It’s no secret I love food. I mean I really do love it. We’re talking passion here people. Well I’m lucky. I’ve never had a problem with weight and seem to be able to eat what I like. If I was to describe my body image say in my twenties it would probably be something like ‘totally body oblivious’, in fact I’m pretty sure I did a quiz once that told me that.

My Grandad said to me once ‘You’re very straight up and down Jane’ and I replied ‘Hey Tom (we called him Tom) there are people would kill for a body like this! He got a great laugh from that. After all for his generation thin was most likely a sign of want (hunger). I’ve always had a positive body image. If only that were enough.

Now I’m 40, I’ve had three children and I’m a curvy (eur size 10/12, depends on the shop) I still love eating, I love my body and I’m happy. Add years of cooking, a few years of growing our own, a lot of reading and research and I have a bit of knowledge. So what’s the problem?

The problem is the ongoing challenge of safe and healthy eating. In the age of information have we any excuse for eating…lets call it crap? If we do it could be that so much of our food is in fact crap and the sheer bewildering level of information that has my head, like a lot of heads, totally fried with the whole lot (no pun intended)

It’s not just my own growing family I think of but my Dad who has Parkinsons and also had Prostate cancer last year. I’ve been researching the best possible diet to support him in that. I’ve long since learned, as I think we all have, that modern medicine has no art or part in causes or cures but deals only in symptons. As one analogy put it, meds treat the smoke, not the fire. Does this disturb you as it does me? Of course it all comes down to money.

So as I said I’ve been doing my research and it’s frustrating, contradictory at times, difficult to balance and downright infuriating but over time patterns have emerged. I’ve still not fully tied them down, is that even possible? But I have learned a lot along the way.

Rather than giving you my rambling lay mans assessment I’m sharing links to just a few interesting articles and videos I’ve found from the frontline of battle against cancer, parkinsons, alzheimers, dementia and a host of other modern diseases. These are interesting thinking not only in terms of having or supporting someone battling disease but also in terms of prevention.

1. What I Wish Everyone Knew About Parkinson’s Disease by Dr David Perlmutter Neurologist (essential reading)

2. Solve Your Health Issues with a Ketogenic Diet (Follow the links within this article for further information)

3. Coconut Oil Possible Alzheimers Treatment (This is a video link)

4. COCONUT OIL DIETARY GUIDELINES AND SUGGESTIONS

Luckily my Dad is very strong physically and mentally, positive and open minded, very important and not just because he has to deal with me! I’ve added coconut oil (must be unrefined/raw), vitamin D and Co-enzyme Q10 to his diet and we’re making some of the dietary changes as outlined in the links above.

Added to that here’s some changes I’m making or have already made at home

• Adding coconut oil to our diet
• Decreasing carbs e.g. less bread, rice, potatoes and pasta
• Decreasing sugar
• Increasing protein to a moderate level through meat, eggs and fish (wild, unfarmed, free range, organic). I had really cut down on meat but now I’m bringing it back a little.
• Increasing veg, especially green and raw veg, organic or home grown as much as possible.
• Growing more of our own. We’ve been growing some of our own veg for a few years now. Time is the biggest obstacle but we want to do more.
• We already eat very little processed foods. We’ll be keeping that up
• Looking into digging our own well for water

1970’s wisdom was that low fat was the way to go, that grains were good and fat was the devil. Now it seems this was wrong, it’s processed food, sugar and carbs is the problem. What do we know for sure, what do we trust? Me? I don’t trust, but I do think we have to accept that new information, new wisdom continually presents itself and that we have to adapt and do the best we can with what we have been given.

At this stage I would love to grow and produce all our own food but it’s just not possible. Will we stick to the list above? Of course not! We’ll just do our best ‘endeavour to persevere’ as the Indian in Josey Wales said.

Still I hope you found some of this interesting or helpful. Some of you know it all and much more already but if you still feel it’s all just too much here’s just one summing up guideline I like to keep in mind when I’m strolling through the toxic aisles…

When in doubt and assuming you have no underlying health concern to take into consideration, always go with nature. That’s the simplest, truest fact I have discovered you won’t find contradicted anywhere. And what is nature? Nature is in season produce with nothing added or taken away. Not low fat, low sugar or ingredients you can’t pronounce. In fact the fewer ingredients and less packaging the better. Think higher welfare food, organic, free range or when it comes to fish the ‘wild’ options. Anything ‘farmed’ or out of season has been sprayed, injected, waxed and ‘treated’ and yes that is as ominous as it sounds. Above all learn to cook. It’s a revolutionary act.

Finally, you might think you’re unaffected or that you don’t care so much about all of this but trust me, if the day ever comes you grow and pull and eat something you grew yourself you’ll burst, not only with excitement but with the sheer magic, primal, self satisfied pride and security of it. Go on! Do it! You may find like me that what you ‘like’ to eat more than anything is clean, safe food that tastes fantastic.

On that note I’ll be back soon with a great chicken recipe (free range of course!) so look out for that. Happy eating out there…