The "Health Foods I Won't Eat"

How wellness created a culture of food fear and demanded everyone fall in line.

There’s a genre of posts the algorithm always feeds me, and I have to talk about it, because my guess is that it finds you, too.

A gorgeous woman in a gorgeous kitchen with soft, expensive light, marble countertops, a little glass of something golden in her hand and walking you through all the “health foods” and products she will no longer allow into or on her body.

She holds each one up like she's delivering the closing argument in a murder trial.

The protein bar.

The chickpea pasta.

The prebiotic soda everyone and their mother is drinking right now (myself included).

The egg white wraps.

A children’s vitamin gummy, for the love of God.

Each one gets a flash of the ingredient label, a word circled in red, and a verdict…

This one has a gum (GASP!). This one has an added fiber (THE HORROR!). This one has a “natural flavor” (made in a lab!!!!!, she informs us, from hundreds of chemicals!!!!!!).

And this one contains citric acid, which she tells us, with total confidence, is “cultured from black mold.”

WHERE. DO. I. BEGIN.

You guys know me. I’m a holistic practitioner and I could spend the next three paragraphs walking you through why most of those red-circled ingredients are not the boogeymen she’s making them out to be.

But I’m not going to.

I was reading that post and I thought to myself ..”you could hand this woman a mother truckin’ apple and she would find something to be wrong with it.”

I don’t think this post was actually about food.

This woman lives by dogmatic rules around food and her body and confidently declares that others should, too.

HOW DID WE GET HERE?!?!

I want to talk about how we got here, because, I was THERE.

I came up in this industry of disordered eating culture wrapped up in a holistic health bow starting with my autoimmune diagnosis in late 2014.

I have a whole embarrassing back catalogue of my own rigid, more frightening years that I will spare you from (at least for now….)

But it was centered on removing foods and making myself feel guilty if I ever “messed up” by eating (god forbid) something cooked in seed oils.

It was fully centered on severe, long-term restriction around food to heal autoimmunity and similarly dogmatic rules that made me fear ingredients.

And the entire time, I was calling it health.

I never once thought it could be what it was — a disordered way of eating masked in wellness.

Otherwise known as Orthorexia.

An obsession with eating “purely,” “correctly,” “cleanly” that gets so big it starts to erode the life around you.

And what’s confusing to people is that it doesn’t look like the eating disorders we were taught to be scared of.

It looks responsible. It looks aspirational. It looks like the healthiest girl in the room ..which is EXACTLY why nobody intervenes.

However, I’ve sat across from women like the one who posted the ingredient takedown I shared…

Women who can’t eat at their best friend’s house anymore because she doesn’t know what oil was used. The one who packs a cooler everywhere she goes because there is nothing “safe” on a single menu.

The one who felt fear … like truly …the actual, physical, heart-pounding kind… being handed a slice of cake at her own daughter’s birthday, and then went to the bathroom and cried.

This is not health.

Even if the lack of symptoms make it feel that way.

And if the stakes are high (which they oftentimes are in cases of severe autoimmune symptoms… see my hair picture above) women convince themselves the payoff is worth it.

Underneath all of it is the same ancient story we just keep re-gifting to women …that your body isn’t good enough.

That somewhere out there is a perfect, pure, optimized, finally-safe way to eat, and if you could only be vigilant enough, disciplined enough, say no to enough things, you would finally arrive at the perfect body.

BUT what I really need to stress here is that — it’s never done.

Women with this form of disordered eating pattern will always find another symptom to obsess over and the list does not have a bottom.

Because the control was never about food.

It was about you not feeling good enough emotionally, aesthetically, and, yes, of course, symptomatically.

The best choice in this season of 2026 wellness culture is to loosen. your, grip.

To release the need to be perfect.

To stop chasing a body that literally just can’t exist in any more.

Of course the way you eat is important to your overall well-being.

Of course women with autoimmunity need a season of health that will require leaning into research, targeted supplements, and a nutrient dense diet….

But the key is learning how to find balance without extremes.

And if your life is centered on restriction and obsession with certain ingredients to the point that you miss out on a birthday party because you’d get a little “bloated” or “achy”…

or you refuse to relieve yourself from the pressure of cooking every night by opting for an occasional frozen pizza or gluten-free chicken nugget …

Then I think the bravest, most radical wellness move you can make right now is to hold your health a little softer.

Loosen the grip.

Let “healthy” go back to meaning a body you nourish well instead of a body you are constantly seeking to optimize.

Let it mean the chickpea pasta on a tired Tuesday because it’s easy.

I’m not asking you to stop caring about your food… like.. obviously, I care so much about mine, it’s my whole entire life’s work.

I’m asking you to start noticing the difference between care and fear.

Because they’re dressed in exact same outfit but only one of them has been walking off with your joy.

So the next time one of those posts find you—— I hope you can filter it through the lens of doing health softer.

And then I hope you go make yourself something to eat.

Always rooting for ya,

Whitney