What to eat...or not to eat?

Last year, on Aug 30, I had the unfortunate experience a spontaneous splenic rupture which is a rare, dramatic and potentially life-threatening condition. No one knows why it happened that day, there was no previous trauma and the pathology report showed no sign of infection, anemia or  other ailments. The doctor had never seen it before (did not instill confidence btw), there was no reason and yet it happened. 

First of all it was the most painful and disconcerting thing that had ever happened to me. Since there were no obvious signs of anything wrong the paramedic originally thought I had gas...yes GAS! Three children born with out any drugs and he thought I called an ambulance for gas. (Had it not been life threatening in the end, it may be a funny story...perhaps one day). After hours of internal bleeding and slowly loosing my ability to function, a CT scan showed the doctors what the problem was and I was rushed into emergency surgery. During the operation they cut me open (obviously), rearranged many of my organs, gave me 8 units of blood and finally got to offending spleen and removed it.

Now I tell this story because it caused me to do some reassessing and without a spleen there is a higher chance of infections so becoming healthy is a priority that I have slowly been working on. It has taken many more months to recover than what I had thought but here I am ready to start doing more. I have started walking again and that has helped but what about my diet?? I love healthy food but living alone has caused some unhealthy habits to form....toast and cheese has become an easy meal. While there is not a specific diet tailored for people with asplenia it is important to take steps to improve your immune system and reduce the risk of infection. This means cutting back on red meat and high fats....so good bye to Keto. It means more vegetables and grains, antioxidants and anti inflammatory foods. Well with grains then the good ole Paleo is also out. Weight Watchers? No

What is one to do?? 

First, I do NOT want to diet. . . .not as a verb anyway. I want a healthy diet. . . .as in a noun.

diet (n.)

  1. the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats.

"a vegetarian diet"

 A few years ago (before my 4 years of horror) I had started eating a clean, well balanced diet....little to no flour or sugar and processed foods....I felt great!! Time to start shopping at the market, cooking and making salad dressings. Time to bring out my kitchen gadgets and cookbooks and looking at food as nutrition and fuel rather than filler.