Why there is no such thing as good or bad food
[Music]
there is a lesson that almost every
single one of us has been taught in life
either explicitly or subtly a lesson
that
it turns out is a total lie
a lie that has gripped us all that is
sneaky and insidious
we have been taught that there are good
foods and bad foods
if we eat the good foods then we’re a
good person if we eat the bad foods then
we’re a bad person
sounds drastic how many times have you
heard someone say
no thanks no cake for me i’m being good
today
or oh i’ve been so bad i’ve eaten so
much chocolate
we’ve absorbed this lie so much we don’t
even notice how drastic a statement
we’re making when we say that we are a
bad
person for eating something sweet
here’s the thing food doesn’t have the
power to make you a
good or bad person in fact there are
no good and bad foods food is context
dependent
always to one person orange juice is
too much sugar to another it’s the only
reliable way to ensure their kids get a
portion of fruit every day
and a source of vitamin c to me sticky
toffee pudding isn’t
a bad food it’s a wonderfully sweet
dessert that reminds me of my father who
passed away
when i tell people all this their
reaction is often but what about bread
what about chocolate what about what
about
there’s an instant defensiveness which
i’m used to by now as a nutrition
professional
just so you know i have an answer to
every single food that someone throws at
me
but i don’t think this kind of back and
forth is useful
instead my response is this does
believing
in good and bad foods help you
do you feel better for it or does it
simply produce feelings of guilt
and shame in my experience it’s usually
the latter
guilt is often seen as a negative
emotion a
bad emotion alongside others like anger
sadness or jealousy
like with food these are emotions that
we may have been taught are bad and
should be avoided
boys don’t cry don’t get angry you know
i hate it
stop crying or i’ll give you something
to cry about
these lessons teach us to push down
these emotions to avoid them
and we have found plenty of ways to do
that very well
when we start to internalize these black
and white ideas our self-worth becomes
dependent on being
good and that’s when things start to go
wrong
okay hold on a second i am a registered
nutritionist
a nutrition counselor so how did we get
here
this is not what i was expecting when i
studied nutrition
but the more time i spend with people
and food
the less time we spend talking about
food
so many conversations in clinic keep
coming back to
emotions i’m an emotional eater
that’s a phrase i hear on a weekly basis
in clinic and
every time i hear it i want to reply of
course you are
you’re human we cannot separate food
from emotions
in an ideal environment our very first
experience of eating as babies born into
this world
is associated with the comfort of being
held in a caregiver’s arms
that is such a beautiful human thing
when i’m unwell i make stock like my
grandma used to bring to me in bed
when i feel lonely i make my mother’s
pasta recipe from my childhood
when i feel overwhelmed with work i
order pizza as both an act of self-care
and as a means to feeling warm cozy and
comforted by the sensation of fullness
in my belly
to be an emotional eater is to be human
but an over-reliance on this one coping
mechanism creates a fragile
system well-meaning advice says to
eliminate these foods from your vicinity
out of sight out of mind but many people
will have tried this and find that it
doesn’t work
they tell me they feel greedy ashamed
and out of control
i see it differently what i see is
someone who has found a coping mechanism
that
works and who struggles when it is taken
away
food is their solution to an underlying
problem
let me put it this way if you injure
your leg
you may need crutches to walk your
crutch being your solution
while your injured leg is the problem
now imagine if we took away your one
reliable crutch you’d have trouble
walking and the healing process would
take
so much longer so i propose something
else
instead of taking away food you’re one
dependable crutch
let’s add another and while we’re at it
let’s throw in a few more in case one
gets lost or broken
different crutches for different
terrains
your trusty reliable crutch your food
it’s still there
but it’s no longer the only thing you
rely on it’s a much more stable
and sustainable system we can develop an
over-reliance on food as a crutch or
coping mechanism because
it works we do not do well with
uncertainty
but food can feel like a certainty in an
uncertain world
i’d like to tell you a few food stories
from my clinic
each of these stories has been modified
and anonymized for the purposes of
confidentiality
and are shared with permission
when rachel was a teenager she would run
out of the house whenever her family
started arguing
she became a successful cross-country
runner and her teachers described her as
dedicated
and disciplined then she went off to
university
she gave up running and found herself
turning to sweet foods on a near daily
basis
after stressful lectures that she didn’t
