If you have a passion for life, love, food & all the other good things this world has got to offer, this is the place to be.
I love life, and want to live as long as I can, being as healthy as possible.
I have had a very good example of what I want to aim for, in my grand parents, as they were living well and healthily into their eighties.
In 1992 at age sixteen, while visiting my grandparents, I first realized that I didn’t have the energy to keep up with my grandmother, who had just turned seventy, or my grandfather who was seventy-three.
My grandfather loved his fishing, and when the chance presented itself, he would get up at four in the morning so he could be at the fishing waters at first light. Unfortunately he didn’t get to the fishing waters as often as he would have liked. His “hobbies” were enough work to wear out three of me on any given day.
He had a vegetable garden of about 1000m² that he tended religiously, and that provided them with fresh fruit and vegetables throughout the year. He also restored antique furniture with loving care as well as the building projects he permanently had going – he died in October 2003 while retiling his house at age eighty four.
My grandmother would oversee the household, cook three meals each day, and fuss around her visitors, bake rusks, biscuits, and cookies alternately and still keep up an interesting and informed conversation.
She also made the time to see to the access fruit and vegetables from my grandfather’s garden, and processed much of it for freezing. She cooked jam, bottled fruit, and made atjar and chutney with everything that was not frozen or eaten while in season.
The fact that my retired grandparents had more energy than I did puzzled and bothered me greatly, and it wasn’t until I got very sick that I’ve discovered their secret.
Early in 2006 my digestive system collapsed. It couldn’t digest regular food any longer, and eating anything, caused constipation, nausea, bloating and serious pain.
After living with this condition for about eight months, I was finally referred to a dietitian.
The dietitian recommended that I keep a food diary; detailing everything I eat every day to enable me to keep track of the foods that does not agree with me.
Natural raw foods such as fruit, vegetables, grains and meat seemed to cause the least problems, as long as I avoided onions, peppers and cucumber, (which all cause bloating). Any processed food had me in agony within the hour, and I started to avoid those whenever possible.
Soon my health showed a marked improvement, and I made a connection between my improved health and my Grandparents’ way of life.
