Healing Through Food
It’s fair to say that we’ve all struggled with our feelings about food at one point or another, right? For most of us, dealing with food is at least complicated, if not downright fraught.
Food has probably felt like a temptress, a sabotage, an escape, a secret friend, an enemy, an indulgence, an affair, or a really complex math equation that you just couldn’t seem to dissect. There is so much conflicting information floating around about what’s good for you and how you should eat that it could become a full time job just trying to get it right. (In fact, this obsession with proper eating is the basis for the newest –although not official – eating disorder called Orthorexia, where “clean eating” and rigid rules around nutrition take over the person’s life.)
And we are learning now that “getting it right” is a problematic goal to begin with. Food is much more than fuel. Food is connection, pleasure, nourishment, creativity, passion, love, and art. Food brings people together, creates celebrations, brings us joy, and ignites our appetites for life. Food is so much more than protein, fat, carbs, fiber, and micronutrients.
When we try to control ourselves around food, we villainize food and disconnect from our bodies. We use our brains to think about how to eat rather than trusting our bodies to tell us what they need. We see food as something that needs to be limited and restricted, rather than a meaningful source of pleasure and comfort. We think there is a right or wrong way to eat, and we can either succeed or fail at eating.
Creating peace around food means that there are no rules. There’s no prescribed way to eat. All foods have some value, and every choice you make is entirely valid. Nutritionally dense foods are not better than foods that exist primarily for visual or gastronomic pleasure. When you have this level of absolute freedom, you are creating space to reconnect with your innate wisdom around food and find genuine satisfaction.
I remember the first time I actually saw this shift in action in my own life. I was camping with my family, and had spent a couple of days having mostly packaged, non-perishable foods that were easy to travel with. Think sandwiches, granola bars, Doritos, and a fair amount of Oreos. The afternoon of day 3, I had this overwhelming craving for fresh foods. I felt like if I didn’t get a salad, I would literally die.
This was the first time I could ever remember being free to have what I wanted, and I genuinely wanted something “healthy.” My entire life, foods like salad were a “should,” and I never even considered whether I liked them or wanted to eat them. It was just part of the prescription for losing weight, so they always felt like a chore to be checked off my list.
Being able to hear my body telling me what it needed through this powerful craving for raw, crunchy, fresh produce was life changing. It was the first tangible evidence of a big internal shift away from restriction and control and toward variety, freedom, and real satisfaction.
I should note here that I’m not congratulating myself for wanting the “healthy” foods. I’m celebrating being able to see my body’s wisdom, and knowing I could trust myself not to subsist solely on Oreos for the rest of my life. It felt like a return to myself; a reconnection with my intuition. It was such a relief to have irrefutable evidence that I didn’t need rules in order to have a varied, supportive, and pleasurable diet that worked for my body.
Teaching myself to cook has been an extension of this process. I find so much pleasure in thinking about what I want to eat, finding a recipe or figuring out how to make it, and creating it for myself. I do like to eat out, but the creative process of cooking, when I have the time and energy, is invaluable to me for many reasons.
I’m not an especially good cook, but I feel confident in the kitchen and only make things that I want to eat. So most things turn out pretty well! There’s a huge energetic difference between trying to put together some diet recipe that you think you should have but doesn’t appeal to you, and making something you’re excited about with foods you know you enjoy.
By giving myself the freedom to really make what I enjoy and noticing how everything works with my body, I naturally gravitate toward more vegetable-centric dishes because they are more satisfying for me. This is not a rule, it’s a preference. Back when I had lots of food rules, I thought I would “prefer” fettuccine alfredo for every meal for the rest of my life, but that’s because I had an artificial craving for it because it was restricted.
When you really allow yourself to have whatever you want (and enjoy it!), you’ll be surprised by what you really want. You can trust your body, and you can love food.