understand
her family and friends advised her to go
on a diet to just
stop eating the bad foods
when she first stepped into my clinic
room she told me she had been eating in
secret for the past
20 years and felt deeply ashamed for not
simply being able to stop
she told me chocolate is someone holding
me
and telling me it’s gonna be okay
when kate was a child her father would
punish her severely if she expressed
any anger or sadness in front of him he
berated her constantly for any mistakes
while her mother would criticize her
body on a daily basis
foods like bread and cheese were
declared unnecessary
while any strong emotions like sadness
were deemed an
inconvenience when she first came to me
her food choices were limited and she
was underweight
she had been taught from a young age
that depriving herself of food
was an appropriate and necessary form of
self-punishment
in one of our early sessions she told me
i’m scared to find whatever is in my
brain
two very different stories with one
common thread
a suppression or avoidance of emotions a
suppression of the self
with food as the weapon of choice both
feeling empty
and feeling too full can act as
distractions from our emotions
a familiar pattern i see is this you
feel a strong emotion like
anxiety or anger so you eat to push that
emotion down
this distraction provides a temporary
relief but then
along comes guilt or even shame for
being so out of control so greedy
so you resolve to make up for it the
next day maybe you
restrict your food intake maybe you
decide to go to the gym
to burn it off only for that same
emotion
to come back soon after and for the
cycle
to repeat this is not something that is
openly visible for all to see
often it is secretive shameful
invisible something we do when no one is
watching
we use food to avoid our emotions
because it
works if it didn’t at least in the short
term we wouldn’t keep doing it
yet people don’t come to my clinic and
say i’d like help with my emotions
please
they come to me a nutrition counsellor
because of the unintended consequences
of their emotional eating
most commonly they describe the shame of
gaining weight
weight that society tells them is a
moral failing on their part that is
unacceptable that they have to lose in
order to have worth
i don’t help them to lose weight
if i did i’d be colluding with the very
beliefs that led them here in the first
place and
i refuse to do that i believe we cannot
fix
emotional eating by resolving never each
eat again when we are angry or sad or
bored or stressed or lonely
we eat because we are hungry not for
food but for
something that is missing in our lives
our self-critical voice says oh why am i
doing this
a rhetorical question so why not ask him
why am i doing this with curiosity
what are you really hungry for
is it the unconditional love you wish
your parents had shown you
is it a sense of safety
fulfillment purpose self-worth
what are you really hungry for
once we are able to recognize that
hunger
to understand the conditions of worth
that were placed on us
whether it’s i am only loved if i am
thin or
if i feel angry then i am bad and i need
to be punished
we can start the process of unlearning
those lessons
and replacing them with new ones we can
learn to
recognize sit with and express our
emotions in constructive ways
this process is not always an easy one
when we start to release these emotions
that have been stored in our body for
all these years
it can produce painful memories and
emotions so intense they feel
overwhelming
when i asked one of my clients to sit
quietly rather than
frantically eating or cleaning and
eating until she felt sick
she returned the following week with a
story about an ex-partner who she
depended on for validation and who made
her feel
worthless these were emotions and
experiences
she had avoided for years and it was
painful for her and afterwards
she says she felt relief and felt able
to be kinder to herself
now that she understood herself better
all of these people whose stories i’ve
shared today are working towards a place
of food
neutrality and freedom some of them are
already there
some still have a way to go my aim for
them
is to see food as something incredible
delicious and context dependent
not as a problem but as a solution their
brain came up with at a time
when they needed it even if now it’s a
solution that no longer serves them
they are letting go of the lie that
there are good foods and bad foods
good emotions and bad emotions something
that is more important now than ever
as we navigate incredible uncertainty
so the next time you reach for chocolate
or order a pizza or enjoy your comfort
food of choice
please consider this
by eating to soothe and comfort
ourselves we have not
failed we haven’t been greedy
we are not bad people we have given
ourselves a small
gesture of care and support in a time
where we receive little from others
we deserve to understand ourselves
better
to honor our hunger to treat ourselves
with kindness
and not to beat ourselves up for seeking
comfort in food
because we are simply being human
thank you