Eating healthfully without moralizing our food choices.

For me eating is an activity that ideally is a relaxed and pleasurable experience. As I’ve progressed on my own body sovereignty  journey, I’ve worked at ditching the diet mentality and moving to a more intuitive and peaceful approach to food. My work has been to rely less on outside experts to tell me what, when and how to eat and instead become mindful of, and responsive to, my body. I do this by practicing tuning into my body’s fullness and hunger signals and also by paying attention to *what* my body wants (something hot or cold? smooth or crunchy? sweet or sour?). And I do my best to feed myself food that is enjoyable.

In support of this quest I actively resist buying into notion of some foods as ‘bad’ and others are ‘good’, and I do this for a couple of reasons. One is that I’ve found if I build a taboo around a particular food, let’s say ice cream for example, and I tell myself ‘ice cream is bad and I mustn’t have it’ that immediately sets ice cream up for me as something I think about a lot, which then puts me at risk of falling into the trap of eating it, even when I may not really want it. Another reason I resist thinking in terms of ‘good’ food and ‘bad’ food is that I’ve noticed a tendency in myself (and people I work with) to take on the labels we ascribe our foods to ourselves. So, if ice cream is ‘bad’ I have been ‘bad’ when I eat it. Food becomes a weapon of moralization – a chance for me to judge myself, usually negatively.

But, being as healthy as we can is a good thing, right? Surely trying to eat a healthy diet in order to live a long, vibrant life can’t be a bad thing, can it? Of course not, as long as we are not using our efforts at health as an opportunity to judge our self worth by. It is a shame when our efforts at living healthfully become one more thing we have to be perfect at.

This is tricky territory…no doubt about it. How do we even begin…where do we start? I think a positive relationship with food needs to be built on the foundation of enjoyment, even when we want to ‘eat well’ and ‘be healthy’. Ellen Satter  (Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Family Therapist and internationally recognized authority on eating and feeding) emphasizes enjoyment and stresses that enjoyment should not be sacrificed to our ideas of good nutrition. She says “Normal eating is being able to give some thought to your food selection so you get nutritious food, but not being so wary and restrictive that you miss out on enjoyable food”

This approach to eating was echoed by Linda Bacon (author of Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight  at a training for HAES facilitators. Linda suggested we practice healthful eating by aiming to eat the healthiest version of foods that we enjoy. For example, if we enjoy and are just as satisfied with 1% milk as we are with 2% milk, well then sure, drink the 1%. But if, like me, you are a little sad when the 1% milk turns your coffee into something that looks like sludge and are secretly yearning for something richer, then perhaps getting 2%, 3% or 6% light cream to make the coffee enjoyable is a good idea. Personally, I don’t want to drink yucky, sludgey coffee every morning for the rest of my life, so for me the potential health benefits of 1% milk are not worth it. The flip side of this is that I’ve found I don’t need to use the 18% coffee cream (although I will happily use it on occasion without any guilt), but I’ve found the 6% light cream works just fine and I’m happy with it. There are folks who use the 18% coffee cream daily because the ‘light cream’ does not make for happy coffee for *them* and that’s cool too. Make sense?

It all makes me think of a little poem I read many years ago in a book by John Robbin’s called Diet For a New America. This is a powerful book that plunged me fully into the vegetarian diet I had been flirting with for a few years. But the part that pertains to our discussion today is that amongst all his advice for healthful living and eating was a potent reminder Robbins offered his readers about the importance of enjoying food through sharing this little rhyme:

“It may be healthier to eat beer and franks with cheer and thanks, than to eat sprouts and bread with doubts and dread.”

This rhyme has always stuck with me and I have no doubt eating with cheer and thanks contributes greatly to how we experience eating and a huge impact on our health and wellbeing.

What do you think? What are your experiences with eating healthfully…is it an exercise in morality? Are you able to consider the nutritional content of the food in your diet without falling to the trap of labelling food as ‘good’ or ‘bad’? Do you use your food choices as a way to judge yourself or others? Does your mood or how you feel about yourself hinge on how ‘healthfully’ you perceive you ate that day? If so, I encourage to consider what it might mean to move away from moralizing your food choices. What would it be like to allow yourself to eat foods that you enjoy without self recrimination or judgement?  How can you bring cheer and thanks into your life with food?

Thanks for reading!

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