Ep 26- What to Call Foods Instead of Good/Bad
August 01, 2024
Good and bad. Healthy and unhealthy. Safe and unsafe. Okay and off limits.
These are all categories that can keep us stuck in diet mentality and overeating.
So if we shouldn’t label foods good or bad, how do we describe our food choices?
Today I cover…
The impact of food labels on our mindset
How to look at foods on a spectrum instead of black and white
Understanding what healthy really means
What to label foods instead
Hello confident eaters, happy Thursday.
Have you ever called foods good and bad, healthy or unhealthy? Safe? Unsafe, clean, dirty.
Okay. Off limits, on plan, off plan ,junkie, clean. All of these labels impact the way we feel about the food we're eating and how we interact with them. Now in particular, I want you to really think about this good bad food label and really staying away from that if you're trying to get out of this diet mentality and learn to listen to your body because the good bad food label brings in this morality, right? Where we're either being a good person or reading a bad person, depending if we're eating the cookies or the carrots. This is a part of our language too.
We'll hear people say. Oh, I'm just going to be bad today and I'll get back on track tomorrow. The holidays are coming up. I'm scared. I'm going to be bad, turning to your friend and say, Hey, do you want to be bad? And let's get dessert together. These are the labels that keep us stuck in all or nothing thinking.
Now I knew logically calling foods good and bad was not helpful, but I wasn't always quite sure what to call them instead. How would I describe the food I eat if they weren't good and bad? And moreover, I just thought for sure there were such thing as good foods and bad foods.
I thought there's no way there are some foods that could be in the middle. This also comes up for a lot of people. If you have kids, how do I talk to my kids about food without calling things good or bad or healthy or unhealthy?
Now the big problem with these labels is it's puts foods into these categories. Right. And it makes your brain think in a dichotomy, a dichotomy being your brain only has two choices. It's either this way or that way. There's no in between. Now it's easier for our brain to think this way, because it's fast and effective. Two options are easier to consider that in the hundred opt-ins that actually exists.
But the problem is that's not how foods work. That's not how nutrition works is it's not all or nothing, one choice or the other. Foods exist on a spectrum and not even a linear spectrum. It's not like we can have a spectrum of one side's healthy and the other side's unhealthy and foods just fall in the middle because how could we even say if something is nutritious or not, how do we know for sure. So it might even be like a 3d spectrum going in all different directions, all kinds of considerations. We'll go through a few examples.
Think of dairy. There's a lot of controversy on dairy. I have a client who has been medically recommended to have some dairy with most of her meals because of the condition she has. And I have other clients who have a dairy sensitivity and really do not do well eating it. So how could we save dairy is healthy or not.
So not only is calling things healthy or good, not helpful, but it's also flat out wrong. It just doesn't even work. Some other examples, think about bananas. I'm sure we've all heard bananas have too much sugar or we might've also heard of bananas are a good source of potassium, right? It can be both.
You might think, well, something like spinach, a vegetable, we can say for sure, spinach's healthy. Right? Maybe, but also eating spinach alone is not going to make you healthy. And if you were to only eat spinach all day, every day, you would be unhealthy because you wouldn't be getting protein. You wouldn't be getting carbs. You wouldn't be getting fat. You'd really only be getting fiber and a little bit of nutrients, you'd be missing out on a lot of other nutrients. So spinach itself can not be inherently healthy.
If you were someone who is stressed or you're not getting a lot of sleep, it doesn't matter how healthy you're eating. You can still be an unhealthy person in your body because health is so much more than just the food you eat.
What about something like gummy bears, you might say, okay, gummy bears or candy, we can for sure say is unhealthy, but think about the people who ride and they have those little goo packets or some people even bring gummy bears with them on their run. They literally need those high sugar things to perform best. If they were to bring broccoli or apple slices on the run. Their stomach would not digest that well, they would be having a lot of problems. It would impact their performance. Their performance would go down.
So there is a actual need in our body at times for those higher sugar things. Maybe you're not a runner though, and maybe you're just sitting at your desk and you don't think, okay I definitely don't need gummy bears though. But maybe gummy bears bring you joy. Maybe they bring you pleasure. Maybe you enjoy them. And couldn't we consider that healthy too, when we're feeling happy? Does it happiness also correlate with health a lot of times?
When we get stuck in these good, bad food labels, a lot of stress can be created. I know when I would go to parties and there would not be a lot of foods I considered good. There wouldn't be a lot of vegetables or I'm vegetarian. So maybe there wouldn't be a good protein source. I would get so stressed out because they didn't think I could eat anything good. I thought everything was unhealthy.
All of that stress. If you do any research on stress. It's going to lead to a lot of harm to your body as well.
Think about this. Can you tell me whether TV is healthy or unhealthy? Is TV good for you or bad for you? It depends Right. It depends what are you using it for? What are you watching? How long are you spending watching TV? Are you getting the other things in your life done? Some people use TV to distract themselves or procrastinate work and maybe it's not very healthy then maybe it's not the right choice. But other people use TV to relax after a long day and unwind, or maybe you connect with your spouse over TV. Watch the bachelor at with your best friends. It's a source of pleasure for you that might make TV healthy, something that's valuable to you in your life.
So this is how I want you to start thinking about food. Think of the nuances that are involved in it. Can we really say it's healthy or unhealthy or does it depend, does it depend on the amount? Does it depend what we're using it for? Does it depend how often we're using it for. Does it depend on our goals and what we want from life. All of those things can be taken into consideration into our food choices.
So, if you must have labels for your food, I really like calling foods like nutritious and less nutritious. Right. These carrots might have more nutrition. Then these gummy bears, right? We can factually say that from a nutritious standpoint. Or calling foods, fuel foods, something like an apple and peanut butter might give me fuel for my afternoon. Keep me fed. Whereas something like a cookie, you might be more of a treat food. It might be delicious, but I might not want to have it all the time if I'm hungry, if I'm looking for true nutrients. Those are some ideas you can think of your own ideas, just to make sure they feel good to you. When you think about these labels, you don't want them to have any guilt or shame associated to them. You don't want any strong emotions associated. You want these labels to be very neutral and factual.
Now the best thing to do I recommend is just getting rid of the labels completely. So trying your best to just call food as they are. Just call cookies, cookies, and just call broccoli, broccoli, not broccoli as some healthy thing you must eat to be good. It's just broccoli. It's a vegetable. That's what broccoli is. Cookies are a type of dessert. That's what cookies are. Peanut butter is crushed up peanuts. Peanut butter is primarily a fat source. Peanut butter is a spread. Bread is a vehicle for spreads. Bread is something that can be toasted. Bread is primarily a carb. We can call them these things, but just calling it for what it is. Food is just food. It doesn't need to be called anything other than food.
And just remember all of these things are nuance. No one food can ever be declared healthy or unhealthy, good or bad. And to get rid of these labels. We need to remember that fact.
Nobody gained weight or developed diabetes from one M and M every day. Right. And even, maybe someone has a bag of M and M's every day, but that's just their favorite treat. They enjoy it, they love it and they move on. And maybe they feel really good about, and the rest of their diet is very balanced. They also get other nutrients might not be a big problem. Now, if someone is eating McDonald's three meals a day and having a pack of M and M's. Maybe not so healthy, but the point is there's no one food that we can hesitantly put these labels on.
So I hope this was helpful today and make sure you're following the podcast.
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