My Grandfather Julius lived long and healthy life. He worked hard, smoked hard and drunk hard.
Since my grandfather spent all his money on cigarettes and alcohol, he didn’t have any left for the “good stuff” – like – restaurant food, expensive snacks and drinks and packaged foods from the western countries you could buy in a specialty stores.
He wasn’t going to give up his cigarettes. And alcohol? Not bloody likely!
So without any spare money, he was left only with foods from his garden and stuff my grandma cooked for him.
My grandpa Julius hated it. And he always complained what he had to eat.
But to survive, he had to eat what he had – what my grandma cooked for him, and the stuff from his garden, complaining constantly how disgusting this stuff was.
My grandpa didn’t even realize it, but he was consuming the best and healthiest diet he could provide for his body.
His diet was very simple – natural, home cooked food with lots of greens, fruits and vegetables.
Example of my grandfathers eating:
My grandparents had chickens at home, so for breakfast after my grandpa smoked at least 5 cigarettes right after he woke up, he had few hard boiled eggs with some fresh tomatoes or peppers, onions and garlic.
Beside lots of alcohol, he ussually drinked black strong Russian tea without sugar all day. Sugar was in short supply.
I still remember when my grandma cooked huge pot of cabbage, second huge pot of beans and third huge pot of barley or oats or some other kind of grain.
Than after she cooked it, she and my grandpa were eating it the entire week with him complaining about it everyday.
Even I got to eat it when I came to visit. My grandma loaded big plate to me. I still remember it being pretty tasty.
And of course my grandpa eat this for dinner too, probably saying to himself: Hey “I still have my rum and cigarettes, so life is not that bad!”
There was no desert after lunch or dinner, but I remember there was always a huge basket of fruits on the table – apples, pears, apricots, peaches, or plums in it.
Couple of times per month my grandma cooked chicken she caught in the garden or rabit or fish my uncle caught in a nearby river, or she cooked a rhubarb which was everywhere in their garden, putting just a little bit of sugar in it for desert.
Lessons learned from my grandfathers diet:
When you are walking along the isles in the store, imagine that you just spent all your money on alcohol and cigarettes and there is very little left.
So if you don’t want to be hungry the rest of the week you will have to get a lot of really nutritious foods like beans, grains, fresh vegetables like cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower some apples and pears and some eggs, chicken, and maybe few cans of sardines.
And you will have to cook something from it at home by yourself.
Other healthy eating lessons:
Don’t drink anything sweet! Drink only water and unsweetened tea and coffee.
Limit restaurant food!
Don’t buy any packaged food! Get only the ones, that have only 2 and less items on ingredients list like: Jar of Peanut butter will say that it has only roasted peanuts. Or sardines will say: sardines, salt and water.
Cook at home!
Eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables!
If you want to bring your diet few steps further than read these diet articles and apply what you learned: