Ginger Bakos of Dinosaurs are NOT Food addresses the “good food” vs. “bad food” question. Is it a myth? Read on.
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Of course, if you were to Google “Good food bad food”, you would come upon 671 million (yep, million) hits. And most of them say things like “10 Bad Foods That Are Actually Healthy!” “5 Healthy Foods That Are Bad For You!”, and so on and so forth.
Our national eating disorder, as it is wisely and aptly named by Michael Pollan, is mostly to blame. We are pushed the message to consume the worst types of foods, while simultaneously, and often in the same commercial break, told how if we were thin our lives would be 9000% better. So we come up with “rules”. We try really hard to classify “good foods” and “bad foods”.
In my coaching, this is easily the most common subject of conversation. Clients all want to be told precisely what to eat, and just how much of it. They want rules dammit, and they want them, now. Which foods are “good” and which foods are “bad”?
There are no good foods and bad foods. There’s just food. To be sure, a dozen donuts a day is not going to bring optimum health, but neither are 5 salads a day. It’s hard to wrap our heads around it. Yet, take one look at any number of articles published on health and healthy eating within even the same week, and you will find highly contradictory “evidence”.
How can this be? Who is right, and who is wrong? Are we as adults so deeply confused that we cannot even sort what might be healthy and not healthy for ourselves? It’s a good question. I would say, that for starters, we all ought to just give ourselves a little more credit. If I were to ask you what a healthy diet would look like, I’d wager you’d give a fairly good answer. I am willing to further bet that if you walked into a local restaurant and asked 10 patrons what the healthiest choices on the menu were, they’d all do a pretty good job of picking them out. I don’t think we as a general public are unaware of what is healthy and what isn’t.
Why then do we get caught up in this rigid moral code when it comes to food? If the answer is simple, why do we so easily get our collective knickers in a twist over food and nutrition?
Aside from religion and politics, nothing brings out the old stump speech like diets (not to be confused with dieting). There are pages upon pages of books, articles and blogs about each dietary choice, conventional diets, whole foods diets, vegan diets, paleo diets, beach diets, low GI diets, juicing diets, nutritarian, fruitarian, cleanses and shakes and shakes that cleanse; and each and every one has a multitude of followers ready to sing its praises and stand united with it against all other diets.
It is enough to drive even the most sensible person a little bit insane. Yet, among all the very smart people (I mean that genuinely, the folks that take the time to study and put together these dietary guidelines are nothing short of brilliant. The ability to wade through the massive amounts of data on diet and come up with anything that makes even remote sense is not something just anyone can do.), there are a growing collection of very WISE people. These wise people have all worked in the world of healthy eating, eating psychology and the food world for many decades, and they all agree on one thing – food is neither good nor bad. They definitely agree that some choices are more healthful than others, but they also agree that Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Margaret’s is not the time to split hairs over healthful ingredients, nor is it the day to deprive yourself of the joy of gathering and partaking of a meal with friends and family. You can save that for the day after.
And there isn’t much that makes me more sad for folks than when they decry their entire eating life based on one seemingly unhealthy choice. When they are defeated by a single donut.
On my sweet friend’s anniversary, her husband brought her her favorite breakfast biscuit from Chik-fil-A. Her first thought, “Great. Now I’ve ruined the whole day.” She ate a breakfast biscuit brought to her with great thought and love, and could only think about how this ONE food would ruin her entire day of healthy eating. Now, a group of ladies all came to her aid, and told her that it was awesome her husband brought her breakfast, and her favorite, too, and that there was always salad for lunch. She felt better, but gosh…
That’s an awful lot of power to give a ball of dough and some sausage.
It sounds silly when I put it that way, but really isn’t that what we do?
One of my first clients, who I helped with getting her kiddos eating well, had been inspired to seek help for her own disordered eating. She came to understand how much power she had given food and the messages it sent to her about her weight, and how she was beginning to see that reflected in her daughters.
