Dorothy Myers Crumbly
I am a former college teacher and administrator. I am also a wife, mother, grandmother, community leader, political activist, and now a health and wellness enthusiast. In all honesty, I have always been a health and wellness advocate, but I didn’t know it until I was well into adulthood.
My younger sister and I grew up eating Cream of Wheat or Quaker Oatmeal for breakfast each day as we ran out of the house to school. Eating this standard healthy breakfast could have been because I overheard our father say to our mother, “Don’t feed those gals corn flakes; them flakes ain’t worth nothing but the milk they swimming in.” He also said something to this effect. “Anytime you take corn and turn it into a flake, it ain’t worth nothing.” Later on, studies proved him right. With his six grade education, he didn’t know the word “processed” but essentially that is what he meant. Therefore, his words stuck with me as I started to read about food. My husband and I employed some of his wisdom when raising our sons as they became old enough to eat meat. I made their meals with chicken and vegetables cooked into shreds in a pressure cooker. Their only processed baby food was the fruit in Gerber jars. As our sons grew old enough to walk, we took them to the tracks at the local college to jog with us. Currently, they are still eating whole foods and working out. So, for forty plus years I have been dedicated to health and wellness.
During the last 25 years, I have made speeches about health or conducted workshops about health and have written monthly articles for a local weekly paper and a regional monthly paper. Many of the articles on this website were first written for one of the newspapers. Before writing, I had to study first. I have read numerous books, articles, newsletters and bought health videos to validate what I write. While I highly respect and have studied the works of Drs. Andrew Weil, Michael F. Roizen, Mehmet C. OZ, Daniel G. Amen, Ian K. Smith and Caldwell B. Esselstyn, perhaps the one book that has had a lasting impact on me is The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, PhD and Thomas M. Campbell II, MD. I have studied with the editors of the book and video Forks Over Knives, and I’m certified by The Morehouse School of Medicine’s Educational Program to Increase Colorectal Cancer Screening.
As I continue to read more and more about health, especially food, in an online course, I am thoroughly convinced that food is really medicine. Now, I have totally embraced my ministry to helping others to understand that food is medicine and to helping others to adopt the famous statement attributed to Hippocrates: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”