By Melissa Spady (Contributor) – Email
Print Edition: May 22, 2013
Vegetarian, vegan, Paleo, South Beach, Atkins, raw food, organic Mediterranean … the list goes on and on. Some of these are a temporary fix, and some are more permanent, but what they all have in common is that they are restrictive “one-approach-fits-all” diets.
I might already be meeting resistance from those who feel parts of my list are “lifestyles,” but I’m going to stop you right there. Dictionary.com defines a diet in the same way as I understand it. That is, “a particular selection of food, especially as designed or prescribed to improve a person’s physical condition or to prevent, or treat a disease.” The selection of food you choose to ingest is your diet, whether it has a particular name or not.
Some may argue that certain dietary approaches are better than others because they have an endorsement from a medical doctor, but I think that’s a bunch of hooey. Sure, medical professionals are experts on the human body, but they’re not an expert on me.
I’ve tried converting to strict vegetarianism for some years now, and I have failed enormously. Most of my meals are meatless, and quite a few are vegan friendly, but I always hit that wall where my body tells me, “you need to eat some meat, girl.” It’s not a craving, like when I drive past McDonald’s and yearn for French fries. Cravings pass with time. It’s a deep and internal alarm that tells me what my body is missing. Ignoring it won’t make it go away, and if I do, I’ll feel the physical consequences.
When I would fall off the wagon—and I always would—there would be a distinct sense of guilt after indulging in a turkey breast. I’ll do better, I promised myself. I never did, and I began to get anxious about eating. What if I eat the wrong thing? If I start telling people I’m a vegetarian will they judge me if I slip up and eat meat? Would that make me a liar? It became an unhealthy obsession.
What I’ve learned in my many failed attempts to adopt a restrictive diet is that it doesn’t feel good to me; physically or mentally. I already have a large list of food no-nos, why should I feel the need to add more in order to fall under a label? That’s all a widely-accepted diet is, a label. It’s socially exclusive and a lot of the time makes people outside the label feel bad because they are on the “wrong” side. It’s become yet another way to bully each other and ourselves into feeling shame for not fitting the mould.
Self-important labellers step aside, because I’m about to steamroll all over your little power trip. A label is nothing more than a word hell-bent on making people who don’t fit inside the neat little box feel shitty about themselves, and I’m tired of it. I think a lot of people are. What’s right for one person may be harmful for another, especially when it comes to speciality diets. I know I could never live on a raw vegan diet while maintaining my health, so I won’t, and I’m not going to let anyone make me feel bad about that decision.
I’m all about building a healthy relationship to whole foods. I listen to what my body is telling me and I go by that.
If not eating animals or animal by-products or gluten—or whatever—is healthy for you, I support that completely! Just don’t do it for the words, shame tactics, weird superiority complex and super powers.
