The High Cost of convenience.

Why Jamie eliminated dairy, and has zero intention of EVER going back;
"I can't afford to eat healthy, there is just no room in the budget"

I've been there. Truly. Just about 2 years ago we were in a place where we ate on $160 per month, for 4 people. We shopped the salvage grocery store, the bread outlet, the thrift section in the meat dept. We survived it, but the majority of what we ate was bulk pasta, sandwiches, toast or biscuits.

Before that, we ate basically whatever we wanted. Lots of pasta, I was a mac and cheese addict for most of my life. 5 boxes for $1? Who could refuse THAT kind of a deal? Add in some sour cream, velveeta and a whole stick of butter and your taste buds are reeling in happiness. Even with the not so cheap additions, it was still a very very cheap side dish. Or meal, if you chopped up a package of hotdogs that were 2 for $1. A full blown meal for less than $1. Wow. Maybe if I was feeling guilty I'd heat up some sweet corn on the side, for a veggie.

For all of my life I had dark circles under my eyes. These were relieved somewhat with allergy and asthma medications, but I was never one to claim being "healthy" or athletic. As a child I was sick. A lot. I remember a few times of going to the Dr, when he'd look at my throat and diagnose strep without even running a culture. I was allergic to penicillin, we knew this early on, but he RXed a drug named Bromfed. It was a broncho dilator, and it helped me feel better. Until it gave me what looked like the chicken pox, numerous times. When we asked him about it he said "This does have a small dose of Penicillin in it, but its so small I didn't think she would react" hmm.

For almost a year, I was in that office close to every 2 weeks and put on yet another round of anitbiotics. It was almost always confirmed Strep throat. I was even given antibiotics when it was viral. I remember clearly when Z-packs hit the market because it was only 6 pills to swallow instead of the usual 2-4 a day for 10 days. We had no insurance. I honestly do not have any idea how much money was spent on antibiotics and doctor visits for me. But we didn't have it. That's partly why we ate so many meals of hotdogs and mac and cheese.

At some point, Mom said "enough" I truly don't know how old I was, somewhere between 10 and 12. We went to an ear nose and throat when my throat hurt after coming off yet another round of antibiotics less than a week before. We were both sick of it. I couldn't live sick forever. We hadn't been to the ENT before as it was believed they would want to remove my tonsils. There were no funds for surgery, and we didn't want them out as they DO benefit you. We knew that much.

He looked in my ears and throat, asked me 3 or 4 questions, and said "She gets sick so much because she has allergies. The allergies keep the protective coating of her throat damaged and she can't fight anything off. I can see by the scars on her tonsils that this is not a new problem. She should have been on allergy meds long ago"

I left there with samples of Claritin D, Singulair, two inhalers and a handful of paper prescriptions for the same.Within a week, my tonsils shrunk so much I choked on my food. I'd been so acustomed to my tonsils blocking off my throat, literally almost touching even when I wasn't sick, that I had to learn to swallow again. Mom went to work for a pediatricians office, and was allowed to use the samples for my needs. I was also being seen by new doctors and we added Advair to the list of meds, and I was told that when my allergies got bad seasonally to add Sudafed AND Benadryl on top of the Claritin D (yes it already had Sudafed) to take the edge off as needed.
Several years later, Enter heart palpitations. I try weaning myself off of the Sudafed and Benadryl. Altho my allergies were worse, my heart was better. Thought provoking.

Lets take a jump ahead, I'm a new mommy again. My daughter screams from gas pain, has green mucus in her bowel movements and a rash that blisters, bleeds and refuses to leave. Enter Stacey and the words on a forum "Maybe you should try to eliminate dairy, it helped me in many ways" Ok, said I. I'll cut the dairy out, I've done it before with my son, I can do it again. But I had never taken it to an extreme. I simply stopped eating cheese and using milk. I cut out obvious dairy. It took me about 6 weeks to finally eliminate all traces of dairy. Casein, Whey, Lactose, and all the various forms of hidden milk.

About that time, I ran out of Claritin and we didn't have the money to buy more. I ran out of Advair, and didn't have the $75 copay to refill it. 3 weeks later I realized my allergy symptoms were gone. GONE. I had taken no meds for almost a full month, and I felt better than I ever had in my whole life. The change? Dairy. The dairy was gone. Not even counting the added amazing bonus of the new, healthy and happy baby I had almost instantly. My life long dark circles were gone. I no longer needed the medication that I had discovered to be causing heart palpitations and even seen a cardiologist for. I was free.

Eating healthy can be expensive. It IS expensive. Going from spending $160 per month to $200-$300 a week was shocking. Now, we moved in that time to a very high cost of living area, from a very low cost of living area, so that number is inflated. But I began to understand what my brother, Dr Kenneth Wingrove DC, had been telling me. "Eating healthy IS expensive, but can you afford the cost of NOT eating healthy?" This hit home even more after my mom, at 50 years old spent $30,000 in medical testing without insurance to try and diagnose lifelong illness. We thought Lupus, MS, Chrohn's, IBS, or some combination of all of it. They couldn't find a medical reason why she was dying. But dying she was.

My sweet little baby girl, Abigail. So obviously, blatantly intolerant/allergic to dairy.
"Mom?" Said I, "Perhaps you should try this too. I obviously have a problem with it, and so does Abigail. It makes sense that you would too."
She took little convincing, and tried it. Her life has been saved by realizing food intolerances. That is NOT an exaggeration in any way. First dairy, then gluten eliminated. Then a simple blood test for food allergies and eliminating what came back positive and my mom, for the first time in my life (or hers) can go shopping for more than half an hour without feeling too sick to keep moving. She didn't have to sleep all the time. If someone had told her a year before, or even as a child what food intolerances and a lack of real nutrition can truly cost, she would have led a very different life. We all would have.

Without the amazing blessing of our Abigail and her unmistakable dairy allergy, we would probably not have my mother around to spoil my babies. I would still be living on allergy and asthma medication that was causing cascading problems with my heart.

Is living healthy expensive? Yes. But can you truly afford the cost, both the monetary and physical COST of not getting healthy? The cost of not doing everything you can to be truly healthy is far higher than a grocery bill. It's higher than the inconvenience of learning or re-learning to cook. It's more important than having to navigate through nutrition labels on food and personal care items. The cost of convenience food, the cost of convenience, altho it may have a lower price tag, is exponentially higher than the cost of eating healthy.

~Jamie