Stop Vilifying Food
/
Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash
We need a new relationship with food.
If you spend more than about 5 minutes awake in the world you’re bound to be bombarded with advice about superfoods you should eat to fix what ails you, and food villains to avoid at all costs. Let the “wrong” food pass your lips and you’re doomed to a horrible death, diabetes, fatness, and the scorn of health zealots.
This reductionist food extremism misses the point: wellness is not about what we avoid but about the balance over time of what we embrace and make a regular part of our lives that nourishes us. This obsession with food villains and heroes is actively doing harm, leading to weight cycling, disordered eating, and all stripes of food and diet related stress.
So many foods are off limits, it’s exhausting to keep track.
Depending on who you talk to, fats, carbs, potatoes, nightshades, dairy, red meat, all meat, lectins, cooked vegetables, etc. have adverse effects on our health. Who to believe?
The problem is, we’ve forgotten how to eat — the most basic of life skills — because we’ve become largely disconnected from the land, the seasons, natural cycles, cultural traditions, and how the world (ecology) and our bodies (physiology) work. Knowing what and how to eat used to be instinctive and common sense for most of us, nurtured by the traditions of our culture and rooted in our place in the world and its natural seasons and cycles.
We modern folk have been bludgeoned by fad diets, nutrition reports, conflicting claims, body shaming, and diet schemes for so long we hardly know how to think about food sanely anymore.
“We’ve been so disconnected agriculturally and culturally from food. We spend more time on dieting than on cooking. ”
Nutritionism looks at food through a blinkered view that does not take into account the nuances of growing techniques, seasonality, sustainability and regenerative practices, plant and animal varieties/breeds and their varying nutritional values, how they’re prepared, cultural traditions and values, etc. Many recommendations to avoid certain foods, such as potatoes, for example, fail to distinguish between a less healthy version (french fries) and healthier preparations of the same food (roasted or boiled potatoes).
Few things are all good or all bad. Eating doesn’t have to be so complicated.
“My concern is that by focusing on what to vilify and avoid, rather than what to celebrate and include, many clever Americans will find a way to avoid sugars but choose another not-so-healthy replacement (with the food industry’s help) and still manage to avoid fiber, vegetables, and a plant-based whole food diet…. Let’s focus on what Americans should eat more of- from a nutrient perspective, we should focus on fiber, from a food group perspective we should focus on vegetables, from a diet-pattern perspective, we should focus on a more plant-based whole food diet.”
Food Villainization contributes to diet hysteria and stress.
Food extremism and nutritionism not only ignore the health benefits of maligned foods eaten in moderation in healthy ways, they also catalyze stressful obsession with food and health. This leads to orthorexia and other disordered food relationships.
Instead of focusing on nutrients, superfoods, and food villians, we need to shift toward food language (vs. nutrient language) and culinary medicine. These emphasize nourishing foods and skill building that supports healthy lifestyle changes.
It shifts the focus from perseverating over macros and nutrient nit-picking to moving the balance of what we eat in a direction that will cultivate well being and enjoyment more than not.
“Calories count, but you don’t need to count them. Nutrients matter, but the important matter is the foods you choose. Get those right, and the nutrients tend to take care of themselves. Focus on nutrients rather than foods, and there is, it seems, nearly no end to the ways to eat badly. Americans, alas, seem committed to exploring them all.”
Food extremism interrupts us having a healthy relationship with food
It disconnects us from trusting our own good sense and intuition about what works for our own bodies—because so many gurus and experts out there claim to know better. It turns food into a constant problem to be managed, avoided, or controlled in order to avoid illness and discomfort.
People don’t need another diet to “fall off.” We don’t need more stress about eating the “wrong” foods or a diet to adhere to strictly 100% of the time.
We need help healing from generations of food dysphoria. We need help cultivating a nourishing and enjoyable relationship with food that connects us to place, community, and a much broader and more holistic vision of well being.
We need support nurturing a vision of wellness that goes beyond a number on a scale or lab report.
We need to acknowledge how factors like race, gender, geography, income, work, caregiving responsibilities, trauma, physical limitations, food access, education, cooking skills, pain issues, medications, eating habits, eating disorders, mental health, and community health affect our well being and our ability to take on lifestyle changes.
We need help implementing a sane and nourishing way of eating that fits our life, tastes, abilities, finances, preferences, etc.
Sure, there are things we’d do well to eat more or less of. But extreme postures toward food and health, especially vilifying and glorifying foods, is counterproductive and harmful. Let’s change the conversation from nutritionism and food extremism toward growing healthy relationships with food in delicious ways to feel better and be well.