There is a detrimental ingredient lurking in our food. Often we don’t even realize it’s there. It could be in the ice cream you ate last night or the pizza you ordered yesterday. It could be in the homemade fermented sourdough bread you have every morning for breakfast. And–believe it or not–this ingredient could even be hiding in your grass-fed burger, your pastured eggs or the fresh berries and raw cream you have for dessert.
Yes, this ingredient can be present in every single food you eat… or none at all. It’s all up to you.
The number one ingredient you need to avoid?
Guilt.
I know. Not what you wanted to hear.
Sorry. I know you wanted me to say MSG. Or fructose. Or omega-6 fatty acids or gluten or hydrolyzed soy protein… or some other commonly demonized ingredient. But no.
Although there are certainly foods out there that can damage our bodies and brains, the most toxic food can’t hold a candle to the destruction incurred when every bite of food is swallowed with a hefty side of guilt, anxiety, fear or obsessive thinking.
Stressing About Food: It’s No Way to Live
Don’t get me wrong: there’s nothing wrong with trying to eat healthy and live healthy. But it’s not hard to cross the line from living healthfully to agonizing over every bite you take.
Some questions to ask yourself:
- Does figuring out what to eat for lunch trigger stress and anxiety?
- Do you try to make a healthy choice and then feel ashamed of it later because part of your meal didn’t line up with some health guru’s recommendations?
- Are you constantly wondering which guru is right?
What if all this anxiety and agony is causing more health problems than whatever food you may (or may not) be eating?
Don’t believe me?
Don’t underestimate how stress impacts your health! 
And yes: anxiety, worry, fear, obsession, guilt and shame all fall under the category of stress. Stress triggers a cascade of endocrine response in the body.
Essentially, too much stress floods your body with hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. An overload of these hormones (especially a chronic overload) can cause a myriad of health problems. Robert Sapolsky talks about this extensively in his book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.
Here’s a short list of health problems that can be caused by stress:
- Acne
- Panic attacks
- Weight gain
- Fatigue
- Irritability
- Hair loss
- High blood sugar
- High insulin
- Insomnia
- Lower back pain
- Allergies
- Impotence
- Poor memory
- High blood pressure
- Arthritis
- Gut flora imbalance
- Fibromyalgia
- Irritable bowel syndrome
- Suppressed immunity
- Asthma
- Accelerated aging
- Headaches
- Depression
- Loss of lean tissue mass
And that’s the short list. Basically, stress–especially the chronic kind–is not your friend. And believe me, worrying about what you’ll eat and then feeling guilty afterward definitely translates into stress.
After all, aren’t all the problems listed above the kind you’re trying to overcome by eating healthy food? So don’t thwart your efforts by replacing junk foods with obsessive thought patterns and negative emotions like shame and guilt.
So what do you do? Sure, work towards eating food that gives you a sense of health and vitality. But don’t let your eating choices rule your life.
Enjoy your food and enjoy your life without the bondage of anxiety and guilt!
More Metabolism Articles:
- I Stopped Dieting 6 Years Ago, and This Happened…
- How to Stop Binge Eating
- Stop Dieting: Why Giving Up on Dieting Isn’t Giving Up On Yourself
- Why You Really Lost 10 lbs in One Week
You can also read more about how I learned to eat and exercise in a way that nourished my metabolism (without stressing about it!) in my book The Nourished Metabolism. No gimmicks or magic pills, just a balanced perspective on how you can improve your metabolic health with simple changes to your diet and lifestyle. Click here to check it out.
Elizabeth is the founder of The Nourished Life and has been writing about natural living for 12 years. Her work has been featured at Shape, Bustle, and Mother Earth Living. Her mission is to help you lower your stress levels and find fun ways to become happier and healthier. Read more about Elizabeth here.
Thank you!
You’re welcome, Charity! Glad you liked it.
Oh my goodness…I was just over at my friend’s house, the friend who “turned me on” to “real food”, and we were talking about just this very thing as we sat in her back yard, sipping coffee with homemade flavored creamer, and watching her chickens. Maybe one of her chickens is working for you LOL…Thanks for reminding me that stressing over the not-so-good food we sometimes have to eat, because let’s face it…I have a real budget to contend with in order to eat real food…is just as harmful as some of the things lurking in that less than ideal food.
I agree. Real food is wonderful–but we have to learn to apply it to real people in the real world with, as you said, real budgets and real preferences and real restrictions!
