About this health and nutrition site
I was born on June 9th, 1948 to a mom and dad who were incessant smokers. In fact, I nearly died at birth, coming out with a wheeze that was a clear indication I'd have asthma my entire life.
Earliest health struggles
One doctor, ventured to save my life. The last four months of my mother's pregnancy she had to spend in bed and she went to Lakewood, NJ to breathe in the fresh air. She told me I was laying on a nerve. I later found out, very much later, like when I was in my forties, that wasn't as simple as it sounded. Her explanation was far from truthful. Or she didn't know what the truth was.
The thought of proper nutrition never really crossed their minds. My father's idea of a great sandwich was chicken fat and another meat on white bread. So between the poor diet and smoking it's no wonder I was sick with asthma and overweight.
A major, unrecognized health problem
To top it off my parents were thin. My mom had an aversion to weight gain and was bulimic. She forced herself to throw up after every meal, saying, "the food is laying on my chest." I am sure that "my laying on a nerve" during pregnancy was caused by her throwing up, not to gain weight. No matter where we went she would choke and choke until she coughed enough to throw up. In the restaurant bathroom, our house. She didn't care where we were. She put her fingers down her throat until she gagged. She was actually proud of it and bragged that she can throw up so easily. She often made comments that she threw up because she didn't want to gain weight. In the 1940's, 1950's bulimia wasn't even labeled, so nothing was dealt with.
She also wasn't very compassionate about my weight fluctuations. I was on prednisone for asthma since I was twelve. That makes you eat more. And I was always told, "How can you leave the last one?" No matter what is was. She didn't realize how mean it was because she was so self absorbed about her "thinness," but she would introduce me to her friends or anyone saying, "This is my daughter, Ronnie. She's fat because she's on prednisone."
Parents' health record
My father also wasn't well. He had six massive heart attacks, lung collapses, cancer, ulcers in his legs to the extent that he spent six months of every year in the hospital.
By the time mom was thirty-five she had a complete set of dentures. I learned after my journey into nutrition that the gastric juices she was regurgitating were dissolving her teeth. It wasn't that bad teeth run in the family.
As I got older and very social and began going out to the club scene, I had no idea that when I had a drink, an asthma attack would follow. I just didn't make the connection. I thought it was nerves, stress, whatever. I had it my whole life.
A life-changing meeting
Then Dec. 22nd, 1972 I met the Prince of Nutrition, my future husband Bob, who lived with the King and Queen of Nutrition, Beatrice and George Allen.
They were the exact opposites of my parents. Everything was home made and baked. My father-in-law made the best breads and cakes with whole grains and raw sugar. And much less of it. Nothing was from a can or processed. There was no smoking, No drinking. No eating disorders. My father-in-law was in the first graduating class at Columbia University in NYC, in 1940 with a Masters Degree in Nutrition.
I slowly got assimilated into their beliefs. After we got married in 1976 I was able to create a nutrition oriented household. I learned a lot from my mother who was a fabulous cook, but I reinvented her recipes to be more healthful. Gradually my parents also changed their eating patterns too, but my mother never got over the bulimia, which she had until she passed on in 2004.
Unexpected discovery
Bob persuaded my to see an Osteopath in NYC who could help me with the asthma. He was very worried and frightened when I'd get sick. I met this doctor who started with a glucose tolerance test. He wanted me to come on an empty stomach, and not take my asthma meds. It was torture. It was 16 hours and I really felt sick. He discovered I had hypoglycemia. My blood sugar level was 36. He said I should be in a coma, yet alone walking around. He very strictly told me that alcohol is my enemy. And since that time, 1976, I have never had a drink. He also started me on intravenous vitamins and I saw him three times a week for treatment for four years. I also started working with a chiropractor who help alleviate the asthma through adjustments.
Nutrition and my son
I took my vitamins intravenously through my pregnancy with David. My main goal in life was that he wouldn't suffer with asthma like I did. It's the one goal I accomplished, by the way! I was a complete advocate of Adele Davis, and made her protein drinks through my pregnancy and while I was nursing. We continued our healthful diet to this day. David was never given any sugar, anything with chemicals or preservatives, no luncheon meets, fast foods, no cookies, cakes or lollipops. Not until he was five and entered kindergarten.
Today he doesn't have a sweet tooth and won't eat anything with sugar. He's an excellent chef, and criticizes me if I do not cut off every bit of fat off meat or chicken.
When David was two and we'd take him to a restaurant, he'd throw up in the lobby. He wouldn't want to leave and yell that "now he can eat." It hit me years later when I learned about bulimia that he was getting this from my mother. My parents were his primary baby-sitters! By that time, my dad had stopped smoking, and my mother was so busy watching David that she didn't smoke around him. And we insisted she didn't.
Reluctant doctors
In the early 1990s when I began studying healing I learned the term "bulimia" and realized that this is what my mother had her entire life. I approached her doctors. No one would deal with it or get her treatment for it. It was pushed under the rug. I told every doctor I took her to right up until she died, and was met with shrugged shoulders.
Why this site?
It's to celebrate the lives of my inlaws the King and Queen of Nutrition, Bea and George, and to awaken awareness to the world that eating disorders need to be dealt with.
This site is to educate you to the current research in all areas of nutrition at all stages of life. This site is to educate you so that you can learn about how to prepare for and have healthy children so that they do not suffer needlessly by so many illnesses that can be prevented with proper nutrition.
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Ronnie Allen, ViaViente Independent Distributor.
(352) 419-5171 www.VitalNectars.com
