Friday 18 March 2011

Starting the Journey

We have been vegetarian for over thirty years and during this time I have raised three amazingly talented children, all of whom had busy lifestyles - football, rugby, hockey and dance, acting and music lessons to name a few. I always presumed that, because we were vegetarian, our diet was healthy but I fell into the trap, that I suppose many busy working mums do, of cooking pre-prepared vegetarian meals from the freezer. I didn't always have the time to cook something from scratch when I had to drop one child off here and another there and juggle my own work at the same time.

The crunch came when my youngest was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease in 2006. The prognosis was not good. The consultant was anxious to prescribe a number of drugs which only seemed to offer a lifetime of side effects and no cure at all. I sat down at my computer and trawled through the internet for the next 36 hours. A believer in natural therapies, I hoped and prayed that there would be something out there.

It wasn't long before I found a website detailing the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. The work of Elaine Gottschall seemed to offer a solution. What did we have to lose! He started the diet immediately and within three weeks his blood test results returned to normal. He has now been on the diet for over five years drug free and hasn't suffered any relapse.

Not only did my son's diet change, we all changed our eating habits. This was a wake-up call! I remember standing by the kitchen cupboard and throwing all the crisps, biscuits, pop and fruit squashes we had into a bin liner, much to the dismay of other members of the family. Our diet wasn't that bad, we did eat a fair amount of vegetables and whole foods, but I now make sure I find the time to prepare much more wholesome meals, every day!

Over the last five years I have developed a huge interest in food and its effects on the human body. I'm by no means an expert and I love to discover new bits of information . Most of the food I cook is simple to prepare and uses ingredients most of us would have handy in the store cupboard. I hope you will enjoy reading about my food discoveries and trying out some of my recipes.