UPDATE : So, how does food affect your life?

So, I've been playing around with adding raw veggies and more nuts and fruits to my life... and I have to say, those days where that is primarily what I eat, I feel amazing. if I stop eating veggies, I start feeling like crap:  like I'm running a marathon with my legs tied together; it's just miserable. The easiest way I've found to ingest large amounts of veggies is in juicing and smoothies.

The key to any eating habit (aka diet - but here without the connotation of fads and restrictions for the sake of losing weight) is diversity. It's important to not get settled into only a handful of dishes at the beginning; boredom always sets in and one strays to a diversified pallet after a short while. Once a week at least, experiment with something new, something never tasted before, something that stretches the limits of what 'food' means (for our society, this often means something that is less processed and packaged, and more actual, living, fresh food).

There will always be those things one clings to for comfort food - the best thing to do is to modify those things to meet a new standard. My two are mac 'n cheese and chips and salsa:

1. For me, even though I'm not vegan or vegetarian, I do refrain from eating high starch and boxed products. In more recent years I've also stopped ingesting milk because it started causing me to have cystic acne (I know this because if I refrain from eating dairy I stop getting acne). But, cheese is another matter... I love cheese, and I love kefir. So, the two part to this is that I've had to find a pasta base (rice or whole wheat) that doesn't affect me as much as semolina, AND I've had to find properly cultured cheeses that have broken down the casein protein and fats in dairy that causes my acne (for instance, Cabot's white cheddar). So, to fully enjoy mac 'n cheese without adverse effects, I make my alternative pasta, make a béchamelle from scratch using irish butter, coconut milk and Cabot's or other aged cheddar. which is neither difficult or time consuming.
2. Though there are usually no additives in canned salsa from the store, the veggies have all been cooked, and therefore will cause the stomach to react to it as though it were a foreign substance. Additionally, all tortilla chips are made out of corn, at least until recently. And based on my previous experiences with corn, the hindrance to the digestive system is not limited to whole corn kernels, but also translates into corn meal and flour. So, the easy part was to transition to bean/rice-based tortilla chips that are now available, which are very tasty and don't leave you with that feeling of bloaty fullness. The slightly more involved step was making fresh, home-made salsa -- my first batch was a failure, then I remembered that putting tomatoes in a food processor in general is a no-no because it releases all the water and loses its flavor. Subsequent batches (thanks to my friend making some from an old-style recipe) turned out absolutely flavorful and awesome. The key was to not give up. Another part of my chips 'n salsa binging was the use of sour cream and it's creamy sweet goodness... This I've amended in using avocados splashed with lime juice to top my fresh salsa instead.

So, how does food affect your life?

When I was growing up, my mom noticed my sister and I reacted poorly to artificial sweeteners and colors; this was the single best thing she ever did, in addition to stripping our diets to avoid those particular things. Consequently, we grew up not eating a lot of high-fructose corn syrup, saccharine, phenylalanine, or any of those red/yellow dye thingies. By reacting poorly, I mean to say that my sister would run in circles until she fell down and I would get mean, grouchy, and depressed to an extreme rather uncommon to a 5 year old female child. Because most sugary foods also contained some other unnatural ingredient, we didn't eat a lot of sugary foods either.... at least not until I was in my late teens...

After 4 long years of unhappiness, mood swings, angry depression, sinus problems, and general gastrointestinal discomfort, a friend who studied eastern medicine recommended I go on a candida diet. This means stripping sugars and fast-burning carbs to avoid exacerbating the normal yeast humans have in their gastrointestinal system. I played with this diet, and ultimately 'failed' at it for years. But I learned a lot about how food can produce adverse reactions to your system, and not all are noticeable within the same day of consumption -- and that's the big part...

If you truly want to experiment on yourself to know how you react to a diet or to a particular item of food, you need to monitor over at least 4 days after 'exposure.' The effects of excessive sugar-eating for one day can result in up to 3 days of withdrawal, culminating in severe moodiness on the 2nd and 3rd day. AND these are not simple cranky moods... these are fits of mood and depression that I've seen other people also do on a regular basis, and that can go on for days and weeks -- imagine if they had the presence of mind to know that it was all a reaction their body was having to something they ate a couple days ago.

So, how do I avoid sugar? I don't eat packaged foods! Read all ingredients labels! I avoid caffeine and alcohol, which disrupt the body's pH. I eat hardy, whole-grain breads with no added sugars if I eat bread at all, and less ripened fruits and vegetables with less natural sugar: berries, mangoes, avocados, zucchini, eggplant, greener bananas, red/purple potatoes, yams. I also need to (and am diversifying my diet enough to allow it) eat more raw veggies and nut-based meals with some good probiotics that will keep the yeast at bay.