these have? Living longer, healthier and better!
This health crisis was one of the biggest storm to rock our family life. But the miracle for us (after five years of my husband’s treatment with conventional medicine) is finding not just a cure or a diet – but a total change change in perspective, attitude and taste buds for each member of our family about the food that nourish, gives life and heal. And this is not our diet – this is and will be our life! And we are all in this – as a family!