It's easy, so easy, to slip into food moralizing because it's so ingrained in our culture (with its puritanical roots). Junk food is "bad" for health. Processed food is "bad" for the environment. Eating meat is "bad" for the animals. None of these statements are always true, nor are they always false.
I like to be informed about food composition and processing methods so that I have some kind of scientific basis for my food choices. From there I can build a personalized set of food ethics. I'm still working on this, and probably always will be, because new information is coming in all the time.
Because I want to be a nutrition educator, I want to have the facts in order to share them with others when asked. What I do NOT want to do is become a professional food priest and pass moral judgement on other people's diets. It's frightening how quickly people start *apologizing* for what they're eating when you tell them you're in dietetics.
I think the most important point is exactly what you said: "I refuse to get down on myself for not being perfect." If we set rules in stone about any aspect of our lives and then beat ourselves up when we break them and then (usually) abandon them because they only serve to remind us of how imperfect we are... these rules are harming our lives, not helping.
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Date: 2006-04-03 10:26 pm (UTC)I like to be informed about food composition and processing methods so that I have some kind of scientific basis for my food choices. From there I can build a personalized set of food ethics. I'm still working on this, and probably always will be, because new information is coming in all the time.
Because I want to be a nutrition educator, I want to have the facts in order to share them with others when asked. What I do NOT want to do is become a professional food priest and pass moral judgement on other people's diets. It's frightening how quickly people start *apologizing* for what they're eating when you tell them you're in dietetics.
I think the most important point is exactly what you said: "I refuse to get down on myself for not being perfect." If we set rules in stone about any aspect of our lives and then beat ourselves up when we break them and then (usually) abandon them because they only serve to remind us of how imperfect we are... these rules are harming our lives, not helping.