Refining my food choices

Cauliflower Sweet Potato Stew with Chickpeas

I have always been a healthy eater, cooking from scratch with mostly organic foods, limited sugar and wheat, although cow dairy, mainly in the form of cheese & yogurt has always been my weakness and ‘loose’ vegetarian for my adult life. Loose meaning occasionally I would eat poultry especially for the holidays, I always loved a roasted chicken or turkey dinner.  The best part for me was making soup the next day, boiling down the bones for hours and making a strong broth. Even not eating any other type of meat, there was always something soothing and comforting to me about making chicken or turkey soup. 

When I received the news that I had cancer, I felt the gap close on any leniency that I had given myself in the past and immediately stopped intake of all sugar, wheat, and dairy. Poultry had been out of my diet for about four years so that wasn’t anything to stop.  I felt it was important to eat only a plant based diet cooking with only fresh and whole organic foods. Even though I didn’t eat much bread to begin with, I went to absolutely no bread and no crackers, no cheese or yogurt.  I found some pretty amazing recipes and friends turned me onto the, Oh She Glows cookbook by Angela Whitten and Deliciously Ella.  Two wonderful vegan cookbooksfilled with lots of easy to make recipes and great tasting food.

I was aware of the Ketogenic diet for cancer and had read a lot of very positive articles about how it had helped people heal their cancer and strongly considered following it.  What I’ve come to find out about cancer is that it’s a very personal manifestation in one’s body and how it expresses itself.  There is not one fix for all and so it’s important to read about others and then ask yourself, ‘what feels right for me?’  To listen to your intuition and trust that you know the path to follow.  I am lucky that I work with health care specialists and natural health doctors who continue to remind me that it’s so vitally important to listen to your intuition, trust what your body is telling you.  This is what I want to honour for myself and so I have been listening a lot to what is inside. 

When it comes to food, it has been changing over the months.  As I said, I started out with a very strict plant based diet and then because I was going to have two surgeries fairly close together, the doctors didn’t want me to lose anymore weight. I was trying to stabilize my weight after losing 9kgs.  I’m not a big person and every kilo counts. After two months of strictly on the plant based diet, I decided to include spelt flour so I could have a slice of bread everyday.  I think this was partly driven by the weather changing and moving deeper into Fall.  I was wanting slightly heavier foods.  Funny enough soft boiled egg on toast was something I was craving also, so it was that I decided to give myself some latitude and have and egg and toast for breakfast in the morning.  Turned out I enjoyed it so much that I added avocado on the toast and some mornings spread on goat cheese as well, topped with sprouts.  It’s important to find healthy foods that your body responds well to and then to enjoy eating it.  Keeping on weight is an important part of the healing journey.