Here we go!!

I’ve been thinking about starting a blog for some time now.  What has been holding me back?  First of all, there are so many blogs out there today, why would someone read this one?  And second, there are so many topics that I want to write about!  It’s overwhelming trying to choose.  Every time I learn about a new topic in school, I want to tell everyone I know.  So, here I am, actually starting, and making this promise, I will keep my posts as short as I can and easy to understand. 

What is this blog about?  Eating real food for good health.  I will use what I’ve learned in school, what I’ve researched, and my personal experiences to share what I know about improving and maintaining optimal health through nutrient dense, properly prepared whole foods. 

My family’s health journey started about 4 years ago.  Our then 6 year old son, Kael, had been battling chronic ear infections his whole life.  He had had ear tubes two separate times, and his adenoid removed.  His ENT suggested a surgery that would open up his sinus cavity to try to alleviate his sinusitis.  He was 6 years old!  Not only did Kael have multiple surgeries, but his hearing and speech were impaired because of chronic fluid in his ears.  This affected his reading abilities, which he still struggles with.

This new surgery suggestion got me researching.  I read everything I could find about chronic ear infections and sinusitis.  Finally I came across a book that suggested a correlation between ear infections and dairy allergy, especially in children.  What?!  I was floored that something as simple as a food allergy could be the cause of all of Kael’s ear infections and sinusitis. But how could Kael be allergic to dairy?  He lived on chocolate milk and macaroni and cheese.  They were by far his favorites.  I thought an allergy would mean that he would get a terrible rash or go into anaphylactic shock. (I have since learned, that Kael has a sensitivity to dairy, not an allergy.)

We took Kael off of dairy cold turkey.  At first I wondered how in the world I would eliminate dairy from our diet?!  We live in the great dairy state of Wisconsin, almost every meal I cooked contained dairy.  This was going to be a huge change for us.  It turned out that it was so much easier that I expected.  We just stopped using dairy.  We switched our milk from pasteurized and homogenized milk to rice milk (this was the milk that Kael liked the most…we have since switched to coconut milk), and stopped using other forms of dairy.  We missed cheese in our foods, but in the 4 years that Kael has been off of dairy, he has healed enough that he is able to eat raw cheeses from grass fed cows (REAL cheese from REAL milk). 

Within 4-6 weeks of taking Kael off of dairy he was a changed kid.  He started breathing through his nose for the first time and his mouth closed. The dark circles under his eyes went away.  The crusty stuff that was behind his ears went away.  He could hear us clearly.  Most importantly, he no longer needed ear tubes or sinus cavity surgery!  In the four years since going off of dairy, Kael has been sick much less often.  This is in large part because his immune system is not as exhausted as it had been when it was fighting off the “dairy invader” that he had been ingesting.  Take away the stressor (dairy) and the immune system can do the job it is supposed to do.  More about this topic in a future post.

Discovering what could be done to help our son through NUTRITION changed our lives.  This year I began my formal nutrition training through the Nutritional Therapy Association www.nutritionaltherapy.com.  I chose this program because it focuses on using nutrient dense, properly prepared foods to achieve optimal health.  They believe, and so do I, that we can prevent so many illnesses through eating real food.  We hold our health in our own hands, and if we eat real food, not the processed stuff that many people eat, we can prevent so many diseases.  I believe everyone can feel better when they eat real foods.  I feel it is my duty to share what I have learned, and continue to learn, with all of you.