Hi Reader
This week is Eating Disorder Awareness Week, and it felt like the right moment to talk about something I feel strongly about — the way we label food as 'good' or 'bad', and why that kind of thinking can do more harm than good for so many of us.
This week I've written about something called the food matrix — essentially, the physical structure of food and how it affects what your body actually does with it. The best way to explain it is with an example you'll recognise: an apple vs. apple juice. Same fruit, right? Not quite. When you eat a whole apple, the fibre slows everything down — your digestion, your blood sugar response, even how full you feel. Juice that same apple and the fibre is gone, the structure is broken down, and the sugar hits your bloodstream in a completely different way. Same ingredients, very different experience in your body.
The bigger takeaway? It's rarely the food itself that's the problem — it's what's been done to it and the context in which we eat it. And when we understand that, we can start to let go of the guilt and anxiety that comes with sorting everything we eat into 'good' and 'bad' piles. Food is so much more nuanced than that, and so are we.
If you've ever felt confused, overwhelmed, or just a bit worn down by diet culture, I hope this week's blog offers a different and more compassionate way to think about what's on your plate.
👉 Read the full blog by clicking the link below
