Last summer I had the privilege of spending two days intensively soaking up the wisdom of one of the foremost violin teachers in the country. Mimi Zweig is what one would call a teaching genius, and every year violinists flock to study not only violin playing with her but also the art of teaching. 

So what is one key ingredient to Mimi's genius? To hear her tell it, it's the nonjudgmental environment she creates for her students. Her signature mantra: "Mistakes are neither good nor bad, they are only information." Why? Because she understands that making mistakes is essential to learning, and when we put judgements of "good" or "bad" onto our efforts, the latter of these judgments will inevitably manifest as excess tensions within the body that actually interfere with making progress at playing the instrument. 

Viewing mistakes as information rather than good/bad self-judgments inspires a much more free-thinking, nurturing, and empowering learning environment.  And it works! Mimi's students exhibit a kind of fluid ease as well as technical prowess in their playing that enables them to essentially progress to virtuoso level (assuming they stick with it and practice). 

So what does this have to do with food? 

Well, how often have you used the words "good" or "bad" to describe your food choices? How often have you said something like "I was so good today for lunch. I had a salad!" or "I was so bad tonight. I ate an entire pint of ice cream!" My guess is that if you haven't personally used the words "good" or "bad" to describe your food or eating habits recently, then you've at least heard someone else use those descriptors. . . likely within the past hour.

We have become so comfortable with the idea that our food choices can make us "good" or "bad" that we take some seriously problematic language and messages for granted without questioning whether that language is actually helping us live a healthier life. These messages are so accepted that they have seeped into our bones and infiltrated our natural ways of connecting and conversing with each other about the life-giving substance of food. In a way it's basically become normal to beat ourselves up for our food choices. I find this pretty disturbing.

For example, I recently read an interview with a famous model/actress in popular women's magazine. One of the questions was "What's one food you aren't ashamed to admit that you love"  - the implication being that it's completely normal to attach shame to food. How did we get to a place where sharing our collective shame about one of the primary sources of life has become the norm?!

Answering that question is beyond the scope of this blog post. The questions I want to consider today are:

How helpful is it to divide foods up into good or bad terms? 

How much does classifying foods as good/bad empower us to make the food choices that are healthiest for us? 

Be honest here -  how helpful have these judgments really been for you? Have they inspired you to make sustainable, long-lasting changes in your food choices that have been nourishing for you? Or have they caused you to swing back and forth through periods of being "good" until you can't take it anymore and defect to the dark side for a day, a week, a month, an hour?

More importantly, has making food choices that you perceived to be "good" or "bad" made you feel good about your body and enjoy your food? Or has it caused you to feel stress and anxiety around food and maybe even shame in those moments when you ate something "bad"? 

In short, have you ever found yourself thinking "I ate a bad food. I have therefore been bad."

If you have had these thoughts or struggles you are not alone. In fact, I dare say you are with the majority of Americans these days!

How would it change things for you if you viewed your foods and food choices as information?

Interestingly enough, food actually is information to our bodies. As our scientific understanding of foods and our bodies has improved, many of the foremost nutrition thinkers have started to speak of food in this way.* The food we eat conveys information to our bodies and even to our genes(!), which can signal a wide variety of behaviors and processes in response to the foods. Food can tell us whether we are in a time of plenty or a time of famine. It can turn fat burning mechanisms on or off. It can effect the balance of the bacteria in our guts (the consequences of which we are only just beginning to understand!). It can signal feelings of stress or feelings of pleasure, both of which can powerfully influence our body's metabolism and overall health.

Our behaviors with food too can provide us with valuable information about our own habits, tastes, and frame of mind. I have slowly learned to recognize signs of stress in myself through my behavior with food. Being able to look at my own food behaviors without judgment hasn't made me eat junk food all the time. In fact, quite the opposite has happened! Instead, I have been able to explore more deeply how different foods make my body feel and which foods are most likely to help me in my own unique body thrive! When I eat something that doesn't help me feel my best, I observe my experience with curiosity rather than judgment. What can I learn from that experience? 

Yes, certain foods can be health-promoting or health-depleting. By saying we shouldn't classify foods as good/bad, I am not suggesting we should abandon learning about foods altogether and learn to build our diets around those health-promoting foods. Just as Mimi Zweig's teaching mantra suggests, seeing food as information helps us to approach our food and eating behaviors with a spirit of inquiry and curiosity, rather than judgment and shame. Just as Mimi's nonjudgmental environment helps her students to thrive in the art of music, creating a nonjudgmental environment for ourselves when it comes to eating can actually support our own thriving.  

Food is so many things. Fundamentally speaking, food is just food! Food is also information. It's also flavor, it's heritage, it's community, it's entertainment, it's nourishment, it's fuel, it's energy, it's pleasure. Most importantly, it's LIFE! And there is nothing that seems more tragic to me than a group of people collectively telling themselves they are "bad" for making choices driven by the human body's natural and normal desire to stay alive. If you eat an entire pint of ice cream in one sitting, recognize that you are not bad or sinful! Look closer at the experience, and get curious about it. Wherever you are on your road to a healthier life, there is valuable information you can learn from that experience, information that can guide your next steps. 

Next time you catch yourself beating yourself up over food, try out Mimi Zweig's teaching mantra and see how it feels to you.

Remember, our food choices are neither good nor bad, they are simply information!

Let me know if you try this and if it works for you!
 

*Some of the professionals who have written and spoken about the ways food acts as information to our bodies include Dr. Mark Hyman, Dr. Christiane Northrup, Dr. Frank Lipman, and Dr. David Perlmutter, to name a few!