I personally got to the point where I could ridicule every item in my fridge and pantry, no matter how “healthy” it was I could find something to hold against it. That’s when I knew it wasn’t my diet that needed to change–it was my attitude! That’s still a work in progress, to be honest, but so far working to remove toxic emotions from my ingredient list has given me a greater sense of peace about the choices I make and has helped me find my own way of eating that is both healthy and enjoyable.
Awesome post!
Thanks! 🙂
It’s the difference between doing something that might have negative consequences, and doing something *demonstrably wrong.* Guilt is for wrongdoing. It’s not wrong to eat. Your body needs to eat. Just understand that eating healthy food has good consequences, and eating unhealthy food can cause you physical damage. But even unhealthy food is not 100% poison–if it were, it would kill you right after you ate it. Oftentimes, something in that food is still nourishing. So in a way you are still taking care of yourself.
Mark’s Daily Apple (a Primal eating blog) talks about the 80/20 principle. The way he puts it, as long as you eat healthy 80 percent of the time, you can afford to slack off 20 percent of the time. Not that I want to give anyone another number to obsess over, but there you go.
Weston Price used to describe the unhealthy foods as “displacing foods of modern commerce.” Note the word *displacing.* Eating those foods matters the most in terms of health consequences when they are ALL that you ever eat, or when they displace enough of the healthy foods that you’re shorting yourself. But you could eat sugar and white flour from time to time and not mess yourself up. Probably how our grandparents got away with it without getting fat and/or diabetic in middle age–or younger–like so many of us are doing now. The sugar and white flour had not yet completely displaced foods like liver and whole eggs.
Great comment, Dana. I think the problem is that so many of us allow our new found knowledge of healthy eating affect us emotionally. And emotions shouldn’t be driving our decisions about food–that can really start a vicious cycle! The key is learning to take emotion out of the equation and just do the best you can.
I certainly agree about displacing nutrient-dense foods. That’s a really important point. Almost any food can have a place in a healthy diet, provided it doesn’t overshadow other important foods that provide a well-rounded supply of nutrients.
Thank you! It’s frustrating at times trying to feed my family of 7 real food while on a budget. I have to remember that I’m doing the best with what I have, and as I know better, I do better.
Trying to feed a family of seven real food on a budget is no small task!
I feel for you. It’s so important to allow ourselves to do the best in our circumstances with what’s available to us. There’s folks out there who like to judge, but they really don’t know what choices they’d make if they were in someone else’s shoes (though they may like to think they know!). Real food is important, but it’s not the only part of living well–so putting too much focus and energy on what you eat is definitely not healthy. Just do what you can and don’t worry about the rest!
Bless! Well said indeed.
Well said!! I struggle with this all the time. I even struggle with telling people what I eat from time to time for fear that they’ll judge me- which I think is ridiculous of me. Eating healthy has become such a trend! It’s totally a good and wonderful trend- but wow can it also be taken to the extreme too. there’s always a balance!
I agree. Extremes are never healthy!
Excellent post!
When the guilt goes too far it’s called orthorexia. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
“Orthorexia nervosa (also known as orthorexia) is a term used by Steven Bratman to describe people who have developed a fixation with healthy or righteous eating and has been referred to as a mental disorder.”
Maybe it is not in the DSMIV (yet) but it sure has made a lot of people out of control with their relationship to food.
I actually see more of orthorexia than anorexia in my practice (with bulimia topping the list).
I love your ability to keep an even keel and share it with all of us.
I’ve heard a lot of people say with pride that they exhibit symptoms of orthorexia–as if it’s a badge if honor to be obsessive about what you eat. It’s a shame that so many people feel that perfectionism is acceptable when it comes to healthy eating.
As many have said, excellent post. As a compulsive eater, everyday is a struggle and blogs like yours help me tremendously. I have wondered about this issue and thought, how I would love a day of peace where food is concerned – that is a great deal of stress. We all need to sit back and look at food differently.
Yes, it really can be stressful to constantly worry if you’re making the right choices, especially when you’re feeding a family as well as yourself. It takes a lot of practice to learn to let go and make peace with what you eat.
Thanks so much. I needed this reminder.
this was awesome! thank you SO much! i tend to be orthorexic, but lately i’ve been trying not to stress about everything i put in my mouth and it’s difficult. but i finally realized that stressing out over “bad” food is more harmful than eating it! and it’s great to get reminders like this. i think most “gurus” leave this very important aspect out of health, so it’s very refreshing to read something like this.
