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The woman getting on the bus had her hands full. She was loaded down with a baby, stroller and bags, and struggled up the steps. I had watched her from afar as she was getting on the bus and moved over just before she plopped down next to me, relieved to get a seat.
The baby was gorgeous, the kind who makes you melt. I noticed that his shoe was loose, and as I bent down to tie it, I struck up a conversation with the woman who turned out to be the young boy’s grandmother. She was trying to clear up his asthma and was on her way to the store to buy him some soy milk.
Rice or almond are better, I suggested, offering that I’d read reports that soy really isn’t good for black people, males in particular, because it has too many feminine qualities. Most important to me was she knew that because of the boy’s asthma, she needed to keep him away from dairy, a fat-filled food source that generates a lot of mucous in humans. Many people of African descent can’t tolerate cow’s milk because they suffer from lactase enzyme deficiency and can’t digest it properly.
I thought about one of my five children who had asthma as a child and stayed clogged up in the spring and fall. She loved pizza and cheese steaks and soft pretzels and ate them all of the time, no matter how much we warned her not to. But she’s a dancer and needed to fortify her body. She said asthma weighed her down throughout her life and robbed her of much-needed energy.
Now, as an adult she has no symptoms of the wheezing at all. That’s because she has drastically changed her diet and reduced the amount of cheese and pasta and mucous foods that she used to sneak on a daily basis. She is now conscious about consuming healthy, live foods. She loves salads and fall vegetables like greens, yams and cabbage, and says her energy is much higher and the asthma has disappeared.
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As the mother of five and a journalist, I've always encouraged people to empower themselves with information on healthy foods and lifestyles. Nurturing our children with healthy food is one of the most important jobs we have, yet as families have become busier or drifted apart, meal times have been sacrificed.
