Thirty years ago I was part of a relative minority, a 20-something into health foods. My small town was bemused by my need to drive for an hour into the nearest city to find natural yogurt, brown rice and herbal tea.
I've run the gamut of nutrition in the past three decades. I've been a vegetarian, a whole grain purist.
Then I had five kids and became enamored with hot dogs and macaroni and cheese -- something they'd eat!
Having started out as a vegetarian, I'm now eating low carb because this is how I feel healthiest.
People who never thought about whether their food was healthy or not, now find themselves hunting for organic foods, local foods, unprocessed foods.
Their goal is a simple one. They're trying to find something that seems safe to eat in a day when a bewildering variety of toxins are in our food.
There has been, and no doubt will continue to be, vigorous debate as to which diet works best. But to me, health food is going to be the food that makes you feel healthy.
A whole grain diet would be the undoing of me. My low carb regime might be the same for you.
But despite our differences, we have a lot of common ground. Too much sugar and over-processed foods are pretty universally agreed to be a bad idea.
And a commonly held question right now is, what does "organic" mean, and how important is that? And, how do we know if something is as organic as it claims to be?
I think a healthy diet is a clean diet. One where life-giving foods are taken in and life-stealing foods are not.
If you have food allergies or sensitivities -- or you've simply learned that some foods leave you feeling ill -- the right choice is going to be avoidance.
The food scene has changed dramatically in some ways in 30 years. Natural yogurt, brown rice and herbal teas are staples in most grocery stores.
People may secretly raise an eyebrow when you reach for those items but they're not so inclined to say it to your face as they were three decades back.
And yet in other ways the scene remains the same. It's still a challenge to determine what is healthy to eat. And it can still be a challenge to find what you need and take it home.
Visit Jody's website and blog at http://www.ncubator.ca and http://ncubator.ca/blogger