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More About Mary Collette
Just before Christmas 30 years ago, I was putting my tiny, sickly, 6-month son to bed. He was struggling so hard to exist happily in this world, but kept getting ear infections, even while on antibiotics. And now, on this particular night, I had to decide: Administer the next dose of antibiotics or not.
Do I go with the conventional, western medicine that I had been raised to trust implicitly,
Or cast my lot with this new-fangled thing called natural medicine?
I cast my lot with the second option and didn’t administer his antibiotics that night, nor any time after that. You see, his little body couldn’t handle any more antibiotics. He had been given so many in his short life after a staph infection when he was just three weeks old and then several ear infections after that. Antibiotics were now toxic to his little body.
So I didn’t give him any more that night and could only hope and pray that he would be alive in the morning.
A Happy Ending
I won’t keep you in suspense. My little guy was not only alive in the morning, but began healing, truly and deeply, through a combination of body wraps, herbal treatments—and most importantly, good nutrition. Slowly but surely, the rashes and black circles under his eyes disappeared, he gained weight, the ear infections disappeared for good, and he grew into the happy, caring, wonderful man that he is today.
What’s more, I and my daughter became happy and healthy, too. My daughter had been getting the croup on such a regular basis that her doctor had decided she must be asthmatic. My situation was less dramatic–just one virus after another while attending graduate school and caring for my sick kids.
Paradigm Shift
As the dust settled and our health returned, I realized that I had undergone a profound paradigm shift:
Until then, I had never paid that much attention to the food I ate. I wasn’t a junk-aholic and ate reasonably well, but food was just something to stop hunger. I saw no connection between what I ate and whether I got sick, my face broke out, my airborne allergies went berserk, or I had indigestion. Illnesses were something taken care of by doctors and pills, not food.
But now I had just experienced, first hand, how the food I put in my and my children’s bodies actually had very profound consequences. For us, gluten and dairy products equated to illness and a diet free of them equaled wellness.
Even more profound, however, was that for the first time in a long time, I re-experienced what good health feels like. Over the years my health had deteriorated–but so gradually that I didn’t notice. Eventually, my sense of “normal” became completely skewed. I no longer knew what good health felt like.
So I was stunned by how wonderful and freeing it was to have good energy again, never need anti-acids again, have clear skin and a healthy weight again, and few if any colds and flus.
Once that paradigm shift happened I was eager to discover and make and eat more and more health-giving meals. While I certainly detoured from time to time, there was no going back. I never even considered it since the benefits were so amazing.
And thank goodness I didn’t retreat to my old eating ways. While they certainly weren’t disastrous, I now see that I was likely on the road to more serious health conditions, probably diabetes.
Sustainability
Ever since we successfully and happily survived our health crisis, there has always been one issue that has concerned me: Sustainability.
If you have ever tried a diet of one sort or another (and who hasn’t), then you know that practically anyone can stick with a diet for a couple weeks or even a month or two. The problem, as we all know, is sustaining a new and better way of eating month after month, year after year, for life.
This is where I found myself a couple months into our healthy eating journey. By dint of sheer determination (and no small amount of panic) I got gluten- and dairy-free meals on the table and got us all healthy within a couple months. But then I faced the mind-boggling fact that I needed to those good meals on the table not just for a few months but for the rest of our lives!
How in my harried life was I supposed to keep making those health-giving meals every day, pretty much forever? I suspect that this “sustainability” issue is a big one for a lot of people on the healthy eating journey.
This is why the “how” piece of the healthy meal making equation has always been my focus, more than information on “what” we should be eating, as I explained here.
Happily, I had at least a few cooking skills under my belt. As or more importantly, I possessed good organizational skills. As I struggled to pull together our daily meals, my cooking and organizational skills magically coalesced and together, formed The New Kitchen Way. It turned out to be the “how” piece that most diet programs were missing.
I hope you’ll experiment with me to see how, with this framework in place, healthy meal making success can easily be yours. And not just for a week or month, but for life!
Post-Epiphany
Most if not all of us working in the healthy living field have had epiphanies like mine. We’ve faced down a health crisis by simply adopting a healthy lifestyle: good food, adequate sleep, daily exercise and relaxation. And once we’ve experienced the simple but extraordinary power of a healthy lifestyle, we of course want everyone else to have it, too–and we go on to develop services and products to be of help.
Our impetus to help becomes ever more urgent as obesity rates continue to rise along with chronic diseases and other debilitating conditions, from digestive disorders, hormonal imbalances, inflammation, autoimmune diseases and sleeplessness to headaches, rashes and depression. We have become a sickly nation, not the strong one needed to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
What really galvanized me personally, were reports that members of the younger generation will actually be less healthy and have shorter life spans than their parents. Even military leaders warn that it is becoming increasingly difficult to field a capable military due to the deteriorating health of the younger generation. (1)
For all these reasons, my E3 mission became and continues to be: Educating, Exciting and Empowering ordinary home cooks to make the wholesome meals that are the foundation of good health. My hope is that we not only experience the enjoyment and productivity that come from our personal well-being, but that we can also build stronger families and communities and a more peaceful and just world.
It may seem a big leap from the dinner table to world peace, but I ask you to join me in just experimenting to see whether a well-nourished population doesn’t do a better job of being kinder, more caring and better capable of solving problems.
To your healthy eating journey!
(1) https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/18/us/poor-fitness-in-military-poses-peril-report-says.html?_r=0