3 Reframes for Black-and-White Food Thinking
Trying to place black-and-white labels on foods like “good” or “bad,” “healthy” or “unhealthy,” and “allowed” or “off limits” will leave you stuck at family dinner trying to determine if your auntie’s homemade chili is healthy or not….
Because it has beans and tomatoes, so that’s good, right? But she probably used full-fat ground beef, so that’s bad…well you could just ask her what she used…and even if she did include the fatty one, you’ll probably be fine as long as you don’t add too much cheese or sour cream…or maybe you could just skip the dessert tonight instead, or…AUGHHHH, BRAIN! Stop it, I want to get off this ride!
Placing foods into black-and-white boxes might seem like a good idea because it simplifies your food decisions, and the labels can provide a false sense of certainty and control: the security of knowing exactly what’s in your food, what’s going in your mouth, and how that’ll affect your body.
But oversimplifying your nutrition in this way creates fear-based thinking, and the inflexible restrictions often lead to increased food cravings, overeating, and distress around eating.
If your priority is to improve your relationship with food so that you can:
Stop undereating or overeating,
End your preoccupation with food, and
Trade food restrictions for food freedom
Here are three ways you can reframe black-and-white food thinking:
“Foods are either healthy or unhealthy.”
This is factually incorrect; there are no foods that are either healthy or unhealthy.
Some foods contain more vitamins and minerals, fiber, or water than others. Some foods are more heavily processed than others, containing added sugar, sodium, or fats. And each food has varying combinations of macronutrients: carbohydrates, protein, and fats.
But it’s tough to even place foods on a spectrum from healthy to unhealthy because needs vary from person to person. Take a bell pepper. If you’re like most people, you’d argue that this veggie is unequivocally healthy. But while peppers may be fine for most, they might be a trigger food for an individual with inflammatory bowel disease—in other words, bell pepper would not be healthy for them.
A food’s health benefits or lack thereof cannot be determined out of context. For greater accuracy, you must understand the needs of the person ingesting the food and where it fits into their diet as a whole.
Additionally, while what you eat contributes to overall health, so do the amounts you eat.
This is why I prefer the terms fun and fundamental over “healthy” vs. “junk” foods.
Fundamental foods are the foods you want to make up the foundational majority of your diet. They're foods that are mostly whole, minimally processed, rich in vitamins and minerals. Think in the vein of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, nuts and seeds. Each individual will obviously want to make additions or substitutions based on their own body’s needs and personal preferences.
Fun foods are ones that are more heavily processed, typically containing more added fats, salt, and sugar. Think chips (crisps), sweets, fast food, fried food, and the like. While these foods will not cause adverse health effects in small amounts (with obvious exceptions like a person with celiac disease eating gluten-filled cake), they can begin to affect our health when eaten in larger amounts.
Fun foods have their benefits as well. For example, if a person who has struggled in the past with binge eating finds that regularly eating a serving of ice cream keeps their cravings from building up to a fever pitch, I would argue that the ice cream is a net benefit. Avoiding binge eating is beneficial not just for their physical health but mental health as well.
“Unhealthy foods are problematic and should be avoided.”
Because fun foods, as described above, can fit into the overall context of a healthy diet, they don’t need to be avoided.
The problems we pin on them generally come when fun foods are eaten in large amounts, in some cases making up the majority of a person’s diet. In part, this is because fun foods are hyperpalatable: their components make them more rewarding, which means it’s harder to stop eating them, even if you’re full.
When you consistently ingest more calories than your body needs, you’ll gain weight, and it’s well known that the Western world has a big problem with fat bodies—which is a discussion for another day. But it’s not so much that the foods themselves are problematic but that resultant weight gain is seen as problematic by many individuals.
To add to that, fun foods are often eaten in less-than-ideal circumstances. For example, they’re the go-to for emotional eating, precisely because they’re so psychologically rewarding. Or they may be eaten mindlessly in front of a screen, which can contribute to eating more than you initially intended.
This all to say, the problem is not with fun food itself.
The problem is that the habits we’ve developed around fun foods aren’t serving us.
Including fun foods in your diet without overeating them, emotional or binge eating, and without eating them mindlessly is possible. I know this for a fact, because I do, and I teach my Food Body Self® students how to eat anything they want while feeling in control, too.
If you have a food that you consider to be a “trigger,” you can learn about why that food is a trigger, and find a path to freeing yourself from that food’s control.
“I can’t eat bad foods.”
You don’t have to eat anything you don’t want to, and I certainly won’t force you to. But again, there’s no reason you need to place a food off limits unless it causes an adverse health reaction for you.
To reiterate, eating fun foods in moderation won’t negatively impact your health. And if your problem with fun foods is that you have a tendency to eat them in larger amounts or higher frequencies than you would like, that’s a problem that can be solved without cutting them out of your diet altogether.
All food serves a purpose, even things that prior to today you were labeling as “bad” or “unhealthy.” For example:
Athletes, from endurance athletes to powerlifters, will often eat candy to replenish their glycogen stores
Individuals looking to gain weight or who have trouble keeping weight on may prefer to eat calorie-dense foods
Fun foods can serve as a point of connection, celebration, healing (such as in the case of bringing a grieving individual a “comfort” dish), or to enhance other emotional experiences in wholesome ways
While you may have foods you choose to avoid or minimize for various reasons, rather than saying, “I can’t eat that,” you may choose to instead ask yourself:
“Where does this food fit in the context of my ideal diet?”
Labeling foods as “good” or “bad,” “healthy” or “unhealthy,” and “allowed” or “off limits” are great ways to foster an unhealthy relationship with food.
Whether you’re overthinking food, feeling distressed because of too many food restrictions, or you find yourself in a pattern where you’re yo-yoing between “clean,” “healthy” eating and “bad” eating, it’s time for change.
I imagine that if you’re reading this, you want to stop overthinking food decisions and instead feel a sense of peace and freedom in your relationship with food.
If so, black-and-white food labels aren’t going to get you there.
That’s why changing the way you think about food is an integral part of having a healthy relationship with it. And that’s exactly what we do inside of Food Body Self® Coaching.
Food labels are out. Food freedom is in.
Join us here.