Musings of My Grandmother (and her love for apples!)

There are two things I’ve been craving this month: apples… and the wisdom of my grandmother.

She passed when I was just a child and although my time with her was short, I will always have the memory of feeling like she was the one person in my family who truly understood me. She was just like me: feisty, fiery and unafraid of making waves if that meant she was speaking her truth. All I’ve wanted lately is to learn more about her and connect with her somehow, so the other night at Thanksgiving I asked my family some questions.

When was her birthday? What was her sign? What were her favorite foods?

I found out that her birthday is December 10th (which is right around the corner – perhaps why I feel her with me) and that means she’s a Sagittarius! A fire sign just like my Leo soul. I also found out that although she fed me ice cream bars and potato-and-egg-omelets towards the end of her life because that’s all she could muster, she was also a huge veggie lover and would constantly make artichokes, asparagus, and endives with my older cousin just like her Italian mother taught her.

Lastly, I learned that she would make my cousin eat an apple after every single meal. Such a beautiful coincidence, right?! Although I wish I could ask her reasoning or tradition behind this practice (I wonder if she knew of the liver/intestinal benefits?), I feel that much closer knowing I got my apple love from her.

In high school when I first lost weight the healthy way, I intuitively ate an apple every single night before bed (along with honey, which I have a post about here) and would always wake up with the perfect bowel movement and a flat tummy. I swear it was a huge reason for my success and is the reason I eat so many to this day. I posted a few other weight loss tips and more about my journey on my Instagram story highlights, but I just wanted to share this tidbit about my favorite lady and my favorite fruit.

I also asked my Instagram fam if they had any “grandma’s health tips” that they’ll take with them forever and pass down to their kids. The response I received was incredible. You can read all 400+ comments here, and I even went on to make a whole separate post about the theme that came up constantly in the responses: grandmas are not a fan of cold foods and drinks!

You can read that continuation post here, titled “Why Grandma Says Cold Foods and Iced Drinks Aren’t Your Friends” (especially on your period!) I absolutely loved digging deeper into this topic, and brought in a lot of wisdom from Traditional Chinese Medicine (my all-time favorite ancient medicine system).

Since I asked on Instagram, I would love to ask again here: does your grandma have any health tips you’ll take with you forever? Let me know in the comments so that we can keep this knowledge alive.

xo,
Olivia