There’s only been a small handful of health gurus I’ve seen who do address this side of the issue–more power to them! It’s not an easy balancing act.
I think a lot of gurus are gurus because they are so zealous and adamant about their ideas. People get swept up in the passion of the moment and forget that applying these rigid expectations in the real world will usually end up being self-defeating.
Amen to that!x!x! Extremists in anything are blinded by the “soap box” they stand on…
You are exactly right! Good reminder for me that is for sure!
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I’m going to print this out and put it up on my fridge. Like others here, since becoming a Real Food convert my food awareness at times has hit a maximum stress point. I get frustrated when people whose opinions I admire and respect proclaim you MUST find some source for raw milk or… you MUST eat this/that. It isn’t that I disagree with them but for heaven’s sake, sometimes you simply DON’T HAVE A CHOICE (either do to lack of availability or budget). So beyond the fact that our brains are already frustrated that we can’t find what we want/need to eat, we have these other voices often making us feel inferior as well. I loved Nina Planck’s book “Real Foods for Mother and Baby” because she was so common sense and had the philosophy of “Look, this is the best option but if you can’t get it, that’s ok. Get the best you can afford or the best you can find… and let it go.” Thanks again for posting this! You’ve expressed EXACTLY what I’ve been feeling the last couple of months.
I know what you mean. I’ve often struggled with this as well. It gets really hard when you’re worried about living up to someone else’s ideals. And it’s ultimately impossible because all of us are so unique as individuals, and our lives, our families, our financial situations, etc. are so unique. It’s impossible for every one of us to live up to the same standard. We each just have to make our own priorities and our own choices, and not try to live someone else’s life.
Oh boy, Elizabeth! I couldn’t agree more – and I’ve seen this happen any number of times with friends who don’t quite get the “food thing”. I think there is a huge mind/body/food connection and the closest thing I’ve seen to common sense approaches to this idea are the books on eating as if you were French. They may not be exactly right all the time, but they sure are close. The real Mediterranean way of eating (I hate the word diet) as explained by Stanley Fishman is also a much better approach. I love that there is no guilt involved with eating good, wholesome foods in the French and/or Mediterranean way of eating. Much like WAPF without the guilt! I love WAPF, but it can be very stressful and if I stray I feel bad for days. But no more. I do the best I can with what I have and it works for my family and me. Foods and eating should never replace common sense or instinct.
I did read French Women Don’t Get Fat. There were some great nuggets of information in there, especially about really savoring and enjoying your food without guilt. That’s something many of us could practice more in our daily lives.
Hi Elizabeth,
I’m thinking about doing the GAPS diet for a short while to make sure that my gut is healthy. Do you think this specific diet can be stressful? Also, how can I get enough carbs in me on such a diet? I don’t do well on low-carb, but do fine on a diet with moderate amounts of carbs.
Fruit is allowed on the GAPS diet, so that is an excellent way to get your carbs while on GAPS. This diet can be mentally stressful for some because it is a strict protocol and some find it hard to adjust. So it really depends on the person and how mentally prepared you are to embark on GAPS.
Thanks Elizabeth 🙂 I’m not for sure if I need to be on the GAPS diet. I can digest potatoes and dairy pretty well. What do you think? Should I just do it just in case since my diet wasn’t ideal while I was growing up? I’m definitely prepared for the GAPS journey. But if I can already digest many foods that are not recommended in the full GAPS diet, then why should I bother (I think I just answered my own question, lol, but do desire your opinion).
I’ve often wondered the same thing for myself. I don’t have any digestive issues and only minor health issues I’m looking to improve. I’ve thought about doing GAPS but decided the full GAPS diet is really more than I’m willing to take on right now. It’s really up to you whether or not you think it’s worth the effort considering whatever things you’re looking to improve.
For me personally, I’ve found taking hydrochloric acid supplements has been more helpful than I anticipated. From what I’ve been reading in Why Stomach Acid is Good for You, this may be because stomach acid is the crucial first step in a cascade of digestive functions. So for people with minor problems, hydrochloric acid supplementation may help resolve issues related to a less than optimal digestive system.
