I really enjoyed this post over at Chelsea’s blog, and I too, have also been thinking about my relationship with food recently.
I started this blog over a year ago because, simply, I love food and I love sharing my love for food. I’m sure that statement comes as approximately zero surprise to most of you reading this today. I certainly am not one of those people who eat to live - I live to eat! I love experiencing new places through food, I love learning about nutrition, I love learning about how we source and distribute food, I love to cook for others, I love the taste of food, I love the way food brings people together! But love is a strong emotion. And I’ve found that any love comes with some kind of struggle. Any great relationship takes work, right?
A lot of outstanding moments in my life that I remember have an element of food or body image tied to it. An amazing meal I had in Italy when I traveled there alone when I was 20. Looking at myself in a mirror when I was in elementary school wishing I looked “like Dara when she wore belly button shirts” (<- now called crop tops, haha). Long days at the beach with friends waiting for the popsicle man to come around with his cooler. Struggling when I studied abroad to find balance when all I wanted to do was eat all of the baguettes that ever existed in Paris! Enjoying Thanksgiving dinners to the fullest with no regrets. Starting my first job out of college and striving to maintain my health and weight with all of our team dinners out. Savoring every bite of my first experience with Tartine sourdough bread. See? Lots of love and lots of struggles too.
I’m 26 now, and I wish I could say that I’ve completed moved away from having any negative relationship with food whatsoever. But, alas, I have not. I definitely have come a long way from when I considered my slightly disordered eating to be at its worst, but I can’t say that I just eat care-free all of the time, blissfully not recognizing when my meal is and suddenly being like “oh wow, I’m hungry! Guess I should eat!” Nope, I am often VERY AWARE of when my next meal is coming, what it will be, what I want it to be, what it may end up being, and how I want to feel afterwards. It can be exhausting, and it takes up too much mental space - even if the emotion associated with the meal is excitement and happiness. People who just “forget to eat?” Please explain to me.
I think what I’m trying to get at here is that I want my relationship with food to be less of a passionate, up and down emotions-running-high love affair, but more of a balanced, normal, long-term, pajama-wearing, no-make-up-on kind of relationship. I’m striving for that. I feel like I’m getting better at it.
At the end of the day, food is not just food. But food is also…just food. Does that make sense? Probably not. People always talk about how food shouldn’t have “power” over us, but we absolutely have to eat to survive. So it does have a certain stronghold over human life. So, for those who are approach eating every day with some sort of apprehension, I want us all to recognize that our relationship with our bodies is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s not a juice cleanse, it’s consistent wellness. When we allow ourselves to enjoy and give our bodies what they want and what it needs every day - not just on “cheat day” - all of that energy spent planning and worrying and any sort of heightened emotions will just mellow out. We’ll probably recognize that you will choose healthyish options 90% of the time anyways. And that other 10% will be enjoying whatever else you want.
A life-long, sustainable love affair with food. I’ll say “I do” to that :).
Thanks for stopping by! 
