Health & the Holidays

Holidays are a time for fun, food and family. Our family bases our holidays on faith, so for us it's faith, food and family which happens to be fun. We have generations of great cooks, so the food is always outstanding. In the past healthy really wasn't part of our vocabulary when it came to eating for the holidays. Pre-illness made us carefree and sometimes careless with our eating habits.

A few years ago shortly after the 4th of July, on my husbands birthday to be exact, I suffered kidney failure and was hospitalized with a diagnosis of 1-15 days to live. Three days after being hospitalized I received the message that my mother was downstairs in the emergency room having a severe stroke. Prior to that I had resolved myself with the thought of death, hearing this a fight to live rose up in my spirit. Recovery for my mom was slow, but by the holidays we were both home.

This time everything was different, the family had to rethink our eating habits. Salt became something we measured and used sparingly. Olive oil became our family friend. My sisters husband was also diabetic; so we all became very acquainted with splendor. By the time the holidays had arrived, we were cooking lite, how many know that if food doesn't taste the way you want you don't eat as much. So our plate portions narrowed, desert became jello with lite fruit.

We drank my fathers homemade lemonade, and diet soda. By Christmas we had become very creative and dinner was great, even though it was cooked with less fat. No more ham hocks in the beans, we use smoked turkey necks now. No more pork bacon for breakfast now, we use Louis Rich turkey bacon. Instead of using just butter, we use butter mixed with olive oil. Instead of so much white sugar in our deserts, we use brown sugar mixed with splendor. I was even able to find sugar free brown sugar. At home that's what I use for my husbands deserts. He has since been diagnosed with diabetes.

I have a article on Christmas pies, you can replace the cool whip with home made whipped cream; that way you can control the sugar. I found some low sodium salt, that has half the sodium of real salt; but even that use sparingly. Diabetics, as well as kidney patients need to watch their intake of caffeine, so we drink decaf coffee. As for tea, our drink of choice is green tea, even though it does have some caffeine it is great for detoxing. Eat plenty of green leafy vegetables.

If eating is the thing you enjoy the most about the holidays and you want to pig out, cut back on the meat and get full on the veggies; you cant go wrong. Believe me you wont go home hungry either. Instead of salad heaped with cheese, meat and tons of salad dressing; try a cucumber salad with a lite vinaigrette dressing. Eat lots of garlic, it adds great flavor to almost any non sweet dish and it is great for you. Stay away from too much soda, if you must drink try diet and if you can't stand the taste of diet limit yourself to only one 8oz glass.

You will be sorry if you ignore the warning signs your body is trying to give you, and your health fails. I thank God for miracles, because he took me off of dialysis and gave me my life back. I have permanently altered my eating habits and reduced my portions and i feel great and expect to live a long time to enjoy many holidays. Be blessed and eat safe!

Revelation 22:2In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.