My roots may have been boiled and fried, but my present is lightly sauted, steamed, juiced or smoothied. Peas were the defining yuck food of my childhood. From the color, which matched my bedroom carpet, to the bug-like pop when I bit down on them, to the slightly grainy texture inside and the flavor that just triggered a gag reflex, I could barely manage peas. But then I learned how to swallow pills, and that skill changed my pea eating forever. After I discovered that with enough water, quite large things could be swallowed, I put a spoonfuls of peas on my tongue and washed them down whole. And then one night, I got the flu after having done this. Whole peas floated in the toilet bowl as I hung my head over it. That pretty much cinched it. It took about twenty years before I could manage peas without turning a little pale. The other yuck food was shrimp. And I had to really try before I appreciated roast beef. Given the latest research, and the fact that I later learned to like both turf and surf, maybe my parents should have just given my taste buds free reign. Sure, I would have missed a lot of whole peas, but also red meat and shellfish.

The foods we eat as kids determine the foods we will like as adults. And the foods we can't stomach as kids, well, sometimes we grow into them and sometimes not. Lately, I have stopped tasting blood when eating tomatoes, and I have started to like the earthy flavor of potatoes that used to seem so strong to me. What did I like as a kid? Dairy. Lots and lots of dairy. Sharp cheddar. Velveeta. Cottage cheese. Yogurt. Milk. Creamy, white deliciousness.

I was one of those kids who would try anything sweet. It didn't have to look good. Chocolate milk in my oatmeal? While the other kids said it looked like poop, I ate it and wanted more.

Then I grew up.

I have been blessed. I don't think that my metabolism is really that lightening fast, but I have always worked hard. I have never had to limit what I ate because of weight, because by the time I had sat through the winter eating enormous meals, spring arrived and I began working. By July, my slightly tight clothes fit again, and by September, I was sporting biceps and a six pack. Just in time to cover them all in mashed potatoes and gravy again. It is what farmers do. Run at breakneck pace, April through September, and then do nothing much through the cold months. And I was a farm girl. In April, out came the pipe trailer, a metal frame piled high with 16 ft long pieces of six or eight-inch diameter aluminum or plastic pipe that we laid along the "top" (west) end of the fields, then opened a gate in the pipe above every furrow so the water could run down the row to the end of the field, watering the corn. Since Grandpa did not have enough pipe to just leave it there until the next time the field needed watered, we let the water run until the field was watered, then we moved the pipe, sixteen foot section by sixteen foot section to the trailer and pulled it to the next field, where we laid it out again. Any farm kid who has ever moved pipe knows what happens to kids who are helping the adults do this. A kid is shorter than the adult on the other end. The pipe is full of water. When you pick it up, forgetting to tip it to drain it first, gallons of warm water pour out over your legs and feet. It has usually had to run from the middle or other end of the pipe, so one thinks they are safe, no water in this section, and several seconds later it all rushes out. Then, because the weather is already hot, the rest of the day is spent with feet in hot, wet shoes. But bending down a hundred times a day to pick up one end of a heavy irrigation pipe builds a strong back and bulky arms and shoulders. By the end of a summer of irrigating, a farmer's pants were sagging in the back. I have irrigation pipe and a broke farmer grandpa to thank for the fact that I could eat whatever I wanted, as much as I wanted as a teenager and never had to experience being overweight.

Now, for most farmers, irrigating involves keeping a sprinkler on a smooth rotation around a field. My kids won't lay irrigation pipe. That makes me sad. Although I am a little bit glad I won't be doing it anymore, either.

But, as I said, then I grew up. I experienced weight gain that lasted for more than six months. I got married and, determined to be the best little wifey ever, only made food my new husband liked- my grandma's cooking. Meatloaf. Casseroles. Lasagna. And gained 15 pounds in six months. Then we moved to Colorado, where I became aware of the gym, and got addicted to running and working out. I still had the muscles. The first time I sat down on the bench beneath the weight machine for a low row, I started at fifty pounds. It was too light. I added ten. Still light. I added twenty more. Ahh, now that felt about right. The same with triceps. I pulled down the rope at thirty, which my workout partner recommended. And had to add forty more before it felt like I was even working. Now, I move sixty pound hay bales up in the haymow, and I stagger a bit. How did I used to carry one in each hand when I only weighed a hundred and fourteen pounds? And is that the reason one shoulder is so much lower than the other? My right shoulder, the hand I used to carry five gallon buckets of water and feed to animals while my skeleton was still growing, ended up significantly lower than my left.

At any rate, I lost the strength I had as a teenager and have never gotten it back. In the years since I left this farm, I have gotten soft. I salvaged as much of it as I could to race mountain bikes, but it just hasn't been as easy for me to be strong since. So I have had to learn to manage weight gain by eating the right food. And this has become a passion for me. Maybe it was my intensely active childhood followed by becoming a gym rat, then outdoor enthusiast, but I can feel instantly when food is good for me. When my energy responds well. I slowly stopped preparing the foods from my childhood as my hubby got chubby and so did I. I started experimenting with diet. It clicked when a friend of mine, an oncology dietition, went back to her vegan roots so she could walk her talk as she told her patients to avoid animal products through their cancer ordeals. I went cold-turkey (or should I say, tofurkey) vegan and the weight melted off, and I detoxed for two weeks, peeing all the time. And stayed strictly vegan for a year before my western Kansas influence started talking to me, mostly in the form of mockery from Kansas relatives and an absolute refusal to try my food or make even one dish edible for me at holidays. I simply chose family peace over dietary restriction, and ate small amounts of animal product to make them happy, and felt so much more filled, so much more long-term energy, that I stopped being so strict with the veganism. I started eating eggs and occasionally cheese. Only this led to weight gain again.

In the end, I call myself a cheating vegan. I try to live cruelty free. I still wear my leather shoes that I have owned since before I even know what the word "vegan" meant, and I try to walk peaceably with everyone, I eat the food offered me if the alternative is offense, but inside my four walls, I eat plants and they treat me well. And now it is time for another diet revolution. I am all set up for it, I just have to scramble to figure out how to do it. This one is called the self-sustainability diet. The closest health food store is now hours away. My big experiemt this year is, can I grow what we need to survive?

I know I can, with the help of my deep freeze keeping bulk items fresh. No, it won't be any form of a hundred mile diet, because as of yet, I can't live without my coconuts and citrus and berries and all of the things that simply don't grow well in a hailstorm-prone area with alkaline soil and 100 degree dry wind sapping the moisture out of every dirt clod in my grandma's garden plot. I just have to figure out how. I wish I had paid more attention when I was younger.