Day 18 Update... Addressing Concerns...

As you may already know, I've had to tweak my diet a little bit for lack of abundance this year.  But I saw a few of my readers yesterday and I wanted to clear up some concerns they were telling me about.  

The first thing I want to talk about is getting enough fats in our diet.  Fats are very important.  Fats help our bodies metabolize and absorb the vitamins that we are getting from food.  In fact, eating a little fat at the same time as taking vitamins, if taking them, can increase our bodies usage of the vitamins more than if we don't eat any fat.

  Fat also helps our brains function.  Lack of fats can make people have brain fuzz.  Our brain is made of cholesterol and fat.  There are studies showing that a diet low in "good" fats can cause depression because of the lack of cholesterol.  I really think this is why I felt depressed on my first days into this journey.  My brain wasn't getting what it needed.  The day I added eggs to my diet, I immediately felt better.  

My intention this year was to have more seeds to eat, which contain fatty acids.  I also normally have eggs from my chickens, but they are still too young to lay eggs. So, I have been buying them from a local farmer.  It's all in my planning, or lack of planning, and I will get into more about fats in another post.

The other thing that was mentioned yesterday was carbs.  The nice woman I talked to was telling me about a friend she had who was trying to lose weight and cut out carbs from her diet, was fasting or something, had lost a whole bunch of weight and then was in the emergency room because her heart was going haywire.  I can't remember the story word for word, but I just wanted to make this clear just in case people are thinking I'm doing this to lose weight.  I have lost a little weight, but it is not my intention to use this as a "diet".   Not only can losing weight really fast be bad for your health, but people who lose weight really fast never keep the weight off.  If I lose weight, I want it to be very slowly.  Carbs are great for energy and I am eating lots of carbs.  But not overly processed carbs.  I'm eating potatoes, beans, greens, squash.  All real, unprocessed whole food.

Anyone just starting to follow this blog, or anyone following, but missed it, can go back and read my first post about eating what I grow from back in June.  I give all my reasons for doing this.  Weight loss was only an afterthought.

These last 18 days, I have been on an educational journey.  I'm learning more about myself, and about what I need to do in the future to be more food secure.  That's what this is about for me.  Things have evolved over the last 18 days, but I am still focused on eating real, live, clean, local food, and the good that will do to me, others, and the earth.

Sunflower seeds have lots of good fats in them.  It's a superfood.

Amaranth seeds.  Good fats.

Carbs.  Unprocessed.

Sunflowers in the garden

Note:  I'm adding a note to this post because there are a few things I have wrong in the above blog.   I chose not to delete all the misinformation completely because I want to show that we can all get the wrong info now and again, and it's okay..  I was wrong about the fats and cholesterol.  Like many of you, I have tried many different "diets" that have all failed.  Keto being one of them.  Although we need fats in our diet, I was very wrong about the amount that is adequate and that fats from plants like nuts and seeds are just as viable, without the negative impact that raising animals for meat has on the environment.