I've found my most healthful and actually helpful ways to navigate food, finally(knock on wood). But it hasn't been nearly as comforting as I imagined it would have been, especially in regards to interacting with others as now I'm more often viewed as simply being problematic rather than health-conscious in many arenas, especially social ones. It also takes the "fast" and "convenient" aspect out of choosing what to eat every day, and I miss that the most.
I was raised on mostly on fast/frozen/canned "convenience" foods since both parents worked more than one job. I remember being rewarded with Little Debbie cakes, orange sherbet Flintstones push-ups, popsicles, ice cream, candy bars, or fast food choices instead of hugs, love, and verbal validation of any kind. On weekends, a big huge spread of typical southern food would be made from scratch...like fried chicken, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, green beans, peas with thickening, homemade bread, sweet tea, etc.
On hellidays, mom stayed in the kitchen for days making every kind of cake/pie/etc. you could imagine....mostly for other people. Everything cooked was always cooked in high quantity to have leftovers or to serve/share with others. We were expected to clean our plates, whether we liked it or not, and were made to clean up the messes afterward. We were also constantly taught to stay stocked up on canned and dried goods "just in case".....but never taught the significance of water and hydration, as we were given kool-aid, sodas, sweet tea, and jungle juice.
When I left home to escape the abusive energies I experienced there, it became much more challenging as I learned to get my needs met in some really unhealthy ways as I couch surfed my way through life. I would gorge and binge every chance I got since I knew I might not have another chance for days. As I encountered even more abuse via domestic violence/rape/etc., became homeless for a while not knowing if/when I'd eat again, I became much more vigilant in trying to meet my food needs, resorting to things I hope I never have to do again.
Once I entered into a more functional/healthy environment in my early 30s, finally living in my own apartment alone, having a full-time salaried position I had established and maintained for many years, I continued to eat the same way I had been taught....fast, cheap, full of meat, and mostly artificial. I worked full-time with much overtime involved, became a f/t step-mom to two kids, was trying to help do for several other family members, so fast food was my go-to source of supposed nourishment on the run.
Fast forward to my mid 40s, I experienced major medical issues that had been steadily building up through the years and had been labeled and treated as being many other things by medical professionals, yet I was rapidly getting worse instead of better, thanks to the severe side effects of their suggested methods.....so I felt my only choice left was to drastically change my consumption habits to see if that could help. It was either that or let them cut me open to remove organs, and I didn't want to start that cycle for myself that I'd seen so many others have poor luck with.
A vegan friend of mine, who used to really get on my nerves when she'd even slightly suggest healthier options that didn't include my favorite meats/cheeses/ice cream/egg dishes/etc., was the first person I called to help healthily guide me through the changes after my ER visit. I did it overnight, as I was trying to avoid having to go under the knife, but in hindsight, I wish I had eased into it more gradually....but nonetheless...it ended up being the answer to a shitload of my problems....pun intended. Gluten had been my initial gateway discovery of how powerful the whole gut/brain connection is prior to the emergency situation where I eliminated the other stuff. Next, I eliminated meat, dairy, eggs, caffeine, alcohol, and as much artificially created stuff as humanly possible. Other than some long-term painful damage that may not ever be reversed, I feel better at age 50 than I ever recall feeling the last few decades.
While I had all of that time of being mostly bed ridden and miserable, I researched where my food and all the other things I choose to consume, be it internally or externally, actually comes from and the energies that go into getting it to me and now I can never un-see or un-know what i discovered. To me, the words humane and slaughter don't even belong in the same sentence. I learned the product isn't the only thing we absorb/digest, but also the energies that go into getting it to the consumers. The fear of death is still very real to a living/feeling being, even if it appears to be done much more kindly. They can't speak to tell us about it, but I strongly feel they can feel those energies, too.
I had already switched to only local "humanely" raised/killed meats, only local free range "happy chickens" and their eggs, only wild-caught seafood, only local "humane" dairy, etc., which automatically meant I was consuming less of them as those varieties cost more, but still suffered from many physical ills and remained morbidly obese, which that alone only served to greatly complicate and often multiply all the other issues. Learning about the forced insemination, the babies being deprived of their mother's milk and affection, male babies being killed for veal, etc. in the dairy industry made me even more pissed, especially being a survivor of being forcibly impregnated myself via rape and having been denied a nurturing connection with my own mom and with the unborn children I never got to carry full term. Those realizations run really deep for me. I now have a whole new respect for the animals forced to "provide" for us, the supposedly higher intelligent species. I have a hard enough time digesting my own trauma, much less trying to digest the energetic experiences of all the other living beings who have no choice or say in the matter.
Now that I've lived the difference for a while, experienced the extremes and many in-betweens, continually experiencing the major and sustained health improvements as a result, and no longer have to depend on the things that were making me so much worse instead of better, there's no turning back. I hope to live to see the day when more accurate overall nutritional guidance is offered in schools/hospitals/all care facilities and cleaner food options planted everywhere and made more readily available/freely accessible to everyone, along with ongoing educational guidance on how to grow/forage/prepare/store/create/recognize nutritional abundance in any given situation.
But as long as many of those industries continue to heavily fund those same places, I'm afraid the information and products received won't change. The "father of medicine" himself, Hippocrates, was definitely onto something when he said, "Let food be thy medicine." Besides my breath, healthy hydration, and purposeful daily movement, it's definitely become my favorite therapeutic means of overall relief as it relates to various forms of suffering that I'd been told I just needed to get used to and be prepared to treat with meds the rest of my life. Although I seem to have figured out what works best for my body and my particular biological needs, it's opened my eyes to just how incredibly toxic most of our surroundings are designed to be. Trying to find our healthiest existence in such unhealthy surroundings is a real crap shoot no matter which direction we go. Many systems are set up to foster more dependence rather than self-empowering individuals, it seems, and that's a damn shame.
