My father, to start with, put it simply, said, "My mother's food sucks. Her cooking sucks. I don't have anything to say." While that might seem mostly useless, I can speak of his mother's opinions to some extent. Whenever I visit her, I almost always wind up pulling rotting food from her refrigerator and kitchen counters because like my mother's mother (Baba), she doesn't believe in wasting food at all. She will gladly eat a rotten orange or buy orange juice about to expire because like my mother's parents, she grew up in rather poor circumstances. While she also stressed constantly never to waste food, most of my views are a result of how my mother's side of the family views food. Baba believes that one should never waste food, however, she's willing to compromise the health states of the family to follow that believe. Growing up, my mom recalls that her mother would make enormous quantities of food that would be served day after day after day. Growing up, my mother was predisposed to Crohn's disease (which she now has) and for her, repeating eating was an awful thing to do. My mom also has had Acid Reflux since a very young age and for that condition, there are also certain acid based foods (like tomato sauce) that should be avoided. Baba refused to believe food could get you sick and didn't change her cooking habits. My grandfather has Type 2 Diabetes and high blood pressure. As such, foods high in sugar and sodium should be avoided. When he was diagnosed my grandmother once again refused to change her cooking habits.
Over the years, the multiple conditions or diseases that my mother and grandfather were trying to avoid all together and prevent from increasing from their pre-disposed states, or keep under control, nearly all fell on them or worsened. My grandmother's solution? Stop cooking all together. (She's resumed cooking now and still doesn't seem to comprehend basic nutritional information, no matter who tries to explain it to her. So for the record, in case you weren't informed, adding water to a very high sodium meal does not get rid of the salt in the meal - it only dilutes the salt's concentration in the dish.) With my family's medical history being a clearly connected to the foods that they ate, not only has "healthy eating" been promoted to me as I've grown up (grilled meats instead of fried, fruits instead of chicharrones) but knowing how to curve a diet in favor of an individual's health has been stressed even further.
From the experiences of my grandfather, I have learned many tricks of how to keep well (ie, not passed out from a sugar crash) with my insulin resistance. I know that an apple or peach is preferable to a pineapple that is not only high in sugar but the sugar and carbohydrates in it will be broken down a lot faster because they are "simple" sugars. Eating pineapple would result in a blood sugar spike and then crash for me. I have to second guess even the foods that are generically considered healthy by most of the population.
Note: No official inventory of my fridge is available at the moment as I'm feeling under the weather and don't want to risk contaminating the family's supply of food. However, off the top of my head I'm certain of the following items being in it:
- Milk
- Lactaid Milk
- Apple Juice
- Eggs
- Cheese
- Butter
- Ranch Dressing
- Vinegar
- Lite Italian dressing
- Cold Cuts (Ham, Turkey, Salami)
- Cilantro
- Advocados
- Peppers
- Chipotle Ranch Dressing
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