Why I Believe Healthy Eating Isn’t Always Healthy

As a healthy food and wellness blogger, people are sometimes shocked when they see me eating baked goods, bread, pasta, and drinking wine. 

The question is always, “do you consider what you are eating healthy?” I also get the question, “how are you a wellness blogger if you eat cookies and bread and drink wine?” 

Or better yet, sometimes people drop into my DMs and ask me whether I actually eat the things I post (I mean, DUHHHH!).

My answer to these questions, and similar ones, is yes – I believe that consuming baked goods, bread, pasta, wine, and ALL foods for that matter, can be part of a healthy diet. And in fact, eating perfectly healthy foods all the time isn’t actually healthy.

Now before you @ me and tell me that I’ve lost my mind, let me take a minute to explain. 

If you spend every waking moment worrying about every single ingredient in every single food you consume, eating it only if it’s a real, unprocessed, organic ingredient, this could lead to another eating disorder called orthorexia.

Now, I am not an expert on orthorexia or any eating disorder for that matter. Just because I am a former bulimic and binge eater, does not automatically make me an expert on eating disorders, I am only here to share my own personal experiences, observations, and research, having had my own battles with food. 

What I can tell you with certainty, is that, being in the health and wellness space, there is a ton of emphasis on eating real, whole foods, all the damn time. And while I do believe that eating a nutrient-rich, minimally processed diet is best because you will also FEEL YOUR BEST, I do not think it’s healthy (or very realistic) to eat perfectly clean ALL THE TIME. 

My point is simply that healthy eating becomes unhealthy when it becomes an obsession and when you begin denying yourself of all foods – which are life’s pleasures!

So what does healthy eating look like to me? 

Great question! To me, healthy eating means BALANCED EATING. It means focusing on a nutrient-rich diet with minimally processed foods so you feel your best, but also creating room for indulgences if you so please. 

It means sometimes eating cake made with refined sugar and canola oil and butter – all of the things we all told to avoid because it is “bad for our health.” How sad!!

So why eat it? Because enjoying a slice of cake makes the heart happy. And because if you deprive yourself of the things you truly want, I do believe that it can have an adverse effect and lead to binging (and guilt). On the other hand, if you allow yourself to enjoy the foods that your body truly wants (no matter what the ingredients are), you enjoy it guilt-free, which is healthier than extreme deprivation.

And if you aren’t quite there on your food journey yet, that’s ok! That’s why it’s called a journey!

But now you know why I believe that healthy eating isn’t always healthy. 

What do you think? Drop a comment below and let me know, and then head over to Instagram for more!