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My interest in nutrition and eating habits comes from a big culture change at age 18. I grew up in a rural area in Europe on mostly "home-grown" food. We grew our own vegetables, potatoes, herbs and seasonings (like dill, parsley, garlic etc). We even supplemented a lot of our fruit intake with homegrown strawberries, some wild raspberries that happened to grow along our garden fence, and apples and cherries thanks to the trees that had been on our property way before we even arrived there. We also had chickens that laid eggs for us and supplied us with poultry for consumption. My mother also baked our own bread for a while this was of course all before the ease of bread machines!

When we bought things at the store, it was usually meat from a shop that butchered, cleaned and prepared their own animals on-site.

There was always a breakfast, a snack in the morning, a big lunch, a snack in the afternoon, and a light dinner. Even in the work force there was time for a big lunch, as lunch periods in Europe are longer and allow for the time to properly eat and digest a meal other than "fast" food.

Then I moved to America. Even though it was a small town in the Upper Midwest I moved to, products were not only different, and they tasted that way to me too. The white bread was something I was never used to and did not think what to make of it.

After a while I decided to just blend in, go with the flow. Starting a family and working I found myself with less time to devote to nutrition, so fast food did become a regular part of my diet. Five meals a day was out of the question, with a half hour lunch break at my jobs, and working opposite shifts with my partner. In the beginning I tried to raise my children with home cooked meals, but once they discovered hot dogs, chips and soda in daycare, and later pre-school, it was a losing battle.

After several years, although I had no weight issues, all kinds of health problems crept up. While doctors treated me for symptoms, I was left unsatisfied that they could never tell me why and where everything came from.

That is when I started delving into my own research that included nutrition and why I found that food tasted so different to me over here. This is also the time when hundreds of diets and fads sprung up. Fat was labeled bad, carbs were labeled bad, red meat was labeled bad, fruit was labeled bad because of the sugar it contained, and so on. It was all very confusing, so after years and years I came up with my own strategies.

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