12 Steps to Whole Foods

Preface
You’ve always wanted to eat better, and you know you should. But it seems so daunting! Fast food and
convenient processed foods are ubiquitous in the modern world, and our social lives revolve around
sugar and trans fats (and tobacco and alcohol, for many). Every day you wake up intending to regain
your energy and start losing that 10 pounds—or 100—but the day gets away from you, and you end up
eating beef jerky, a Big Gulp with an apple fritter, or a Quarter Pounder instead. Maybe all three, by the
time the day is over.
What should you eat? Where should you start? What should you buy? You might have a spouse or
child who isn’t willing to change with you. You want to get healthier, but you can’t do everything at
once—you’re just too busy. And you don’t want to be “extreme,” eating a macrobiotic, all-alkaline,
vegan, or all-raw diet.
If this is you, have no fear. I was in this position 15 years ago, with my four children being born one
after the other, each diagnosed with asthma in their first year, some as early as four months of age.
Doctors were not able to help me and provided nothing but prescriptions for steroids and
bronchodilators. I went out on my own for answers and have never been back to the doctor for a
prescription since.
Ironically, it was the father of Western medicine, Hippocrates, who first said, “Let your food be your
medicine and your medicine be your food.” I took that ancient advice to heart and have spent
thousands of hours culling every nutrition book I could find, comparing and sifting through
contradictory theories, trying recipes, and experimenting on my sometimes-wary family.
Many hundreds of hours of efforts have certainly paid off big! Since undertaking to eliminate
processed foods and using whole, primarily plant foods, no one in my home has had the flu or strep
throat—not even me, even though I had it several times a year growing up and every winter as an adult
until I changed our diet years ago. I have never seen green snot (a sign of a highly acidic climate in the
body, the perfect host for ongoing infection) coming out of my child’s nose in 10 years.
My children are all strong, competitive athletes known for not ever asking to be taken out of a game:
their oxygen exchange is excellent because they drink no soft drinks, saying “no, thanks” to the cookie
and soda offered after games and the “sports drinks” offered during the games (full of dyes, other
chemicals, and sugar). We have no degenerative or chronic disease or unexplained health problems.
These rewards are more than I ever expected, more than I set out to accomplish—and well worth my
time and effort.
My original quest was just to find a way out of putting my little children on drugs. However, although
that goal was accomplished, so many more blessings have poured into my life as a direct result of
© Copyright Robyn Openshaw 12 Steps to Whole Foods 5