Making a Comeback + Vegetable Salad with Sunflower Dressing

I closed my eyes and suddenly five and a half years went by. I'm kind of disappointed it's been so long since my last post. In that time a LOT has happened and changed.

To put things in a nutshell, my partner and father of my two youngest children got cancer and died in 2018. After about 6 months of taking great care of my health, I entered a period of about a year and a half where I gave up on healthy eating. I was still vegetarian, but allowed myself to eat lots of pizza, cheese, pasta, ice cream, cake etc.

Previously I'd been doing pretty well with the raw foods (though not so well posting here). I think a part of me felt that if Michael died of a horrific cancer at age 49, and he'd taken pretty good care of himself, then what point was there in caring anymore. To be fair, this may have been my way of dealing with the grief that such a sudden life change brought. I became so dependent on the comfort foods I was eating, that even though I tried several times, I found it impossible to stop.

Having meals with my sons and boyfriend who eat so differently from me, didn't help, as I was constantly tempted. I honestly thought I'd never be able to change my eating habits. Then I was reminded that life circumstances can sometimes be just the fuel that is needed to make a serious transition. 

A little over three months ago I was given a warning that I couldn't ignore and had no choice but to snap myself out of the lull that eating indulgent foods for 18 months had put me in. A test from Great Plains Labs showed very high levels of ochratoxin a in my system. An ermi dust test showed equally high levels of aspergillus mold in the basement and bathroom of my house, along with various other molds. This problem was confirmed when I had a professional mold inspector/biologist come and do extensive testing. 

Even a diagnosis of mold toxicity and chronic inflammatory response syndrome from my doctor, was not enough to get me to go back to raw food; this is in spite of knowing how well I had done on this kind of lifestyle before, all of my Lyme symptoms disappearing. I did get very serious about changing after the diagnosis, but it was a transition of about 2 1/2 months before I cut out eggs, almond flour, maple syrup, cheese etc. Pain in my gall bladder every time I ate oily things (for example sweet potatoes doused with olive oil, plaintain chips saturated in vegetable oil) was the last straw. Cold turkey, the day I figured out with the help of my doctor, that this was the issue, I went raw vegan again. It's been about three weeks now, like I said and I have so much to update you all on. I will save it for another post and leave you for now with a photo of a vegetable salad with sunflower dressing in the making (recipe coming next post).