Are You Really What You Eat?

 First of all let me say HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope all of you had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas and New Years. I was doing ok until just as hubby started to walk out he door this morning he reminded me the holidays were over it was time to get back into routine...the old spoil sport but he is right I really need to get back to my daily routine and get things under control around here so I will stop stressing.

But before I pull out the vacuum cleaner and cleaning stuff I wanted to tell you about a phone call I got from my bestest friend in the whole wide world yesterday. She was so excited and overjoyed. Well she was just beside herself with happiness. Let me stop right here and say we live 1500 miles apart and rarely see each other anymore. We get our monies worth from our cellphones and internet; you see she married a farmer’s son and settled down on the family farm and I married a city boy and well I am trying to convert him to a farmer. LOL

Any way on with the phone call…we have a standing date every Tuesday night, we Skype each other and it so good to see her face. But for the past year- year and half she has been experiencing health problems.  She was on medicine for her thyroid, high blood pressure, and I don’t remember what else they had her on meds for but she was taking 4 or 5 pills a day. She was so excited, she finally seen a doctor that figured out what was wrong with her. She has a vitamin / mineral deficiency.  Yep that is correct a vitamin / mineral deficiency. For the past year she has seen specialist after specialist and they had her convinced that it was a mental problem as opposed to a physical problem. Well that was until she collapsed at work. Good thing she works at a hospital.

They rushed her down to the ER. As her coworkers put it she drew the short straw and got the new ER doctor on staff. Well as it turns out he was a Godsend. He requested not only the normal blood screen panel but a detailed vitamin and mineral panel also. Come to find out she was not even on the chart in some of the profiles. 

It is sad to say but with all the manipulation of our food we are not getting required nutrients we need. It is not that (all) of us are making bad choices with what we eat it is the fact that our foods do not have the nutrients they once had. We may be eating the same foods as our parents and grandparents but we are not eating the same food. I know you are scratching your head after that statement saying huh? What? She is not making sense. Yes I am, I said we may be eating the same foods as our parents and grandparents but we are not getting the same benefits from those foods as they did. More and more foods are being mass produced, grown in hot houses and the seeds are being manipulated. They are losing their “go get ‘em juice.” Not only that but foods are being refined and we are not getting the best part of the food anymore. My parents and grandparents didn’t grow up on instant grits and oatmeal. My grandmother ground her own wheat and corn.

I personally believe that we are not obese because of the food we eat but because of how the food we is grown and processed. We are not getting the needed vitamins and mineral from our food. We are not hungry but our bodies are craving…craving the vitamins and minerals it needs to function properly so we eat to satisfy those cravings.

Makes one wonder if some people could come off most of their medicines if they had normal vitamin and mineral levels? What is that saying that we learned as kids oh yeah…You are what you eat.

My friend was feeling better after just a week of supplements and shots. The ER doctor referred to another specialist but this one is of the same mindset as the ER doctor. Not only that but she is seeing a nutritionist. She said since her father-in-law past away the sons have gone to raising cattle and growing hay instead of planting the fields. So we talked over an hour about raised beds and square foot gardens. She sounds so much like her old self. 

Moral of the phone call…before you accept any prescriptions ask for a detailed vitamin and mineral blood panel profile to be run. Then talk it over with your doctor. It is your health not theirs be stubborn when it comes to any diagnosis and prescribed medicines. If you are not happy get a second opinion.