Healthy eating with Joan Taylor
SHE’S hard-working, compassionate, respectful, loyal, and believes that if she can’t do it, then it can’t be done.
Joan Taylor, 48, tells All Woman that this was the same attitude she employed when her life circumstances resulted in her having to change her lifestyle.
“My financial status changed drastically and it got so bad that my diet was affected. I started buying canned foods and canned meat, and other days I had fresh meat. But I knew the canned food on a consistent basis was not a good thing for my family. However, one day a young woman came to my house and decided to cook dinner and she prepared lentils. A year later I had to take a decision to rebirth and figure out how to feed my family because my budget was now slashed, not in half or quarter, but less than that,” she said.
As a result, Taylor said she began researching legumes and plant-based proteins which opened her eyes to a new, healthier and affordable way of eating.
“I started experimenting and if something went wrong, I threw it out. Then I introduced it to my family and some were not thrilled at first, but I incorporated it into our meals and we found that we could afford our food, good food, healthy food, and so that’s how we started eating again,” she said.
Taylor said she was not satisfied and decided she needed to share this with people as, in her opinion, many Jamaicans think that to eat healthy you have to pull out mega bucks. This led her to writing her book,
Journey to Healthy Eating, which details her newfound lifestyle coupled with some of her recipes.
“Just imagine a five-pound chicken is over $1,000 and that can probably feed your family once, and five pounds of beans can probably feed your family 10 times, so I decided I would write the book because people needed to know,” she said.
Taylor added: “I no longer watch my weight, I don’t get tired, there’s no fatigue in my body, and I barely get sick. When it’s time for bed I get sleepy. Before, when I was eating all the expensive stuff, I was always fatigued. I learnt how to combine my foods properly for easier digestion and I also learnt amazing things that I now put in practice. While economics is no longer the issue, I’m holding on to the diet because it’s working for me.”
Taylor, who’s been cooking since age 11 and at age 13 prepared her first Christmas dinner catering to 30 people, operates as a meal planner to help people transition into eating healthy.
A single mother of four children — two biological — Taylor is also passionate about protecting children’s rights and their development.
She explained that growing up she had many influences in her life, for which she is grateful, and so it is her duty to ensure other children are well taken care of. As a result, she has touched the lives of over 16 children at various points in their growth.
“I was born in St Mary. My mom came from The Bahamas, gave birth to me and had to go back. So at two months old she left me with my aunt who raised me until I was about six years old, then I went to live with my grandmother, after which at about eight/nine I went to The Bahamas to live with my mom. Then I came back to Jamaica, lived a year with my grandmother, then moved in with another aunt until I was an adult,” she said.
“Because I moved around so much, it helped me to understand and love taking care of people. I moved around and people were always taking care of me, so whoever came my way I had to take care of them. I’ve taken in boarders in my home and I don’t treat them like boarders. If you came to my home and saw them, you couldn’t tell who was my child different from the boarders,” Taylor said.
She also assists her son with the marketing and selling of honey and bee butter hair and skin moisturisers, which are made from products from the bee farm she shares with him.
A devout Christian, Taylor said she is enjoying her new journey and sticks to her daily mantra, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”, to get her through.
