The Ripple
In my ISS class we are learning about Historiography. A couple of nights ago we were assigned Historiography Reading 3&4. One of the main points the reading focused on was the causation of historical events. It stated that modern day Historiographers, "…hold that the causes of historical events are complex. Events are not due to a single cause." This may be true for "historical" events, but in my case there was one cause for a great change in our family. This event was the stone that dropped into our family pond, and left ripples after it has already sunken to the bottom. The change I'm talking about wasn't a tragic, dramatic, breathtaking change. It was a slow and steady change, which overtime shaped my brothers and me to be the health kids we are today.
The event that changed our family was when our Uncle Rick (our father's friend and family friend) had to have triple bypass surgery. Back then my mom was the stay-at-home parent, who grew up with slightly cooked bacon as a teething toy. After he was through with the surgery, part of the recovery/prevention therapy was a change in diet. My dad went to meet their nutritionist who literally turned our lifestyle upside down. At the time she was almost a pure raw foodest, but my dad wasn't ready to do anything that drastic. He asked her for a place to start, and she told him to just eliminate drinking milk. This was when we were going through approximately a gallon of milk a day; so it was a big change. That’s how it all got started.
The second ripple in the pond was when my cousin Ashley came to visit. My dad was talking and talking about how raw food was so great. So my cousin challenged him. She egged him on saying; "Oh come on Uncle Shawn lets go raw for a month. Come On! Lets do it! Ohhhh you not to scared are you?" My dad got thrown into it. To make a long story short, my cousin only lasted 24 hours. The next afternoon she made herself a huge plate of scrambled eggs and brown rice. As she was gobbling down as much food as possible she told my mom, "You know (chewing pause) it's just like communism. It sounds good on paper, but the reality is just so awful." Although the beginning was grim, it wasn't actually that bad. The point is, she helped to push my dad to actually start eating raw food, not just talking about it.
After my Dad got a couple raw cookbooks and utensils the taste improved immensely. Some of the food was actually pretty good. By then he was really starting to get into the health food world. He did independent research about milk, meat products, and GMO farming. One of the books I remember him talking about was called The China Study, evidently the most intensive study on animal protein to ever have been conducted. My Dad was also very smart about introducing it into the family. Now that I look back on it, he slowly weaned us off all red meat and milk. And, as he made more and more healthy food (since now he was the stay-at-home dad) our taste buds did change. Suddenly, I found that drinking apple juice was like drinking sugar water, and it kept on going from there.
The final event or ripple that cemented this healthy life style of ours, was when my father discovered Green Smoothies. Green Smoothies are basically regular fruit smoothies, but with vegetables added in. He read about a, "Green Smoothie Challenge" and decided that it was perfect. The challenge was to do was drink a quart of green smoothie everyday for a month. You didn't have to change anything else in your diet, and eventually, over the month your taste buds would change. He got a lot of people started on it, some stayed with it and some didn't. But, when he introduced it to our water polo coach Ken Smith, it reached a whole new level. People listened to Coach Ken, and since Coach Ken was totally a,Green Smoothie Convert" he got a lot of people interested in it. At one point, he had the whole girls varsity Water Polo team drinking 80 quarts of green smoothie a week.
My friends have dads who have a couple hobbies: fishing, football, and cars. I can say my dad has a health food "hobby". Because of him, our family is the healthiest family I know. The way I have described things, it may seem like we are health extremists, but it really isn't that intense. Since, I do have two hungry, growing brothers my dad will make chicken every once in a while. Also, he eats only raw when he can; it's more like a summertime thing when he has more time. But, if you ever see me at lunchtime with a canister in one hand and a plastic cup in the other, you will know green smoothies are still my lunch and life at 12:00 o'clock in the afternoon.
