Last week when Rod and I were on our romantic break…don’t worry this isn’t a dodgy story…I couldn’t help listening in to a conversation behind me in the restaurant. The gentleman, probably mid 40s, was regaling the most riveting story about how at a different restaurant he had been asked if he had any dietary requirements…
He said “I said to the woman, I’ll take anything you’ve got as long as it isn’t healthy”
When I heard this I felt a mixture of things really, confusion mainly and a bit of shock and a bit of sadness and a bit of determination. I’m not sure why I felt shock because if I’m honest I know most people don’t really dig healthy food. Sadness because it’s such a shame that actually eating food that’s good for your body (the only one you’ll ever have, well, until your next incarnation) is viewed so negatively. Sadness because thinking this way is ultimately making people ill and bloody determination because I want to do something about it.
Confusion is the biggie for me. As I sat there and re-told Rod what the guy had just said I pondered on why people think this way or have strong aversion to unhealthy food. Now please believe me when I say that the very first thing I did was put myself back only a few years ago in to my own shoes when I regularly stuffed my face with anything and everything that measured seriously unhealthy on the richter scale of food choices. Hell, I would have a KFC bucket for lunch (by myself) back in the day, 2 litres of coke A DAY, chips with every dinner etc etc. I am by no means a bloody saint when it comes to food choices in the past. But the problem I have with trying to use myself as a method of understanding this madness (and it is madness) is that although I didn’t eat anything that constituted as healthy I don’t remember feeling strongly repulsed by the thought of healthy food or its sheer presence – it just didn’t enter my conscious awareness really. The obvious other problem with attempting to figure it all out by myself is that I don’t have the capacity to think everyone else’s thoughts…yet. 🙂
So I’m a bit stuck. You see, I want to turn this around. I’ve already decided my mission is to make healthy food SEXY but in order to do that I need to understand why people are physically, emotionally and mentally repulsed by the whole concept of healthy eating.
If people think it’s boring then it needs bloody marketed differently. I have the lowest boredom threshold in the universe, if my meals were boring I would’ve stopped eating this way on Day 1 – that’s how easily bored I get! It’s been three years almost and I haven’t even scraped the barrel of what’s possible using raw food technology and I’m so far from bored I’m the anti-bored.
Do you like that? Raw Food Technology – I think I’ll trademark it haha! But that’s the key for people to eat healthier – use the technology that raw foodists have HAD to come up with to ensure variety and enjoyment long-term on a raw food diet to secure healthy eating for the masses! Simple. You don’t have to be raw but you can use the technology to transform carrots and apples in to bloody chocolate cake or ice cream or pizza!
oh my goji!
raw pizzzzza
If it’s viewed as tasteless then the above applies. It might be seen as difficult (raw pizza can take a bit of prep) but seriously, chucking stuff in a blender can be done by a baby – check this.
Hmm. What is it? I’ve got to know.
Ok I’ve just thought of something. It’s because unhealthy food tastes good right? Ha ha just thought of that. Right that’s good I’m getting somewhere. Now I need to figure out what it is about unhealthy food that tastes so good or makes it the best food choice.
I’ve just asked some friends and got some interesting answers:
unhealthy food is addictive, MSG etc.
it’s easier,especially if you don’t have an imagination or cooking ability
healthy food isn’t addictive enough
it’s good for comfort eating
feels good…but usually only for the first five mins
these are my faves
“nobody binges on fruit”
and when I asked why negative connotations around healthy food…
“I just think…grated carrot”
BRILLIANT 🙂 – thank you to the lovely peeps who helped me out xx
So it’s a mix of what the unhealthy food can offer and what healthy can’t – and these are not necessarily the same thing. Now I’m starting to hurt my head.
I think I like this whole idea of examining food choices a bit more, to see where the root of the issue is. People already know they should be eating healthier, they know deep-fried = bad, vegetables = good…this isn’t bloody ignorance.
COULD…SHOULD…DON’T
or worse still
COULD…SHOULD…WON’T*
Perhaps the governement or health authorities in general need to move away from the whole educational side of things (I know it has its place in schools etc.) and put more of an emphasis on showing people how to make it BLOODY SEXY for god’s sake. How many celebrity chefs do we have on the go now? At least four trillion. And cookery shows – not saying they should all be raw or whatever but they can use the same technology to make AMAZING food. If I can make pretty gorgeous stuff imagine what they could do? Full-on-SEXIFY it!
People want sexy food…not grated carrots 🙂
* (from an amazing Jim Rohn speech – check out Jim Rohn, he is the bomb.com)
nice one ! x
Well, I’m not a big fan of raw but am of healthy food. There’s no telling what’s in processed food and I like to know what I’m eating. Fresh everything! Anything you can do that helps bring healthy eating (even if it’s only to a few) is most welcome in my book, and I’m there with you in spirit (waving from my little corner of the world). With luck maybe we can capture more than a few…
thanks Claudia – waving right back at ya x
I think with some people there is a part that is about rebellion. For example, people know why they shouldn’t smoke but they still do, it’s associated with the cool bad boy in the bike shed at school, or the movie star or whatever. Same with food. People know they are eating stuff that’s unhealthy, but take pleasure in it because it’s ‘bad’ and they don’t need to follow the rules because they are rebels baby. ‘Sod it, I’m going to McDonalds’ – you know. Or ‘Oh I really shouldn’t have the cake, but I will anyway’. Or ‘Naughty but nice’. It’s bad, but we do it. Incidently, did you know it was Salman Rushdie came up with that naughty but nice slogan when he was an advertising copy writer before he got into inciting racial hatred or whatever it was he supposedly did. Nice one Salman, naughty but nice. I think one of the best healthy eating campaigns was the one that took the well known slogans and played on the words eg’ Have a break, have a kumkwat’. Problem was, no bugger knew what a kumkwat was. That campaign wasn’t sexy, but it was fun. Which is another thing that healthy food isn’t seen as by a lot of people. I blame Ryvita, not much fun in one of those items. Well, that’s my tuppenceworth.
Or is it kumquat? See even me being as well versed in the ways of fruit and I can’t even spell it!
I think its a fear that there wont be enough eating in the raw food to make the person feel totally stuffed (and sick). Perhaps it dates back to when food was rationed during and after the war and where children were brought up having to eat everything on their plate before they were allowed to leave the table, hence we have a nation of 1000s of obese people now.