putting aside how there are no inherently “healthy” or “unhealthy” foods but just ones that are more or less appropriate for your nutritional needs in a given moment, one of the most annoying things about diet culture is how people feel the need to performatively admonish “unhealthy” foods.
i saw a video the other day of someone making delicious-looking slow cooker beef tacos, and the notes were full of people commenting on how it looks very tasty but must be so “unhealthy” with all of that fat and salt and red meat, and i just… don’t get why you need to performatively express this concern? humans enjoy things that might not be the “optimal” decisions for their health all the time! if you don’t want the tacos, don’t eat the tacos. and if you do want the tacos, just eat them!!! you don’t need to go on about how “unhealthy” they are!!
these rituals of performative deprecation only serve to guilt people into orthorexic bullshit. you don’t need to remind people of the nutritional content of food that they just watched be prepared. we aren’t going to collectively all forget to eat a variety of nutrients just because it’s been a few hours since we’ve last heard someone express pointless guilt over food.
one of the greatest parts of food is being able to enjoy it! let yourself enjoy eating! be confident in your ability to make decisions for yourself! and be a little hedonistic! treat yourself! down with cycles of guilt and restriction that ruin people’s relationships with food! down with diet culture!
