Dear Dad,
Healthy food tastes good!
Most days at work I heat up my lunch. For lunch I usually have a combination of whole grains (brown rice, quinoa, or farro), beans or legumes (chickpeas, lentils, or black beans), and an assortment of roasted veggies— say pick 3, of peppers, broccoli, sweet potato, onion, spinach, brussels sprouts, asparagus, or green beans. I top it with some kind of sauce— hot sauce, a homemade dressing, or fresh salsa. And it’s delicious. Every time.
The other day there was a discussion outside my office because a coworker commented how good that day’s lunch concoction smelled.
Another chimed in, “Yeah he always makes his weird bean bowls and it actually smells good.”
I had to interject. “Because it is good!”
This interaction demonstrates the persistent illusion that healthy food tastes inferior. We must disillusion this illusion! If we want to change our health, we must change the narrative in our heads that healthy food doesn’t taste good. It’s a childish perspective.
In fact, I submit that junk food is actually the category of food that doesn’t taste good. Sure the sugar, salt, and fat light up your brain like a laser show to keep you reaching for more, but those components aren’t food. They’re flavor enhancers, used excessively to mask the real food item that actually doesn’t taste all that good.
Take a bag of potato chips for example. Imagine the chips aren’t fried in oil, covered in salt, and preserved with all sorts of chemicals preservatives. You would have a bag full of crunchy cardboard. Compare that to an actual whole potato, picked this season, baked in the oven. There you would taste a creamy buttery sweetness with subtle nuttiness. Not actual butter, but a natural buttery creaminess. Amazing.
Healthy food is tasty food.
With Love,
JSR
