What makes a food “bad”? What makes a food “good”?

Is it sugar? 

Sugar gives us energy, most of us agree that having energy is not bad.

Is it fat? 

Fat helps hormones travel from point A to point B in the body and keeps us full for longer, still not bad.

Veggies are high in micronutrients, but that doesn’t make them “good”. If we haven’t eaten all day, veggies aren’t going to be enough to fuel us and give us all the macronutrients we need.

Our relationship with food is something that has been crafted over many years of familial influence, social gatherings, and trendy “quick grab” headlines. You likely have foods categorized into groups like “breakfast, lunch, dinner”, “good and bad”, “healthy and unhealthy”. While some of these categories might be useful, others might be a barricade built in front of our own food freedom.

Despite what we have been taught, there are no “good” or “bad” foods. Our individual health is much too ambiguous to attach such labels to our food. These words often do the opposite of what we intend and lead to counterproductive nutrition behaviors and leave us stuck in a cycle of restricting ourselves from certain foods.

We give ourselves praise (and may receive it from others) for eating foods that we label with a positive or “good” connotation, while we see punishment for eating foods that we label with a negative or “bad” connotation. Praising or demonizing food in such a way skews us into a battle of constant punishment and reward.

Let’s set a metaphorical (yet highly relatable) scene to further understand the weight of our words:

You just got back from vacation. You were a little looser than normal with food and slipped out of your habits a bit. 

Eating dessert every night on vacation makes you feel as though you had been “bad” for indulging in what you considered a “bad” food every day.

To “make up for” your consecutive dessert nights, you scold yourself into not having any desserts for the next month, which is hard because you love desserts!

One week into your “No-Dessert November” your boss brings in doughnuts as an afternoon pick-me-up. You love doughnuts. You have one, then two, then five. What happened?!

You get angry with yourself, blame yourself for eating the “bad” food, and add on another month to your dessert ban. 

The exhausting endless cycle continues. You eat “bad” food, come up with a plan to erase the “bad” food, live a very unbalanced food tale, and end up in the negative head space where you started.

It’s time to change the narrative. 

Put a block in the forever spinning wheels of hurtful self talk and destructive behavior change. 

Exercising to “burn off” yesterday’s cake, limiting the number of meals we consume in a day due to eating “unhealthy” earlier in the day, or miserably “getting back on track” after a week long MyFitnessPal-free vacation are all forms of self-punishment that originate with how we label certain foods.

Food does not have morality, it cannot commit crimes, and it cannot intentionally sabotage you.

All food is made up of calories and calories give our bodies energy. Instead of thinking of food as “good” or “bad”, we can think about all foods containing varying amounts of nutrients. 

When we take the macronutrient breakdown of a doughnut, we learn that a doughnut is simply a source of carbohydrates and fats with minimal protein. A doughnut may have less micronutrients and fiber than a more whole food comparison (like a sweet potato), but that doesn’t make it bad. All foods have applications where they may be more or less useful for what our mind and body are trying to accomplish.

Food choices might be more efficient or inefficient in regards to our short or long term goals, but they are never “good” nor “bad”. Reserve the latter words for the court system and keep them out of food talk.

We all have to eat each day if we want to be present and experience the things we love, so shouldn’t we do our best to make it the most enjoyable and stress free experience possible? 

The more that we attach non-food related labels to our food, the more likely we are to designate those food items to our actions. Exercising for the day does not mean that you “earned” any type of food and going on vacation does not mean that you need to restrict any type of food. No foods are “good” or “bad” as they all simply contain varying applications based on the stressors presented, environment you’re in, or the goals you have set.

When we allow ourselves more flexibility in our food choices and look beyond “good” and “bad” or “healthy” and “unhealthy,” we open ourselves up to not just enjoying foods we love, but doing so without continuing to spin in the cycle of perpetual restriction.

For more guidance and support as you navigate your goals, your eating habits, and your relationship with food and with yourself, you can read more about our 1:1 Flexible Nutrition coaching here.