Our Journey to Real Food

Our journey to changing the way our family eats and more natural living began about 4 year ago. It has been a learning process all along the way and still is. My son Connor, who is now in grade 5 experienced some health problems in grade 1 that changed the way we eat and live for the better. We ate like most typical families would eating a variety of processed and whole foods. We ate a variety of homemade foods, fast food, restaurant, frozen foods, boxed or canned foods, and fresh foods. My son Connor started experiencing some headaches, fatigue, dizzy spells with vomiting, then full migraines. He had every test done and test after test would come back normal but he was still very sick and missing school. We decided when we had ran out of every possible test to do that our doctor could think of that we would go to an alternative doctor to hopefully get some answers. We discovered Connor was very sensitive to many foods including all food colouring, artificial flavours, wheat, yeast,chocolate, dairy,some fruits and vegetables and a lot of other things. He was only concerned that his favourite food in the whole world, potatoes was on the list of foods he should not eat. They recommended a very restricted diet to begin to heal his body and was on some supplements. We began to notice a change in him almost right away and the dizzy spells and migraines were almost gone. We changed the way our whole family ate and almost overnight I learned to prepare foods with grains I had never heard of, read labels, we switched to a lot of organic foods and gluten free foods, ate more fresh foods.
We decided since we are a family we would all eat the way he does and changing my daughter who can be a very picky eater was just as much a challenge if not more.
The road has had many ups and downs. When my son was in grade 2 we knew that he was not learning like the other children were. He has some difficulties with his fine and gross motor control, and with learning. We spoke with his teacher who felt we should have him tested so we went to our family doctor. She offered Ritalin for him and sent us off with a prescription. We decided we would prefer to look for alternatives and made an appt with a psychologist.We had him tested and he has developmental coordination disorder and a learning disability. He has gone through some occupational therapy and had some tutoring. He eats a very natural diet and has supplements. I am very proud of him, he is such a blessing to me and has the biggest heart. He is now in grade 5, he loves to cook and eat and wants to become a chef. He is currently taking cooking lessons at a local restaurant. He plays hockey and skis and loves cars.
This journey has lead me to want to help other families and children going through this as I know it is not an easy one at times. I know the stress, worry, tears and uncertainty this journey can bring at times as well as the joy. I have gone back to school to become a registered Nutritionist. I have finished school and waiting for my marks to graduate the end of June. I hope to do nutritional counselling for children and families to share my passion for nutrition and more natural living.