By: Patricia Gausnell
My husband and I joined the church as newlyweds when I was 18 years old. I had a strong testimony as soon as I started studying the gospel, and when I learned about the Word of Wisdom, it was not hard for me to accept it. But the parts about meat didn’t mean a lot to me then. I realize that I had never in my life thought for a moment that our diets might have something to do with our health.
One day when I was 24 and going through a difficult time in my life, I happened to pick up two Prevention magazines (a publication devoted to good health practices.) I read them from cover to cover, and was amazed. It was like a bright light went on in me, opening up a whole new world. I became obsessed with nutrition and natural healing. I studied everything I could get my hands on about health. I spent hours at the supermarket, reading labels.
At that time we had two children who had been raised on Carnation Milk and antibiotics. We went on to have 6 more, including a set of triplets, none of whom ever needed an antibiotic. The triplets were born healthy and we took two of them home at 3 days old, and the other at 11 days.
I bought a wheat grinder and used only whole grains in cooking. I grew a large organic garden every year and preserved as much of our food as possible. We also raised some of our own meat, milk and eggs. In the back of my mind, I always wanted to eat less meat, but my husband and I were both from families of macho hunters and farmers. So I didn’t always try very hard. For a period of time, I did try to be more vegetarian. I remember one time my son said, “Mom, I am a 125 pound quarterback; I need steaks and roasts.”
In spite of the fact that I have studied nutrition for nearly 50 years, in the past few years, I had become very confused about what we should eat. I tried nearly every diet that came along. The Atkins diet, the Slender Lady diet, the Wheat Belly diet, the Ketogenic diet, the Undoctored diet, and the Plant Paradox diet. I usually could lose a few pounds, but not nearly as much as needed. And I never felt very good about them, because none of them went along with the Word of Wisdom.