Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, my daughter, Dawn, dove into researching ways of how not to get breast cancer again (hopefully). She found medical research studies about how Asian women had lower rates of breast cancer, and the Asian population in general had considerably lower rates of heart disease and diabetes. Based on these studies she dove even deeper, and learned the reason behind these statistics was strongly related to their diets, which were mostly plant based diets and also included a lot of soy and green tea. So she started to do more and more research which ultimately led to her getting certified as a holistic nutritionist. Dawn provided me with a lot of intriguing statistics and evidence based studies about how what we eat affects our health, but still, I couldn’t just stop eating the way I have for the last 70 years, or at least that’s how I felt then. I made a few changes here and there, adding soy milk to my smoothies and adding flaxseed to my oatmeal, but that was about it. Dawn was happy with these changes and gave me a lot of support and encouragement to keep trying to add more healthy foods to my plate. So one day she suggested we go grocery shopping together (what she calls the grocery store tour) to help me understand what is truly healthy food. As I was grabbing my usual grocery items and putting them in my cart my daughter said “STOP, read the label Mom” and proceeded to explain the nutrition facts and ingredients and how they were NOT healthy, and I thought, but the label says 100% this or that, or low fat, or sugar free, yet the ingredients were all unhealthy chemicals, or oils, or refined grains - What a shocker! My daughter has taught me how to really read the labels and ingredients so as not to be fooled by the “healthy” label on the packaging. To also find out that meat and dairy are bad for you was another huge shocker! Here, all these years I had taught my children that milk, meat, fish and cheese were necessary to grow up strong and healthy, what a let down, I was the parent tasked with teaching my children what foods to buy and how to prepare healthy meals for their future families but I wasn’t really helping them at all. Now I am the one being taught about healthy nutrition, how to grocery shop, and prepare healthy meals for myself and my husband by my daughter! I still have a ways to go in my quest of eating healthier, but Dawn is always there to help me out and show me the healthier choices I can make. I know, old habits are definitely hard to break, but after going through chemotherapy, radiation treatment, and surgery I am very willing to try and fully adopt this lifestyle so hopefully I won't have to go through that horrible ordeal all over again. As my daughter says, it’s never too late to take control of my health and start eating like my life depends on it, because it truly does!