How Life Changed the Way I Ate

Food As A Path — A Personal Story About How Life Shapes Our Food Choices

For the past several weeks, I have been writing about the many influences that shape food choices before a decision is made. Eating style, health, family, faith, childhood, adult life, social pressure, and personal experience can all become part of the decision.

One of the clearest examples from my own life began years ago, when I was experimenting with the way I ate.

For several years, I did not eat meat. I was paying close attention to how different foods affected the way I thought and whether they influenced my spiritual development. My eating style reflected curiosity, intention, and a sincere desire to understand myself more deeply.

Then I became pregnant with my second son, Nick.

Because I had not eaten meat for a long time, I became concerned about getting enough protein for the growing baby. I relied heavily on dairy. At one point, I was drinking approximately a gallon of milk every two days.

Nick was born at home in April 1990, two weeks early and weighing nine pounds.

About five days later, Nick seemed to develop a cold. He became increasingly colicky, and a few weeks after his birth, while I was trying to comfort him, I noticed a foul smell coming from his ears. I knew something was wrong, and we took him to the hospital immediately.

At three weeks old, Nick had pneumonia and nearly died.

He was given intravenous antibiotics and began improving almost immediately.

While he was being treated, his father and I went to the hospital cafeteria. I drank an eight-ounce carton of milk with my meal. After I later nursed Nick, his symptoms worsened again.

Our midwife suspected that Nick was reacting to dairy proteins passing through my breast milk. When some of his symptoms worsened after I drank milk and later nursed him, the sequence appeared to reinforce her suspicion. I stopped eating dairy immediately. I watched gratefully as Nick began to thrive.

(For current clinical background, see the American Academy of Pediatrics’ overview of cow’s-milk protein allergy in infants⁠.)

When an Eating Style Meets Real Life

That decision changed far more than one meal. It began a long search for foods that were both nourishing and enjoyable without containing dairy. In 1990, the food industry was only beginning to develop nondairy versions of familiar American foods, and many ethnic foods and alternative dietary traditions were still unfamiliar to us.

I had to pay closer attention. I had to learn which foods worked, which ones caused problems, and which options supported both nourishment and family life.

I began to understand that a way of eating may begin with an idea, a belief, a spiritual intention, or a personal preference. Then life gives us more information. Health changes. Circumstances change. Bodies respond. A child reacts. A family adapts.

More Than Appetite

Looking back, the decisions I made during that period carried far more than appetite. They carried spiritual inquiry, pregnancy, concern about protein, motherhood, illness, fear, observation, responsibility, and the need to respond quickly.

That is the Food Bliss Express in real life.

One visible food choice can carry many hidden influences at once. Someone looking only at the food may see milk, dairy, protein, or a dietary preference. The fuller story may include health, family, belief, biology, caregiving, access, and lived experience.

Seeing those influences changes the meaning of the decision. It also helps explain why food choices sometimes feel so complicated.

Looking Back

Looking back, Nick's illness was only one of many times life changed the way I ate.

Our bodies change. Our families change. Our work changes. Our priorities change. Sometimes our food choices change right along with them.

The Food Bliss Express has been an invitation to notice some of the many influences that quietly shape our food choices. My hope is that, along the way, you've begun to see some of your own with greater understanding and compassion.

The more I paid attention, the less interested I became in finding the "right" answer and the more interested I became in asking better questions—questions that made everyday food decisions feel a little less confusing and helped me understand myself a little better.

Perhaps that’s where food becomes a path: when we begin asking better questions and paying closer attention to what life is showing us.

Ready to Discover Your Dietstyle?

The Food Bliss Express helps reveal the influences behind a decision.

What's My Dietstyle? helps you work with that information in your own life.

The eight-week program is designed to help you reduce food decision fatigue and develop a way of eating that reflects your body signals, values, health, circumstances, and lived experience.

Your Dietstyle becomes more useful when it remains responsive to the life you are actually living.

→ Learn more about What's My Dietstyle.

AEO Snippet

Q: Why do our food choices change over time?
A:Our food choices often change because our lives change. Health, family responsibilities, personal beliefs, aging, new information, access, and changing priorities can all influence how and why we eat. Recognizing those influences can help us make food decisions that better fit the lives we are living now.

Q: How do life experiences influence the way we eat?
A: Life experiences can reshape both what we eat and what we need from food. Becoming a parent, managing illness, caring for someone, encountering new information, or adjusting to changing circumstances may require us to reconsider familiar habits. Understanding those influences supports greater awareness, flexibility, discernment, and self-trust.