Hi Elizabeth,
Thanks for the reply! I have contacted Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride a while back regarding my situation, and she stated to just stick to the Full GAPS diet for a while and not the intro. I didn’t tell her though that I am able to digest starchy tubers, like sweet potatoes and yams, well. I’m thinking about just going through the Full GAPS. The only thing that concerns me is not getting enough carbs, and the fructose content in fruit and honey. Should I be concerned about fructose? I have been struggling with insomnia lately, but have noticed that my carb intake each day doesn’t even reach 100 grams. I’m not even trying to eat low-carb either. This is why I’m trying to include the sweet potatoes and yams. When I do go through the Full GAPS diet, I think I’m going to load up on bananas and carrots. My body can’t tolerate a diet that is below 100 grams of carbs, or else I would rarely sleep!
I am the same way. Under 100 g of carbs is definitely a no-no for me. And I really feel better at least 150 g per day. I personally am not worried about the fructose in fruit. That’s the way nature packaged it and I’m cool with that. I feel that fruits and veggies can do wonders for digestive health in terms of nutrients and prebiotics. I’ve certainly noticed some health improvements since including a lot more of both in my diet.
Elizabeth–thank you for this post! I have a tendency to obsess and it’s been difficult breastfeeding a colicky baby and trying to figure out what he is reacting to in my diet! It could make me crazy. I had to slow down my family on the GAPS diet because I felt like I was stressing out too much. This week I’m heading off on a road trip and stressing about making all of the snacks for us all… so your post came just in time. It’s not that big of a deal…I keep reminding myself.
Hi Colleen,
I wonder if just stress is causing your baby to be collicky. I wouldn’t stress at all regarding the GAPS diet. Our gut flora can react negatively with bad stress as well, not just with diet. While traveling, just keep the food simple. If you are able to tolerate boiled eggs and aged cheese (allowed in full GAPS), then consume those types of foods. You can bring beef jerky, grass-fed hotdogs, salami, sausages, and other meats that won’t spoil with you. You could have bananas and other fruits that don’t need refrigeration. You could even bring bone broths, kefir, and yorgurt in glass jars to keep in a cooler, and then use an electric stove top to heat the bone broths if you can find an outlet (a gas station may allow you to use one). Also raw eggs don’t even need refrigeration for up to one month or longer, and you can consume the yolks raw, which Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride highly recommends anyways. Many of the foods we think need refrigeration often times do not, though fresh meat is one of the foods that NEEDS to be refrigerated unless fermented. Just be creative and know that you are doing the best you can.
Traveling can be especially difficult when your diet is restrictive. It’s a time when some rules should be relaxed (simply for your sanity!) and otherwise just do what you can. Erica makes some great suggestions. Fresh fruit can be found just about anywhere, and may be the easiest thing to lean on while traveling.
I really appreciate this article about eating attitude and I have a couple of comments to make. I remember reading something that a famous health authority made many years ago about eating and attitude. He said that our attitude is as important as the food we eat. If we sit down to a perfectly healthy dinner with a grumpy attitude, we will probably get indigestion! If we have a happy attitude, a less desirable meal will be ok.
And, I find it interesting that you used an apple in chains as your attention-grabber. I love apples but they should be organic, because they are the number one food filled with chemical pesticides!
Thank you.
MyraSaidIt
http://www.healthylivingtodayandtomorrow.blogspot.com
A famous health author once said that attitude is as important as the food we eat. A grumpy attitude can turn a healthy meal into indigestion and a happy attitude can help make up for the weakness of a less desirable meal.
Your apple in chains is an interesting illustration. I love apples but they should be organic. They are the number one food for high levels of pesticides.
MyraSaidIt
http://www.healthylivingtodayandtomorrow.blotspot.com
So true, Myra! I believe they’ve even done a couple small studies that show you absorb more nutrients from your meal when you enjoy it.
Hi Elizabeth,
I ate more carbs yesterday and was able to sleep great. Regarding your post, this is an excellent podcast that I believe everyone who is worried about their diet should listen to: http://thehealthyskeptic.org/the-healthy-skeptic-podcast-episode-6
Let us enjoy life despite our circumstances because our circumstances may never change. I believe that stressing too much does much more harm than consuming a horrible diet.
Great podcast! Thanks for sharing that, Erica.
“Let us enjoy life despite our circumstances because our
circumstances may never change. I believe that stressing too much does
much more harm than consuming a horrible diet.”
I agree! 🙂
do you have any guilty food list that comes to mind?
I think this varies from person to person. Any food could be the culprit depending on the person and their ideas about the “perfect” diet.