I know you all read my blog for witty commentary about nutrition and holistic healing, but I have to admit, I’m a little sad today. My Grandma Molly passed away Sunday night in her sleep. She was 91 years old and had been struggling with advanced Alzheimer’s disease. Though part of me is relieved that she is now at peace, mostly I am sad that our family has lost such an underappreciated treasure of a woman. Let me explain.

My grandmother was loving, giving and adoring as most grandmothers are and I will always remember how deeply she loved me. But what I really want to focus on in this blog is that fact that I believe my Grandma Molly paved the way for my life’s work. When people ask me, “Jackie, how did you get to be this unceasingly meticulous organic health nut?” (OK I’m ad-libbing, they really say “psycho organic freak”), I say, “you don’t know my Grandma Molly.”

Grandma Molly was the O.G. of the health nuts (Original Gangster for those not familiar with the slang). She took vitamins in the 1940s before it was the thing to do. She knew the evils of sugar, processed food and food additives and would never have any of that garbage in her house. She had full-fat raw dairy delivered to the house when it was still legal in New York. Even when fat- and cholesterol-phobia took hold in the 1980s, she maintained that one was supposed to eat the whole egg. She only used brown rice and cooked with kosher sea salt. When everyone started using artificial sweetners to stay skinny, Grandma Molly refused to degrade her kitchen with any of it. When we went to her house, Grandma Molly would purposely make us sit outside in the sun for 15 minutes to get our Vitamin D (if you know how white my brother and I are, you understand why we only needed 15 minutes!).

She was a big fan of authors like Carlton Fredericks and Adele Davis (the Paul Chek’s and Sally Fallon’s of yesteryear) who believed good nutrition could positively impact ANY disease state and that poor nutrition caused most EVERY disease state. She loved Rachel Carlson’s “Silent Spring” and did her part to protect the environment. In fact, I remember one time going into her library and finding all of these books. I had just started taking nutrition classes at the Chek Institute and I had the following two thoughts:

1.  ”Wow, is it really possible that nutritionists have known all of this stuff that I’m just learning since the 1940s, and probably even earlier? Doctors seriously need to get on board because this information has been here for decades!” I mean there it was, the correct information about how harmful sugar was, gluten intolerance, raw dairy, how consumption of alcoholic beverages screws up your digestion, the healing benefits of saturated fat and everything else I had just paid thousands of dollars to learn.
2. “When did Grandma Molly become so cool and so smart?” (OK I guess she always was, I just needed to catch up!) Though she was the most gentle woman ever, my grandmother was a rebel. Everyone thought she was absolutely crazy and she absolutely didn’t care.

And why should she? While everyone else was busy getting fat and becoming depressed eating their Snack Wells cookies, drinking Diet Cokes and avoiding red meat like the plague, Grandma Molly was slim and emotionally balanced. Her skin was phenomenal. She had zero health problems until the Alzheimer’s began around age 80.

Grandma Molly also believed in the traditional values of preparing every meal at home and eating as a family. Her family did have one indulgence: eating out at Nathan’s. But what can I say, my grandmother was “Brooklyn” through and through. And because she made sure that her family was so nutritionally fortified, the occasional Nathan’s hot dog and fries did not diminish any of them one bit. This is a perfect demonstration of 2 concepts I try to teach all of my clients:

1. The 80/20 rule: if your diet is clean 80% of the time, you can indulge 20% of the time.
2. Don’t indulge unless you can do so with joy. Eating junkfood out of depression, guilt, self-flagellation or desperation will negatively affect your health. Eating junkfood in joy like at celebrations or special occasions will not negatively affect your health at all.

Leaving her funeral and going to pay the first shiva call (the traditional period of grieving in Judaism), I definitely felt the sadness of this great loss. I realized how hungry I was and went into my bag to get my snack: grass-fed beef chorizo sausage and onions cooked in coconut oil and a peach, all organic, local and seasonal from the Union Square Farmer’s market. As I reached back into my bag for the 7 vitamins that I take at every meal, I felt an etheric smile come over my body. I know it was her. I instantly felt that my work is the continuation of Grandma Molly’s legacy and moreover, that my spirit is the continuation of hers. You see, I always bring organic food, bottled water and vitamins with me everywhere I go. And everyone absolutely thinks I’m crazy. And I absolutely don’t care.

Thank you Grandma Molly, from the bottom of my heart.

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