FOOD | HEALTH | LIFESTYLE | SELF | FITNESS
My Journey to Perfect Health Started With Warm Ice Creams
My first experiences on the path to a healthy lifestyle
I enjoy a perfect health, no cholesterol, high pressure, diabetes, or heart issues. Was it always so? No, it all started with warm ice creams.
I thank God for my mom. She was a tenacious and sometimes stubborn woman who helped me be what I am and enjoy perfect health because it all started with her… and with warm ice creams.
Of “Olanges” and Warm Ice Creams
In my first two years of life, I was a very sickly boy who suffered from bronchitis, colds, and weakness.
My passion was eating oranges, which, as I didn’t speak well yet, I called “olanges.” I was always asking my mother to buy olanges, but the problem was, I was allergic to them. If I ate them, I would get hives all over my body.
Meet my mother. She continually asked herself, “why in hell can somebody be allergic to something so natural as an orange?” As she couldn’t find a reason for that, she just kept buying them and tempting me to eat them despite my allergy.
— Do you want an orange?
— Yes, mommy
— But you will get hives!
— No, mommy, I won’t get hives; I want an olange.
— Well, here you are, but, if I notice that you were scratching your skin, I’ll beat you black and blue. I don’t want you to have marks on your skin from scratching.
And she would make sure to have the leather belt in one hand while she offered me the orange with the other. (Even though that strap was sparsely used, it certainly had highly corrective, dissuasive, and convincing powers).
Of course, minutes after the orange was gone, my skin from head to toe was full of hives. However, the clear image of the strap in my mind dissuaded my nails from daring to touch my precious skin.
She repeated the process for about one year, and the result was that, finally, she got the miracle done. One day, against any logic, I didn’t get any welt after eating my beloved olanges. Today, not only oranges but chinottos, clementines, limes, grapefruits, mandarins, pomelos, and tangerines tremble at my presence, knowing I will devour them whole.
Still, I suffered from different illnesses and had a tendency to catch colds. Summer seasons used to be incredibly frustrating for me. I think I was the only kid in human history that was systematically prevented from eating ice cream since the Chinese invented it 5000 years ago. The reason? I could catch a cold.
When the ice cream carts passed nearby our house ringing their characteristic bell, I would beg my mother to buy one ice cream for me. My wise mother would say: “Sure! But remember that you are just recovering from a severe cold. So, go and ask the ice cream man if he has some warm ice creams left. They sell fast!”
I don’t want to cry writing about the outcome of my ingenuous attempts at buying warm ice creams.
What Is Ketchup?
My late mother always cooked our food from natural, raw ingredients. I don’t know if it was because we were in a difficult economic situation those years or just because she didn’t like chemicals in our food (I’d bet on the latter). Still, the thing is that my sibling and I grew up without ever seeing a bottle of ketchup, mayonnaise, or an artificial condiment in our home. “Bouillon cubes,” “flavor enhancers,” and “instant meals” were part of mom’s dictionary of swear words that were not used at home.
While a bottle of Coca-Cola never graced our table, there would be a large bowl of salad at the center of it, on any given day.
Fruits were also an essential part of our daily diet: maybe a couple of pears, a bunch of grapes, or two or three mangoes. Our mom gave importance to the variety and quantity of them.
And then it happened. I was five or six years old when I stopped getting sick and became a healthy boy without following any treatment or taking any pills. Thank you, mama.
Since those days, I am suspicious about processed foods or processed cooking ingredients, and I’m sure the distrust for them will follow me to my grave.
“… Until You Feel Slight Fatigue”
The summer months were school holidays, and one of my favorite activities was visiting my grandmother, 300 miles north from home.
Now, this beloved lady thought avocados were a gift from the gods to us mortals, so our daily breakfast always included two avocados, one for each of us. (Please note the words daily and always). Of course, a salad was unworthy of the name if it did not contain avocado. And wasn’t it well-proven since ancient times that adding half an avocado to a chicken soup bowl greatly enhances its flavor?
Severe diarrhea would follow after three days of such an unusual diet. Still, after a rapid recovery, my stomach would adapt, and I would enjoy the rest of my holidays
One day, looking into her books, I came across one titled “Complete Course of Scientific Bodybuilding” by Professor Heini Wenzel. I was much skinnier than other boys of my age, so that used to worry me much. So, I used all persuasion tactics that I knew to get the book from her, as it offered the reader help in bringing health, strength, and muscles into their lives.
And I got it. Of course, it helped that I was my grandma’s favorite grandson.
The daily workout changed my shape significantly, but there was a phrase after the explanation of each exercise that intrigued me: “Practice this movement until you feel slight fatigue.” I had always heard that you should force your limits to get a more robust and healthier body, so this continual recommendation didn’t make sense to me. Years later, in Venezuela, I would understand the reason behind it.
Dear grandma, thank you so much for your love, the unforgettable holidays we enjoyed together, your incredible food, and the book. In honor of your memory, I still eat one avocado per day when in season.
Then I moved to Venezuela in the “golden days” of that country. There I would hear of a world bodybuilder champion who only ate fruits (and nothing else). Also, I would have lunch every day with Portuguese olive-oil drinkers, would hear a Chinese doctor tell me that I was dead, and would get to know a lady whose “two” was odorless.
But that is material for my next story.
Here’s to your future!
— Víctor Tapia —
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Víctor Tapia is a writer who specializes in bitcoin, internationalization, and wellness issues. For his website’s web presence, he writes and edits both English and Spanish articles, guides, and courses. Similarly, he focuses on producing material for other parties and produces Medium stories on various themes related to his field.
Víctor worked for many years in the field of food and beverages, both for the hospitality and food industries. Before founding My CBS in 2002, he was the General Manager at Parmalat S.p.A., the multinational food corporation, at its subsidiary in Curaçao. One of his activities is service coaching in any area of commerce and industry, including food and beverages.
You can get in touch with him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, follow his posts on Medium, Mixturas (Spanish) and Completeness (English), or by visiting his website, My CBS.
