The First Word #22: Betraying the Heartland

You all know me as a genealogist. I also work full time as a chiropractic assistant and have learned a lot about health, diet and nutrition. Consequently, have recently made some radical changes to my diet and have very quickly seen positive results. Basically, I have decided to cut out all grains (with the rare exception of some rice), most dairy and extra sugars from my diet. If you are interested in reading more about that journey, I am writing a blog about it at 1yearsjourney.blogspot.com. Interestingly, genealogy and health have come together a few times in the last few weeks and it has been interesting to see how they intersect.

I come from a long line of farmers. I have researched most of my family lines back to their arrival in America from some far off land. It turns out most of them were farmers who happily pursued the agricultural life their fathers had followed before them. My ancestors planted, tilled and harvested the food that they ate. They did not process their food, with the exception of canning in glass jars, they ate whole foods: vegetables, fruits, beef, eggs and chicken they raised themselves, without the use of pesticides, growth hormones or antibiotics. But as the business of agriculture grew, it centered more and more on processed grains and less and less on healthy, whole food from small farms. Today a large portion of our population gets over 60% of their food from boxes and cans. Sadly, most children today don’t even realize that food comes from somewhere other than the grocery store!

Grains grown today are not the same as the grains my ancestors grew. They have been heavily modified by both selective breeding and later by genetic engineering to resist calamities such as pesticides and drought and to produce more product. But the actual nutritional value of the product has gone down significantly. I recently watched the documentary King Corn which was quite interesting in that these two young men learned by analyzing hair samples that for the most part we are all mostly eating nothing but corn. So they went to Iowa, planted one acre of corn and learned about the whole farming process from start to finish. These two young men had been friends from childhood somewhere on the east coast but learned that they both descended from great-great-grandfathers who came from the same small county in Iowa. While they were waiting for their corn to grow they visited the cemetery to locate their ancestors’ graves and they sought out any relations still living in the area. They also discuss the ways corn has changed since it was brought to America.

Their family stories are similar to mine. My husband, kids and I just returned from visiting my remaining family in Ohio where I grew up. My grandfather owned an 80 acre farm outside of Perrysburg, Ohio where he grew corn, soy beans and wheat as long as he was able to farm. As a child I would happily ride along in the tractor while he tilled, planted or harvested. There was a very large garden on their farm where they grew fresh vegetables, some of the only fresh vegetables I ate as a child since my parents moved me into the city and most of the time we only ate canned vegetables and processed foods. My favorite thing to do was to take a salt shaker and head into the garden where I would eat fresh, juicy tomatoes right off the plant with a little salt!

Times have changed. In those days my grandparents ate a pretty good diet of food they grew on their farm. But as food got cheaper and easier to just buy at the store, we started buying food at the store. We buy all kinds of processed food to add convenience to our lives. My grandma used to make her own egg noodles, now we can spend no time at all doing that and just buy them at the store. Grandma even used to make her own ketchup from those garden tomatoes! Now, a bottle costs about $2.00 and you spend no time making it. The less time spent making the food leaves more time for other important things, like more hours at a higher paying job so you can afford to travel more or do more genealogy! Whatever your situation is, I've been doing the exact same things. But to whose benefit? What are we really gaining by not spending time doing these "old fashioned" activities? I'm not sure what we are gaining but I'll tell you what I see all around me: we are losing our health. The top diseases in this country, cancer, diabetes and heart disease, are all caused by lifestyle choices, meaning what we are eating and how much we are exercising.

So when I was back in Ohio last week, my family tried their best to accommodate our new and "weird" ways of eating. But I want them all to know that our "weird" way could be changing and saving their lives too! I felt a little bit like I was betraying my ancestors by no longer supporting their way of life, of the way they lived and survived that I might be here today, by exclaiming that the grains they grew are bad for us! It is an ironic situation, but in just three weeks I had already seen huge changes in myself. I’ve been doing this for eight weeks at the time of writing this article and the improvements keep coming. I am hoping it isn't too late for me to change my familial pattern, to not develop cancer or diabetes or heart disease. I want to be around, in a healthy state of being, for a long time. I have too many ancestors to research!