There is a very big difference between nutrition and entertainment. Food is nourishing. It’s what goes into our mouths when we choose stuff that’s loaded with fiber and color, like vegetables and beans, nuts, fruits, seeds, and whole grains. Fun, on the other hand, is nothing like food. Fun (which often goes by interesting names like “junk food” or “fast food” or “processed food”) is made with products like white flour, white rice, corn syrup, corn starch, commodity oils (soy, corn, cottonseed) and, of course, sugar, which you tend to find in items that are ultraprocessed. Food nourishes you. Fun entertains you. Sometimes you feel like a little entertainment. That’s fine. Go ahead and enjoy. But it doesn’t go in the plus category. It’s just for fun.
There is a reason you can eat a big bag of sour patch kids at the movies, and then go out for dinner afterward. Your brain knows it wasn’t nourished, and it’s still hungry!
I’m not saying that you can never eat sweets, or anything from a conventional vending machine, or chips or cookies or froot loops or that kind of stuff. I’m just saying they do not nourish you. They entertain you. Fun is fine, but it’s not food.
There is a place for entertainment in our diets, especially during a pandemic, and it’s perfectly reasonable to eat treats. Generally speaking, I would say that treats are fine as long as you make time to take walks and your blood sugars stay normal. But you also want to make sure that you’re nourishing yourself. A major problem with the standard American diet is that we eat a whole bunch of stuff that actually entertains us, all under the mistaken impression that we are being nourished. Which is one reason why some people stay hungry all the time, and can’t figure out why.
Whenever you eat something that sticks to your ribs, and keeps you satisfied for a good long while, there’s a pretty good chance it was nourishing. But if you find yourself famished just an hour or two after you eat, it was probably entertainment. Trust your gut, and remember: fun is fine, but it’s not food.