One day, she texted me, or I like to say her ED texted me, “I just ate 3 cookies.” Not sure if this was a “good” thing or “bad” thing in her mind, I texted back something inane like “OK”. To which she replied, “My therapist says that 100 calories of cookies is exactly the same as 100 calories of carrots. And that just can’t be right.” To which I said, “For you, that’s absolutely correct.” Later, I found out that they weren’t even cookies, they were mini cookies and we had a good laugh about it. And I asked her, “So what if you had eaten the whole bag of cookies?” Her eyes widened with the preposterousness of such an idea, but then she said, “I guess it would have been OK.” Of course it would have. Cookies are just balls of dough, after all. They have no lethal intention or capacity in and of themselves.
And there’s more to her story. After eating all kinds of things she would have previously deemed “bad” foods, some of which would never make the “bad” foods list for many other folks, she had become convinced that she’d put on weight. Yet, when she weighed in at therapy, the scale hadn’t moved at all.
You see, food really is neither good, nor bad. It is we who put that onto it.
In Nourishing Wisdom, Marc David has this to say about it:
“Food is morally neutral. So is every other object in the universe. Is a baseball bat good or bad? Depends how you use it. You can hit a home run and make thousands of fans deliriously happy, or you can smash someone’s car window and ruin their day. Is a food good or bad? It depends how you use it.”
It is so easy to fall into the trap, but I know from personal experience that it is not worth it. The daily battle between what you eat and numbers on a scale is perhaps the most futile battle of all.
And it is my humble mission on this Earth, that we all be freed.
These past few months have brought this all into high relief for me. As our little family was jumbled and rocked, life changed, and I found my gift of flexibility more valuable and precious than ever-including in what we eat.
As you might guess, as a rule, my pantry and fridge is stocked with whole foods. It doesn’t take much time, but most meals do take a little preparation, and there’s not a whole lot of “throw it in the microwave” options.
Running between meetings and hospitals and appointments for 6 weeks had this family eating lots of pizza, microwave meals and yes, even McDonald’s. I’m not proud of it per se, but there is no way I’m going to beat myself up over it, either. Thankfully, those days are behind us, now. But in that time, all I cared about was getting little bellies fed and tucked in at night. And if I had been forced to expend my mental and emotional energy on what food was “good” or “bad” over these past 6 weeks, I’ll be frank, I might not have made it.
It got me thinking, a lot. I thought a lot about “good” food and “bad” food. I thought a lot about these futile battles. Why do we give food so very much power? Why do we bicker over the diets people choose? Why do we suppose that it is WE who know best, and that we know best for each and every other person? When for every person who thrives on a particular diet there is someone who failed miserably, became gravely ill or malnourished. People who “failed” at certain diets are not confused, they did not do it wrong, they are simply different than the person who did so well.
Or is it a question of ego? Do we suppose that if we can just nail it down then we will be the very best person we can be? Well-loved? Beautiful? Do we imagine that if we can defend our food choices that we will be above reproach when questioned about our health or weight? Do we suppose the right food choices will lead to 100% optimum health? Do we suppose that our pear shaped 5’3” body will suddenly mold into 5’10” and slender if we just eat more lettuce?
What are our true motivations for assigning food this way? Is this how we want to live and eat? Is this how we want our children to live and eat? Take a deep, fearless look at how you think about food. What do you see? It’s possible to change it. I’ll stand by you.
Today, I am thankful for healthy bodies, healthy minds and the fortitude of a family that has emerged (mostly) unscathed from rough waters. And I’ll tell you, life is so much more than the foods we eat and the weight we carry. I know this much is true.
The Weizmann Institute released a fascinating study that proves this all quite nicely. You can read about it HERE!
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Ginger Bakos is a Family Food Coach in Stow, Ohio committed to freeing families from the “kid food” cycle and guiding them to a healthful and positive relationship with real food. She writes and speaks on the subjects of family food, eating psychology, and teaching healthful eating habits to kids. You can reach out to her at ginger@dinosaursarenotfood.com.