The last of the family birthdays are over and we finally have a clear stretch until Easter to really give this diet a good go.
Mum had a reasonably healthy diet, she always maintained a sensible weight and she exercised regularly. The two most notable things about mum's diet was her breakfasts and the obsession she had with eating fruit.
She firmly believed that breakfast was the most important meal of the day. She took to this idea with gusto. Her mornings always started with a cup of warm water with a teaspoon of salt. Not sure why she did this, maybe some sort of cleansing thing. Then she made herself a big, and I mean BIG, bowl of cereal which consisted of a number of cereals; for example, weet-bix, all bran, muesli, and sultana bran. Then she would top her bowl of cereal with some more 'healthy' grains, any combination of: lecithin, unprocessed bran, and oat bran. Then on top of that she would slice up an entire banana, a goodly portion of dates, prunes and sometimes some stewed fruit. This monstrosity would then need a full pint of milk to be mixed with it in increments so that she could get it all down.
But it didn't stop there. After all, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Mum would then cook herself a piece of toast which she would top with margarine and Vegemite and eat with a cup of tea. In later years her tea changed from black tea to green tea as she found out about the importance of antioxidants. If mum was having a particularly strenuous day, that is, on the days she played tennis, she would also throw in a hard boiled egg with her toast for good measure. And just when you thought that this woman could not possibly fit anymore food in, she would finish off breakfast with a fresh sliced orange.
This breakfast process was epic. It would take her ages to get through it all. She would start before any of us even got up, and was still going as we were leaving the house for our various daytime activities. The whole breakfast was like a ritual and mum relied on it to 'keep her regular'. She also tried to value add her breakfast with as many of the health food fads that were going around. She really did take the ' breakfast is the most important meal of the day' adage to a whole new level.
Of course, after all that breakfast she didn't need morning tea, and she would have a reasonably small lunch. Lunch was often an egg or perhaps sardines on toast. In later years, she became obsessed with having banana sandwiches for lunch. Usually lunch was finished off with a cake, slice or bikkie with her cup of tea.
Mum was pretty good, she tended not to snack on junk, so generally didn't have afternoon tea either. Though in later years when us grown up kids came to visit, she would (sociably) join us with cakes or bikkies for morning or afternoon tea. She was good, though, and never over ate the sweet snacks. I can't say that I was that self controlled. What she did eat a lot of, though, was fruit. She loved fruit and would eat numerous pieces per day. She always had an apple a day, usually a Granny Smith, and during stone fruit season she would add in peaches or nectarines between meals. She loved pears too and would always eat at least one of those a day in season as well. Rockmelon was also a particular favourite and dessert would quite often be sliced fruit and ice cream. After all fruit is good for you, right? Therefore, more must be even better.
Dinner was pretty much the meat, potatoes and three veg. Dad had gall and reflux problems, so food had to be kept pretty simple to keep him comfortable. We didn't always have dessert, but it was definitely a preferred option when we could. Mum credited herself as coming from a long line of sweet tooths, in fact they were just good eaters all round. A favourite family saying from her childhood was 'better food bills than doctor's bills'.
In the evening mum would finish her day with a cup of tea and usually a couple of wheatmeal biscuits. She loved her fibre and whole grains. These helped keep her bowels moving and her appetite under control. She would have a piece of fruit before dinner and also later at night before her evening cup of tea.
Basically, she had what would be regarded as an incredibly healthy diet. It was well balanced, with plenty of fruit and veg and supplemented with a few of the fashionable super foods of the time. So for someone like mum to come down with such a devastating form of dementia is perplexing. I know that my current diet is no where near as 'good' as hers. It freaks me out a bit that she could eat so mindfully, healthily and still succumb to the ravages of that dreadful disease. I wonder what if anything that she could have done differently. When you hear all the recommendations from the experts about how to ward off disease, mum was doing all that.
Her weakness for sweets did become more apparent as she aged ( I suspect the dementia was starting to kick in) and she, in an almost child like way, started to prefer dessert over main course. She started to get a bit naughty and fill up on strawberry milk shakes and eat minimal main course so that she could get onto dessert. I thought that it was just the dementia bringing out the child in her. But now a few years down the track, I am starting to read that dementia is possibly type 3 diabetes.
As the books say, correlation is not causation, but it has been noted that people suffering with dementia seem to have a very sweet tooth. A handy way for nursing home staff to administer oral medication is by lacing it with jam or honey. The dementia patients suck it down and look for more.
Does the sweet tooth cause the dementia or the dementia demand sweets? Or is there only coincidence and no cause and effect here at all?
One of the more interesting experiments of going sugar and grain free will be to see if (short term at least) the brain feels sharper. Every now and then I get the odd brain fog day. I often wonder whether this is a symptom, that will increase in frequency as I age to the point where I slip into dementia. I remember with mum's dementia diagnosis, she really didn't get the final diagnosis until we had effectively eliminated every other possible reason for her behaviour. It was like we had to physically trip over it before we could accept it as true. Because the beginning stages are a slow progression that mimics so many other conditions, not the least of, just plain old fashioned ageing.
I am calling this D Week as it is the week to get started. The kids have been warned, and have had a few weeks to get used to the idea. They have been allowed to eat and drink and indulge the last of their favourite foods. The popper of juice in their lunch boxes has been discontinued, much to many complaints. I have put bread and pasta in the freezer, if they desire it enough they can go and make their own. I personally wont be eating or cooking rice, pasta, bread, potatoes or any other grain. If they want to supplement they can, but I shall not be doing it for them. There is still a bit of sugar in the cupboard, once it has gone, it will be dextrose or nothing for them. I will buy them honey and unsweetened breakfast cereals if they so desire, but I shall not be eating them. Basically they are welcome to stick with their unsweetened grains and if they want sweet stuff, they can eat honey or go out buy their own......
I have already started cooking with the good oils and have ample butter in the fridge. The Nutellex is still there too if they so desire, but I will stick with butter and the yummy A2 cream I have found.
Now it's time to just pick the day, and do that three day detox..........
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