Mediterranean

My mother is Italian-American, born in New York. Her father cooked Mediterranean style foods. As I grew up and he had more time to cook, he experimented with all sorts of foods from many cultures. I cooked with him as often as possible. My grandfather’s cooking style influenced me the most. I learned about herbs and how to combine flavors from him. Oddly, my mother didn’t pick up his style of cooking until years later. As I mentioned before, she cooked in the style of the day, a meat, a starch, a vegetable or sometimes a salad, with very little seasoning. 

I continued to learn to cook, eating whatever I wanted. I wasn’t into junk food or sugar, so my diet was “mostly” good. But I still ate fast food and packaged foods, especially during my college years.

No Corn Syrup

While I was getting my degree, I worked on a project on-site at a food manufacturing plant in Houston. We took a tour before starting our project. As part of the tour we went to an area where the rail cars offload corn syrup. The corn syrup tank bottoms were about 5 feet below grade (ground level), the area was kept warm, and the tanks were heated to keep the corn syrup in a liquid state. The sides of the tank had brown streaks, presumably from corn syrup that had been cooked on and dried from golden yellow to dark brown. The air was humid, thick with sugar. My skin crawled. My stomach clenched. My brain buzzed, “If this is what this stuff does here, what does it do in your body?” I vowed to remove corn syrup from my diet.

No Processed Foods

When I learned that my son had major reactions to corn (we had him tested, he doesn’t have an IgE allergic response, but he has many of the symptoms of allergic responses), we got rid of all processed foods, as many of them contain corn in one form or fashion. Corn has about 100 different names. We began to eat very clean.

Acid / Alkaline

Then I found the acid/alkaline balance diet. The premise is that your body needs to be alkaline, a pH of about 7.4. Most foods we consume in America, such as processed foods, sugars, and meats have an acidifying effect on the body. Most fruits and vegetables have an alkalizing effect on the body. Our menu plan included enough cooked or raw fruits and vegetables, alkalizing substances, to fill 80% of our diets. Twenty percent (20%) of our diets came from meats and other acidifying foods.

Yes, I know, some naysayers will tell you that the body automatically alkalizes itself. Yes, it does. But at what expense? It is all a chemical reaction and the material to alkalize is required to make the chemical reaction work. Where does the alkalizing material come from? Most minerals are alkalizing. And if you don’t get the mineral or alkalizing material from your diet, it is leached from your body. I like my calcium in my bones, thank you. (Note, I believe that my infected tooth created an acidic environment in my jaw. The salivary gland stone could very well have been my body alkalizing the area and the excess calcium settled in the salivary gland duct, which is a low point in the piping, creating several stones.)

And guess what? No one got sick. Ever.

Raw Vegan

When I received my cancer diagnosis I tried raw veganism. My naturopath did tell me that it probably wasn’t a sustainable diet for me, and she was right. After 6 weeks I realized it wasn’t working for me. My energy level dropped drastically. However, I want to note that my cholesterol went way down. I do use some of the raw food diet recipes in my rotation.

Vegetarian

Instinctually, I settled into a vegetarian diet and I ate this way for about a year. I felt great and loved the food, but my iron and ferritin dropped too low. Although I didn’t have any symptoms of low iron, such as fatigue. In addition to being vegetarian, I ate low starch foods.

Ketogenic

The oncologist that I saw told me to eat keto. So, I tried ketogenic for about 6 weeks and it too didn’t work for me. I felt clogged. My stomach began to hurt from all of the fat. My elimination slowed down. My cholesterol shot way up, but my skin was soft. And, I didn’t enjoy eating.

I did a test called Nutrition Genome. Interestingly it told me that keto was not a good fit for me because my body didn’t digest fats very well. I also learned that I have a reduced ability to turn beta carotene into Vitamin A. The report suggested I eat pasture raised eggs, butter, and liver and to take cod liver oil. The cod liver oil made a huge difference in my skin. I recall I had added it to my regimen when I was eating Keto.

Paleo

I looked at the paleo diet. It still has too much meat in it for my preference. I do use some recipes from the Paleo cookbook that I purchased.

Whole-Foods / Plant-Based (WFPB)

For the last year this is the way I have been eating. I am happy eating this way and I feel good. The only cheese I eat comes from goat or sheep. I eat a small bit of beef every week or two for the iron. I eat an egg once or twice a week for the vitamin A. My iron is better. In fact, all of my blood test results are good. I love the Forks Over Knives website. It has some amazing recipes.