Eating Cultured Foods For 20 Years

You have to fight through some bad days to find the best days of your life

I have always had a sense of urgency about my life. I never knew why this was, and when I was a young woman with small children my friend said to me, ”What are you striving for? It seems like you're intensely looking for something.” I remember those words quite vividly and I never forgot them. I was 25 years old and I had this feeling that I just couldn’t shake. Something was calling me but what? Then the years began to pass, and life was filled with homeschooling and raising my children, and it all got quiet inside, and that feeling was pushed beneath the cares and struggles of the day. Then at the age of forty a crisis hit. I became pregnant with my third child and I got very sick. Suddenly every sense I had was heightened and I began searching for a way out of the misery I was in.

Desperate to find answers

Somebody had knocked at my heart again and this time the call was louder and I needed to answer it and take the journey or I could stay where I was, in misery. Joseph Campbell, the great writer, calls this ”A call to adventure!” and boy it was, but at the time it just felt like pain. I started searching for answers to help my failing health and to try and help my family, and I was looking for it as if my life depended on it. With diabetes and a host of other problems, I was desperate to find answers to help my premature infant and myself. When I found cultured foods I was amazed at how quickly they worked and I was so excited but no one knew of these foods so I was essentially alone.

Another crisis hits

I was going to have to figure it out on my own through trial and error and I was excited because it felt like it was tailor-made just for me. An adventure it was, and before long I couldn’t keep it to myself. I told my friends and watched as healing all around me began to happen and then the call got even louder. Everybody I knew wanted classes and books and I told them all NO for years! I was too intimidated by all of this! Well . . . that didn’t work very well, and before long I found myself in another crisis, and this time I heeded the call and found myself (in a very short amount of time!) with a website, books, classes, and a business that is more fulfilling than I could have ever imagined.

In the waiting, all the searching, in the healing and the hurting, was a blessing. It was buried in the broken pieces and that is where a joy emerged that I have never known. I would still be struggling to get through the day and just existing without the pain that brought me here. But when I started feeling better, secret gifts inside of me that had been locked away came forward. I remember when I would make kefir smoothies every day and before I would drink them I would tell my body that this kefir smoothie was going to make it all better and it did just that! I gave up the processed cereals we ate every day and replaced them with kefir smoothies and that was the beginning for me and my family.

What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me. ~ Helen Keller

“Before you heal someone, ask him if he's willing to give up the things that make him sick." ~ Hippocrates

The truth is all of us are going through a change. Maybe we're transforming from what we used to be to a higher, better version of ourselves - trying to find our way through all the confusion and bad habits of the past. Changing is just a journey, but you can't continue doing what you always do and transform. I dedicate myself to help, inspire, and encourage you and to remind you that you're worth all the effort you put in.

It's important to love your gut

So how important is it that you start to eat these foods? Well, for me and for many others it changed everything. It doesn’t just change your physical body, it changes your mind too. The gut is the second brain and there are so many studies now that show if you change your gut you change the chemistry in your brain. I am living proof of this and I can’t tell you the joy I feel compared to the life I used to live. It just spills out of me and I am just so happy to be so happy.

The other wonderful thing that happened as a result of working with my body and getting well was the sense of fear that left me and the confidence I gained. I started to understand the marvelous working of my body and how hard it works to keep me healthy and strong and just how much I can help it. It gave me a confidence that I believe in so strongly that I literally wouldn't recognize the person I was many years ago. It changed me and made me strong, and I couldn't keep it to myself.

So here I am with a family of subscribers and followers that I love so much it puts a spring in my step and joy in my heart. It feels like I have a whole other family that I cherish. All I think about each and every day is how can I help everybody feel this way too. If I can help you, encourage you, and inspire you to love and nurture this body you live in, and watch it transform itself for you, I will have fulfilled my deepest longing and purpose. It's important to me that you feel better because after all, you're family to me! A lot of love goes into this site. I hope you can feel it!

After twenty years of eating and making cultured foods I'm still learning exciting new things about these foods and the 100 trillion microbes that call me home. Research has caught up with all the things I was experiencing with eating cultured foods. I've written over 100 articles on health ailments with research that shows just how powerful our bodies can be if we give them what they need. Probiotics For Different Ailments.

You can control what you put in your mouth

We don’t always need pain to make us change, but I might be more stubborn than you so I needed discomfort to wake me up and make me change. So many circumstances in our life often seem out of our control, but you can control what you put in your mouth. This is where it all began for me.

Fixing your gut — fixing your life

But this isn’t just about food and fixing your gut; it’s about fixing your life. When you feel good, you see the world differently. When you’re healthy, you act differently, and what a blessing you will be to others. So I guess I'm just trying to spread hope and encouragement, and I hope that we can have an epidemic of wellness in the days to come. I hope I can help you believe in your own wellness and teach you how to help those trillions of microbes that call you home. Those microbes that fight infection, disease, and even viruses. The more you have of these good bacteria, the stronger your T cells are.

Boosting your immune system

One of my favorite things that cultured foods do is that they boost your immune system. Your gut is responsible for 80 percent of your immune system. The more good bacteria you have, the better your immune system is.  A virus is running around looking for a human host to inhabit. When it finds one, your body has special helpers designed to seek and destroy this invader.

Here's where your microbes come in

White blood cells destroy germs as soon as they detect them. However, if a viral infection begins to take hold, they fight back using a more powerful defense with T and B cells. Antibodies are special proteins made by B cells. They bind to a virus to stop it from replicating, and also label viruses so that other blood cells know to destroy them. T cells have different roles to play. Some act as warning bells that raise the alarm when they detect invading viruses. Here's where your microbes come in . . . certain good bacteria in the gut influence the strength of the immune system by increasing the number of T cells. There are two kinds of T cells: killers and helpers. Killer T cells find and destroy infected cells that have been turned into viruses making communities. Helper T cells don’t fight invaders; instead, they are like a military intelligence system. When a helper T cell sends out a chemical message, its matched killer T cell is alerted that a virus is present and seeks to destroy it. Having lots and lots of good bacteria in the gut increases T cell production and keeps communication among all the cells functioning at optimum levels. Signals from these beneficial microbes are essential for keeping the immune system strong so it can seek and destroy a virus or infection.

The next chapter

The next chapter of your life hasn't been written yet, but you hold the pen. Follow those people who fill you with hope and let go of the people who are holding you back. It's time that you get to know this miraculous body you live in and teach your mind that life is an exciting adventure and by golly, you're gonna live it to the fullest. I learned that I can't control the outside circumstances of the world - it's just too crazy. But I can control my response to them, and counting my blessings is a good place to start. Making a kefir smoothie changed my world in a powerful way. Heal yourself and you'll heal others too, and oh the blessings and the joy that will come . . . well, it's life-changing — just you wait and see!

I love your guts, it's true ~ Donna