Members of modern food movements (veganism, locavorism, whatever, have your pick) spend approximately 10% of their time devoted to eating how they think they should eat, and 90% of their time shaming those who refuse to or can’t comply to some specific, and often arbitrary, set of food guidelines. It’s like damn, every basic boo with a Google Machine feels entitled to police food choices. I’m gonna need folks to stop acting like that one blog post they read about the dangers of blahbah from I’m Blonde and Healthy and Eat Only Bean Sprouts qualifies as the basis for a Movement.
Shit, I’ve already digressed.
Anyway. Under a guise of concern and compassion, foodists (henceforth called) create a doctrine that leaves swaths of people behind. Rephrased, they pretend to care about our health, but in reality, all they care about is sustaining a system that keeps the disenfranchised disenfranchised. It’s the old bait-and-switch. (“I hate black folks!” gets turned into, “Overweight people are a burden on the system, and we need to do something about that.” But trust. They mean the same thing. If niggas really gave a good goddamn about improving health outcomes, they’d protest the fact that black people and Latin@s are often denied life-saving surgeries and treatments at a rate much higher than white people.)
Smarter people than me have provided wonderful analyses on the inherent racism of veganism, locovorism (…??? I’m not sure how seriously I can take this term..??!), organicism, paleo, etc etc, but I’ve seen little in the way of how these food movements are specifically ableist, so that’s what I’m going to spend the bulk of my energy on.
When foodists proclaim a regimen of eating ‘healthiest,’ ‘purist,’ ‘kindest,’ ‘most sustainable,’ they’re also saying that there is a single way of eating that is best, neglecting the reality that all bodies are different, and some bodies are more different than others…and their “best diet” suggest there’s a “best body” (the body for which that diet is suited).
Vegan diets, for example, are necessarily high in carbohydrates. Protein sources tend to be low in fat and high in starch: beans, tofu, quinoa. This is fine for many people, but it’s often not fine for type 1 and type 2 diabetics, for whom excessive carbohydrates could mean the dangerous blood glucose levels that lead to vision issues, limb numbness, and eventually amputation, blindness, heart disease (Not being sensationalist. A huge proportion of diabetics have complications directly related to unmanaged blood glucose levels.) There are some healthy vegan fats, such as coconut oil, but compared to butter, lard from frying bacon, the fat present in meat, eggs, and dairy products, they are prohibitively expensive. I mention fats because anyone with diabetes will know that pairing carbohydrates with lots of fat and protein helps mitigate blood glucose spikes—which is absolutely crucial in avoiding debilitating complications.
I challenge any vegan to provide me a balanced daily meal plan of 2000 calories suitable for a T2 diabetic, which will not raise their fasting blood glucose above 100, or their post meal glucose above 140 (the level at which complications arise.) In general, unless said diabetic is on insulin or a very high dosage of Metformin, that means fewer than 80 carbohydrates a day.
I’ll wait.
Ugh, sorry, I went on a diabetes tangent because I have diabetes, and realllly, the next nigga who tells me oatmeal for breakfast is healthier than eggs is gonna get their throat slit. Part of ableism is assuming that all bodies should perform in the same way, and that’s just not true.
On another front, those with gastrointestinal upset may not wish to eat a diet so high in fibre, fruit, and acidic vegetables. Consider this list of foods that potentially trigger attacks in folks with Chron’s: gas producing foods (lentils, beans, legumes, cabbage, broccoli, onions), nuts and seeds (peanut butter, other nut butters), raw fruits, raw vegetables, whole grains and bran. (Note that people with Chron’s may also be triggered by meat, fat, etc — The point is not that a vegan diet is the enemy, but that suggesting it’s best for everyone writes out of existence those for whom it most definitely is not)
Ableism also works in less obvious ways. Obtaining an organic, local meal can take a colossal amount of effort. An out-of-the-way trip to the farmer’s market (at least grocery stores have those electronic chairs), hours in the kitchen standing, may be way too much for someone with depression, or for someone with limited mobility as a result of dyspraxia, a limp, paralysis, or a myriad of other issues that affect millions of bodies.
Those suffering with Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome can find farmer’s markets overwhelming and triggering. An autistic might have issues with the brightness of the sun, the inevitability of brushing up against strange bodies, loud, unexpected noises.
I’ve seen that quote going around, and even POC have reblogged it (and maybe a POC said it in the first place): “The problem is we’re not eating food, but eating food-like products.” And really, there’s little that raises my ire more than such attitudes. Food snobbery is fine when it comes to your own body and what you’re willing to ingest, but claiming that people are eating something less than food is such a hugely disgusting moral judgment, and it fails to account for the question, “Who decides what is real food?” To me, it is the person putting it in their own body: something that provides whatever combination of edibles satisfies them and keeps their body running.
And that doesn’t mean I don’t think we need to have a major conversation about the quality of food some of us are forced to consume, but these discussions rarely target the institutions, and always the individuals, like we’ve got a choice.
This was supposed to be a paragraph I don’t really know what happened.
The OP touched on ableism surrounding mental health issues, but I’d just like to add that many of these movements also assume that everyone has a ‘healthy’ relationship with food. Food policing/shaming is also incredibly harmful for people suffering with (or recovering from) an eating disorder.
it’s nice to hear mental illness included in the ‘your diet is ablist as fuck’ rant instead of just money and physical disability issues because like when i was having such serious issues with depression last fall that i could barely manage to feed myself once a day i still got talked at by my roommates about eating more responsibily for the earth like for real i have crawled out of my bleak and hopeless lair to panfry myself a goddamn steak do i look like i give a fuck about your quinoa
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