OK so I’m not saying that some foods are not more nutritious than others. But no food should be forbidden. Here’s why- Food has many purposes, and denying any one of them isn’t healthy. Everything we eat is beautifully distributed to where it needs to go to sustain us, so it’s nutrition, fuel. There are foods packed with nutrients. There are foods that give us good feelings from pleasant memories, or are cultural traditions. Some foods have little “nutrional value” and just exist to taste good (spoiler- even those foods have nutrients the body will use.) And if we make some foods forbidden, guess what our human tendency is? Yep. To crave it with every fiber of our being and to binge on it like a zombie, because we can “never have it again.” So what if we gave ourselves permission to eat anything that we wanted? If we apply mindfulness, intuitive eating, awareness of whether or not food is really what we need in the moment, and make an empowered decision to eat something, then we have given ourselves permission. Permission Practice goes like this: 1. Decide what you will do AFTER you finish eating. 2. Choose the food, how much, put it on a pretty plate. 3. Sit down and mindfully eat and enjoy it. 4. Tell yourself you can have more later/tomorrow/etc. (Because it’s true.) 5. Put the plate away. 6. Do the thing you decided to do next. When we consciously choose and have awareness of what we eat and why, we have the power over food. When we make food forbidden, we make it stronger than us. Diet culture has lied to us. Denying isn’t the solution. Self awareness, conscious choosing, and planning is. Stop expecting more from food than it can give you, and stop giving power over to a substance that isn’t meant to have that power. Enjoy your tacos 🌮 😉 Image description: list “substitutes for a healthy diet. Pasta-zucchini. Chips-carrots. Milk-coconut milk. Rice-cauliflower. Butter- sadness. Cheese- nope. Tacos-this is stupid I’m not doing it.