True Story of Nancy’s Personal Food Journey
Q: How Did You Hear About Our Farm? How did we meet?
A: We met at the Plainwell Indoor Farmers Market, I was there with my best friend. I remember, you said “we feed our cows grass from our farm which is not chemically fertilized." My thoughts were 'I would refer to that as God's food, you are speaking my language!’ You also said you don’t feed them any corn and that is REALLY speaking my language. I try to stay away from unclean meat which is hard because most animals are fed corn at some point, even the beef that is advertised as grass fed is finished with corn. I have to be very careful about where I get my food and what is in the food I eat.
Q: What has been your food journey and when did you discover that you had a corn intolerance?
A: It’s been a long journey and a long process. Two years ago, when my father passed, I was so devastated at the circumstances surrounding his death that I didn't eat for 10 days. I drank lots of water and coffee, but didn’t eat. During those 10 days I felt really good and I noticed I was not having the problems with my hands that I usually had. I usually have skin issues and pimple sores on my hands, but that all cleared up in those 10 days. So on our way home we were stuck on the runway at the Chicago airport for 4 hours with no food, there had been no restaurants open because it was during COVID and by this time I was starving! They gave us some packages of the little pretzel trail mix on the airplane and within hours I was a MESS. My hands were broken out and my mood had changed drastically, very angry and grumpy, and so I thought it had to be the gluten that I was reacting to. I reached out to a friend who has children with many food intolerances to ask her what she thought and she immediately said “it’s the corn.” I’m not sure why I called her, but I know now that God was leading me in that direction so I could have a clear answer about what was going on with my body. My friend told me to eat some corn chips and see what happens, well my body went crazy again. This began my journey to learning about my body not being able to tolerate anything with corn in it, that includes eating animals that have eaten corn.
Q: So What did you do next?
A: I spent a lot of time doing trial and error with foods, it's been a long process. I learned that corn is used in most processed foods even if “corn” is not listed on the ingredients list. Many ingredients are derived from corn and nobody knows about it. Things like: citric acid, xanthan gum, and natural flavors can all be derived from corn products. I can’t eat those products without having an adverse reaction. I began calling companies to ask how they make their ingredients, and found out that most companies don’t know what the distributor is using to make their products. Some companies are very cooperative and honest when they do not know how the ingredient is made. However, even if there are very small traces of corn in something, my body reacts negatively. I have used this example before: if I made cookies and greased the cookie tray with something you wouldn't eat, like cat poop, but then dumped it off and put the cookies on there, would you eat those cookies? If someone said, It’s such a small amount it shouldn’t affect you. You still would not eat those cookies. My body can’t tolerate even the smallest traces of corn. This is how sensitive I am to corn.
Q: How did you find out specifically that you couldn’t eat corn fed meat?
A: My husband loves steak and so do I. When I cook us a steak I usually eat a little corner of it, a few bites, and he eats the rest. That’s all I could tolerate. Now I understand I can eat grass fed, grass finished beef, with no corn at all, I only get that kind of meat and my body is fine with it. This was very exciting for me and why I am so glad we connected at the Farmers Market. It’s so nice to be able to eat something and not feel sick and I felt great after eating your meat.