I’m new to food blogging and fat blogging but not to blogging in general. I’ve been making my annoying opinions known for YEARS. I even blogged before it was called such a thing (when it was called, um, Livejournal).
Soon, I shall get to the part where I do what the blog title promises and eat, but for now I just wanted to leave a link here about The Rules of Nutrition from the Fat Nutritionist:
First rule of nutrition: eat or die.
Second rule of nutrition: there are no other rules.
The rest of the post is a brilliant breakdown of “nutrition” as both a science and a cultural phenomenon and breaks down how this fat girl eats most of the time. I try to eat what I believe, so to speak. Live my politics. It’s an enormous privilege that I can do so, and I know that. So, I don’t believe in vilifying personal choice. Ever. And I guess that’s where my engagement with fat acceptance and my interest in ethical eating run afoul of each other. To me, “ethical eating” has often been couched in terms of the obesity “crisis” (more about why that’s in scare quotes here). As in, “Gee, the corn subsidies are causing us all to be obese.” And, “we must fight the obesity epidemic by encouraging healthy eating!”
But what is healthy eating? And what of people for whom access to the foods we’ve deemed healthy is barred because of location or socio-economics?
And why are you fighting against my body? I’m obese. I’m not a crisis, trust me. And making me feel like one has never done anything good for me and it’s never done anything good for anyone else of any age, size or gender.
We should encourage wide distribution of fresh, organic fruits in vegetables into all neighborhoods and particularly in schools, but we should do so without making people feel bad for sometimes wanting a cookie instead of a carrot.
In other words, I believe we need to make tasty, healthy food accessible to everyone, but I don’t believe in things like soda taxes, which put the onus on the consumer to make a “correct” beverage choice when no such thing really exists.
I believe we need to stamp out the worst excesses of agro-businesses, cut corn subsidies and invest in small local farmers again, but I don’t believe each citizen is somehow philosophically or ethically required to only eat foods whose origin is known, whose source they can personally verify. No one, in my estimation, is required to be a locovore, although society should strive to prop up the most environmentally responsible food instead of the least.
I believe in health care reform that emphasizes wellness for everyone and does not frame health as a moral imperative.
I believe that if we were all just a little less neurotic about food as a society, we’d all be happier and healthier.
What do you believe?
Fat Girl Eating 