Real Food Blogger Bites is a new weekly series on Cheeseslave. I’ll be asking real food bloggers a “question of the week.”
For our premiere weekly Real Food Blogger Bites feature, I asked the following question, “What’s your favorite real food testimonial?”
To kick things off, here’s mine:
In my 20s, I completely cured myself of gluten intolerance, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome, adrenal exhaustion, multiple chemical sensitivities, chronic sinus infections and seasonal allergies. I had to avoid gluten and sugar for 2 years. I also took therapeutic-grade probiotics and other supplements.
I’ve been able to eat pizza, bread and cookies ever since! You can read more about my story here.
Here’s the rest of the amazing responses…
Blogger Bites Week #1: What’s Your Best Real Food Testimonial?
Kate Doubler
Blog: Real Food RN
An interest in health and healing is what led me to pursue my career in the medical field. I went to college and became a nurse. Unfortunately, I have not seen as much healing as I had hoped for. This led me to return to school for holistic nutrition.
After adopting a real food lifestyle and helping my clients to do the same I have found the healing that I was always looking for. Healing diets are truly life changing!
Colleen Anderson
Blog: Five Little Homesteaders
I am still early in my real food journey and learning more everyday. It started when I became interested in animal welfare and the state of our industrial meat system. My family and I began raising our own chickens for eggs and started to learn more about where our food comes from and what it goes through before it reaches our tables.
We currently have over 500 square feet of organic gardens on our small urban lot and six chickens. I am cooking and baking almost entirely from scratch and learning to preserve the surplus that we grow. Real food from our own backyard. It doesn’t get much better!
Danielle Baethge
Blog: It’s a Love/Love Thing
My family’s real food journey began when I read The Maker’s Diet, and subsequently Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, in search of any information that would help me deal with my children’s severe dairy, egg, and nut allergies. As much as I loathe allergies, they were our catalyst into a healthier, better-informed lifestyle.
We recently moved to Arizona to heal and have better access to fresh produce and co-ops. We’ve seen the best improvement when eating fermented foods and taking fermented cod liver oil – and we’ve seen a few allergies disappear. Here’s to total allergy elimination! You can find allergy-friendly recipes and tips for a simpler lifestyle on my blog.
Jennifer Cordova
Blog: Sweet Plaintains
I grew up eating a whole foods, unprocessed diet – deeply rooted in my father’s Brazilian heritage. I was a healthy, slim, and athletic youngster. However, if I was away from food for more than a couple of hours, I became nauseous, tired, and ravenously hungry. Then, in my early twenties, I was introduced to the WAPF diet and started consciously incorporating more healthy fats and fermented foods into my diet – including large amounts of coconut oil, raw milk, grass fed butter, and fermented cod liver oil.
The result? Increased energy, balanced hormones postpartum, a greater ability to deal with stress, and the most amazing thing: my metabolism changed! The life-long pattern of constant eating gradually diminished – and this change occurred as I was pregnant and breastfeeding! I know that all those healthy saturated fats made this significant difference, which is why I now have a deep and abiding love for coconut oil!
Chloe Hennes
Blog: Healthy People, Healthy Planet
I moved into the health world by making my own natural hygiene and cleaning products. Yet at the age of 21, I developed unrelenting eczema all over my body. In a desperate search for a solution after topical products did not work, I learned about elimination diets.
I spent an entire summer only eating real food and slowly introducing those that I had eliminated. I discovered sensitivities to nightshades and beans, but most importantly, I found that eating clean, whole foods allowed my body to heal and my skin to completely clear up. I had always know eating healthy was important, but before my journey to real food, I would never have realized just how important it is.
Allison Jordan
Blog: The Sprouting Seed
Today, I am pain-free and feel better than ever! I’ve healed from fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, chemical sensitivities, hormonal imbalance, anxiety and depression. Healing came about through eliminating food intolerances, healing my digestive tract and finding inner-peace. I now enjoy healthy, real food and I don’t even have food intolerances anymore! Changing my diet changed my life.
April Anderton
Blog: Healing for Real
After more than 20 years on acid blockers, I am finally free of them…and heartburn! By eliminating processed foods, switching to a real food nutrient dense diet and supplementing with natural enzymes, I was able to stop taking prescription acid blockers, control my reflux and improve my digestion dramatically.
I have not taken an acid blocker, had persistent heartburn or had an emergency bathroom trip in 6 months. I know real food HEALS because I have experienced it personally.
Jaime Hartman
Blog: Gutsy by Nature
I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in 1995, a total of seven surgeries between 2007 and 2009 resulting in borderline short bowel syndrome, severe iron-deficiency anemia, food allergies, and more. Doctors told me I was fortunate to be doing as well as I was, even though by all objective measures I was still quite sick.
Finally, in January 2013, I decided that I wasn’t willing to settle for that anymore and began investigating natural diet-based approaches to healing my gut. I now follow a paleo autoimmune protocol that includes lots of grass-fed meats and organic veggies and fruits, and eliminates all grains, legumes, and dairy.
My healing journey is not complete, but a colonoscopy just two months after eliminating grains showed only minimal disease evidence “consistent with resolving Crohn’s disease” and just four months later my hemoglobin and hematocrit levels tested in the normal range for the first time in my entire adult life!
Jackie
Blog: The Paleo Mama
I started my real food journey almost 5 years ago with the birth of my first child. I questioned everything I fed her which caused me to question everything I was eating. However, losing weight never came easy to me. Two years ago my second child was born, there I was; an overweight mother suffering with post pardum depression, and grieving the loss of my sister who, very suddenly and tragically, passed away 2 months after my son was born. I couldn’t look in the mirror and it hurt to look at my children.
Out of pity, someone cooked me a Paleo meal. I thought, “Oh great, another eat-this-and-stop-grieving meal.” I ate it. My tastebuds exploded and since that day two years ago, I have been eating Paleo.
I have lost 70 pounds, overcome postpartum depression, and post traumatic stress from my sister’s death. I, definitely, think diet had a huge part in it all!
Sheila
Blog: Love and Wild Honey
Somewhere in my early 30s I just had enough! Between my youngest sister and I we were suffering from debilitating fatigue, every stomach symptom known to mankind and host of other symptoms that were reducing our quality of life tremendously. I set out on the real food journey to reclaim the energy I needed to give back to the world, live each day radiantly and to inspire her to take control of her own life just the same. Along the way I found centering not just in real food recipes but a passionate resurgence of my spiritual life and the strength creatively and in the present.
How About You?
What’s YOUR best real food testimonial? Share in the comments below!
Check Back Next Thursday For Next Week’s Question
What’s your favorite REAL FOOD?