Peach Friedman
author, educator & trainer
intuitive fitness for women

i’ve had an interest, for a while, in writing about the intersection of eating disorders treatment and the food movement of people like michael pollan, who wrote the acclaimed book, in defense of food .

see, i’m passionate about both of these things. i’m passionate about recovery. i know for a fact that we can have a relationship with food without rules, guilt, fear, or punishment. i know that we can have a liberated, pleasurable relationship with food.

i also believe, from a personal, emotional, environmental, and political perspective, that what we eat does matter.

which is why i have hesitated for some time to write about this. because i think my thoughts are a bit jumbled. so, bear with me.

in recovery from eating disorders like anorexia, the lesson is, essentially, LIBERATE. eat all things in moderation, and enjoy them. it’s okay to have popcorn at the movies (one of my personal favorites) and cake at birthdays (another favorite) and chocolate chip cookies on rainy days (a third favorite) and don’t worry so much about it. eat, enjoy, let the fear fall away.

this is a beautiful message. for those of you who have read my book, you know i had an ecstatic (and nearly erotic) reunion with food. my liberation stage was without reservation, and i opened myself to eat and enjoy anything and everything.

my dietitian, who is amazing (and you can find more info about her here) told me from the very beginning that eventually my lusty appetite would even out. i didn’t believe her at first because it felt like it took forever for that to happen, but she was right, and it did. and even more eventually not only did my desire for such a large amount of food begin to balance itself, but so did my desire for certain foods.

this is because of body awareness. simply. i gave my body a voice, and those of you who have heard me speak know that i’m really passionate about this–my work and my practice are based in body awareness. listen to your body, people. let the body make choices about what you eat. when you truly listen to your body, you will choose foods that energize you, that offer ample nutrition, and that digest well for you . and you are different from your best friend. and that’s okay.

the same is true with exercise, but that’s another story for another time.

so as my journey with recovery continued to evolve, and my binge/restrict cycles slowed, and i found myself (finally!) eating normal amounts in a normal fashion, i noticed that my body awareness had become very acute. i noticed sensations subtler than just STARVING! or OMG SOOO FULLL! i noticed how my body responded to certain foods. and i began to let the voice of my body continue to get louder and louder, so that i could trust her (body) to tell me exactly what she (tummy!) wanted to eat.

this is a beautiful practice. it’s called intuitive eating. lots of people teach it, and practice it. i’m not alone. but my self-discovery of this way of choosing what, when, where, and how much to eat felt monumental in my own recovery.

so, this is where i am now. a healthy intuitive eater.

which brings me to the whole point of what i’m trying to write (i told you, my thoughts are jumbled, this may not be very organized).

i believe that it’s right to eat permissively. that is, whatever you want. and however much you want. but i also believe that some things out there disguised as food are not, in fact, food. like michael pollan and many others (i know many of you are watching jamie oliver’s food revolution) explain very well.

i know that my body feels best when i eat fresh, nutrient-rich food. when that is the majority of my diet. then, i know that i can layer on a few handfuls of jelly beans or the occasional coke and overly-processed hot dog, and i tolerate it. i also know that if i eat jelly beans on an empty stomach, or eat two hot dogs with a coke, i get a belly ache. and not so much from FULLNESS, because i could eat that amount of other foods and feel fine, but more like because there’s just something in the food that doesn’t digest well. and it’s maybe what’s not food that’s making it hurt.

last year a group of women told me that the food they ate during therapeutic meals at their treatment center included chicken from a can and microwave lasagna. i felt sad when i heard this; i thought, how are these women supposed to heal their relationship with food when they’re being fed this crap during their treatment mealtime!? like, for sure there is a time and a place (when we’re in a hurry, say) when a microwave meal replaces a better option, but during treatment? is this the best we can do?

but here’s what’s tricky: there’s this thing about treatment, that involves breaking down ALL food rules. which means sometimes (often) patients have to eat things that they’re really afraid to eat. i understand the purpose of this. i know what it feels like to be bound by a set of food rules. but i still think there’s a better way.

i’ve hesitated over writing about this in part because of the jumbledness of my thoughts, but also because it’s possible that what i feel or believe or think might be counter to some eating disorder professionals. and it’s always a little scary to say something that people might disagree with. but personally, i think it’s terrible to feed people chicken from a can when they’re trying to recover from an eating disorder.

and so that day, listening to these women, i had this vision for a treatment center that was a FARM, where the garden out back provided food for the patients, and the cow in the barn made the milk, and so on. so much of our problems with food in this culture, the same problems that lead to anorexia, bulimia, and obesity, have to do with our enormous disconnect from our food. we don’t understand food. we don’t know where it comes from. we think food is pureed meat in a can, or injected-with-color candies that are made primarily with high fructose corn syrup. so we are telling these women to recover, to heal, to love their bodies, but we are feeding them junk? and by junk i don’t mean to judge or label foods as “bad” or “good,” but truly–junk–like, not entirely food.

i enjoy junk. i eat it. i enjoy it, i eat it, and i recognize it for what it is: not food.

another similar story: a while back, a woman approached me, fearful, because part of her recent meal during treatment had required her to eat frozen buttery garlic bread. she read the ingredients, which contained partially hydrogenated oil. in other words, trans-fats. she was terrified, nearly in tears, at having to eat this. my response to her, at the time, was, sorry honey, that sucks, but sometimes we gotta do tough things in life.

i feel, in truth, two ways about this story: it does suck that she has to eat this. but the level of fear and anguish she felt was irrational given the situation. still, why couldn’t they bring in a real loaf of bread, chop up some garlic and pour real melted butter over it? why does recovery from an eating disorder mean we feed our patients processed non-foods?

i hope that though writing this i can parse out some of my own thoughts. what i think i feel is this: recovery is beautiful, blissful, liberating. so is eating really good food. and i believe that through continuing the art of body awareness, of listening to our bodies and letting their desires and needs have a voice, choices to eat real foods begin to become the majority of our diet based in intuitive eating, not in judging.

i want to connect with others in the eating disorder field who are merging the work of those like michael pollan with recovery. i believe in eating real food, AND i believe in liberating ourselves from restrictive food behaviors. i’m actually passionate about both of these things and i believe they CAN co-exist. i’m curious about treatment providers who are working from this perspective.

and i’m open to feedback, thoughts, questions, your own…?