About Jen

At the beginning of 2010, I received a diagnosis of “IBS” – irritable bowel syndrome. My interpretation of that diagnosis is that it’s what the doctors tell you when there’s something wrong with your digestive system but they have no idea what and it doesn’t seem life-threatening, so they don’t want to spend any more time trying to figure it out.

I asked if there was any way I could change my diet to fix, or at least manage, this and make the severe pain in my abdomen go away. I was told that diet has no effect on digestive disorders and was offered a prescription to take indefinitely (i.e., “forever”) to “manage” my IBS by keeping me “regular”. (Note, the standard over the counter fiber supplements were not helping, and were probably actually making things worse, according to things I’ve read about digestive disorders since then.)

I said “No Thanks” and went looking for a dietary solution. You can read more about that in my posts on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD). As I’ve read various books searching for answers on how food affects our bodies, and shared that information with friends, I realized that a lot of people are searching for ways to eat healthier and they don’t always know where to look.

I started paying more attention to the freshness of my food probably around 1999 when I worked in Downtown San Jose and had a mid-week, mid-day farmer’s market two blocks from the office. In 2000, I discovered I have a gluten “sensitivity” and I had to stop eating the highly processed bread, crackers, cookies and other junk that had comprised the bulk of my diet for most of my life.

In 2003, I had a problem with my metabolism and decided to switch to organic meat and dairy to avoid the growth hormones and antibiotics so prevalent in “standard” US meat. The taste difference was astounding and I started feeling better right away.

I spent the next five years eating organic as much as possible, frequently “cheating” by eating products containing gluten, and having problems with my digestion and metabolism, but not being in “too much” pain. I started having more health problems in 2007 and 2008, and that finally led to the IBS diagnosis in January 2010.

On January 31, 2010, I bought and watched Food Inc. and it opened my eyes to the horrors of our current food supply. No wonder people in the USA are so sick. Ugh! In December 2010, I read the book Real Food: What to Eat and Why and it rocked my world. As a result, I switched to pasture-raised eggs and started looking into “farm share” programs near Salt Lake City. I was surprised to find a variety of programs available. I was even more surprised to find LOCAL grass-fed beef. As in “30 minutes from downtown Salt Lake City”-local.

I had switched to grass-fed beef somewhere near the end of 2009 or beginning of 2010, but I had no idea there was any being raised so close to me! And neither did anyone I know – even other health-conscious eaters. I also discovered that many people don’t know the benefits of eating local.

I want to change all that, and the quickest way I see for me to make a difference in this area is to blog about it.

I started blogging in 2001 with Blogger. The topic was me and random things in my life. I had already created my personal site in 2000, but wanted to try out this “new” thing called a “weblog”. So in 2001, I registered a separate domain name for my blog.

I posted sporadically from 2001 – 2010, and then decided to be more dedicated to it in 2010.  At that time, I was thinking I would share mostly about travel, people, food. I soon realized I wanted to have a dedicated “food blog” in addition to my personal blog. And here we are! See About this Blog for my goals with this blog.