#food moralizing

[hyperlexichypatia]

Discourse is like "People take this 'ableism' thing way too far, they'll say it's ableist to [thing that is definitely ableist, but not for the reason the people they're rebutting think it is]."

Most things are ableist, because we live in a structurally ableist world. Most of our core assumptions about value and hierarchy and correct behavior are ableist, because we live in an ableist society. So yes, "People on the internet go around calling everything 'ableist'" because everything is, in fact, ableist! Because systemic ableism is the water we fish all swim in!

But anti-ableist discourse often begins and ends with "It's ableist to say that people should do that because some people are disabled and can't do that." This kind of objection kind of... only touches the surface of systemic ableism. And it gives the impression of objecting to a valid generality with some kind of special pleading, which is just... beside the point. Any discussion of ableism centered on "There should be An Exception for Legitimately Disabled People" is just... an insufficient framework for addressing systemic ableism.

So you end up with someone saying "I said that people should eat their vegetables, and somebody called me ableist, because some disabled people can't eat vegetables! Isn't that ridiculous? Obviously I'm not talking about people who legitimately can't! I'm talking about people who are too lazy to try! These 'anti-ableism' people take things ridiculously too far!" And. Like. "Some disabled people can't eat vegetables" only touches the surface of why saying "People should eat their vegetables" is ableist in the first place.

Why is eating certain foods being framed as an obligation that someone needs a "legitimate excuse" to opt out of? What underlying beliefs about health, diet, nutrition, and morality are built into your premises about what people "should" eat? Why does the spectre of the person who "Doesn't take care of their health because they're lazy" bother you? What function does judgment of this real or hypothetical person serve? Do someone else's food choices affect anyone else? Even if you can come up with a way that someone else's food choices can theoretically affect other people, is that the real reason why you're judging them? Or are you reacting to a lifetime of cultural messages around health moralizing and judgment of "laziness" and "excuses" all of which are rooted in systemic ableism and then retroactively justifying it with an ad-hoc claim about "Well uh... uh... the environmental impact of food production!"? Cool, but is that the real reason you've constructed this image of a Lazy, Unhealthy Person With Bad Health Habits to get angry at?

"People on the internet" say that "everything is ableist" because everything is in fact ableist!

[hyperlexichypatia]

I mean. I don't want to dunk on OP but I think it's just illustrative. Of how deeply, deeply enmired in healthism so many people are, as well as how deeply divorced from the context of food/resource scarcity, that anyone's first thought as to why gluttony would be stigmatized as immoral is that eating too much food is unhealthy for the person eating it.

It's not bad to "eat so unhealthily"; health is morally neutral. It's bad to eat/take/hoard more than you need at the expense of other people going without.

The seven deadly sins all make sense except for gluttony. I agree that it’s bad to eat so unhealthily but all the rest of the sins, when pushed to their extremes, are terrible things that cause violence and harm to others, sometimes at a large scale. Gluttony is just the munchies. I think we should get rid of that one.

[hachama]

I've decided to use the term "convenience food" instead of "junk food."

I think it's more honest, and less loaded. It's all food, some of it is more appropriate when you don't have the spoons left for food prep. It takes slightly more energy to peel a banana than to open a bag of chips.

We try to save the convenience food for days when we need something easy, so eat a banana.

[werewolf-artfriend]

cant judge a eurasian coot by its cover nowadays

[rachandruin]

"Food has no moral value" doesn't just apply to eating processed/"unhealthy" foods or disordered eating, it also means eating a vegetarian or vegan diet does not make you any more morally right than people who don't

[thepeacefulgarden]

[cloudabserk]

look i understand if you like marius because this is the evil morally bankrupt vampire story. however when people argue that marius was actually really cool and chill and normal about armand i want to fight them

[smiuffzo]

Selfish.

[jjkyaoi]

speaking of stiles stilinski, the way the entire fandom like. warped his character completely for so many years is still one of my favorite talking points because what do you MEAN pack mother. what do you mean he’s this selfless hero who would sacrifice himself for his supernatural found family…???????????? girl. 90% of the characters we’ve met he’s either distrusted and theorized as killers (most of the time being right to some length but that’s beyond the point) like a cat who hisses when their owners friends come over, and the other half he’s like. made multiple comments about wanting to kill or been. unnecessarily catty to. like . that motherfucker CRAVES violence. the entire show would’ve been completely fucking different if he was the main character. why did the fandom take these things from him when they make him SO interesting

[fascinationstreetmp3]

the lamb smiling up at the wolf with unsettling passivity etc etc

[hyperlexichypatia]

At some point I have to unpack and describe the specific intersection of factors that led to my specific experiences with food shaming (and all related topics like sizeism, ableism, neurobigotry, healthism, ageism, etc).

As a a fat, autistic, ARFID-ite who's consistently been treated as younger than I am, and with scandalously non-abusive parents (how dare they vaguely accept me as I am without beating me into submission!), a lot of the food shaming I've experienced in my life was based on treating me more as a "spoiled child" than as a "fat woman," even after I was clearly the latter.

Food with my extended family or parents' friends or anyone older than myself was always a site of shaming how spoiled I was, how overly permissive my parents were, how rude I was for not eating what I was served (specifically for that -- I wasn't actually doing any "rude things" like commenting negatively on the food, demanding alternate food, or anything like that! But simply not eating what I was served, as a Young Person, was "rude".)

I was also heavily desexualized and somewhat degendered, so it wasn't "You're an unsexy woman because you're fat and ugly, not thin and sexy like a woman should be," it was "You're a spoiled brat picky eater who needs a spanking." Up through age. Like. 24.

And I realize, please believe me, I am very well aware of what an incredibly privileged problem this is. I was stigmatized because my parents weren't abusive? What kind of problem is that? Everyone else was dealing with actual problems, like actual abusive parents!

So my point isn't to complain about my problems, it's to say that food-shaming takes many forms. I was reminded of that when I saw an otherwise good, innocuous post about getting along with family at Thanksgiving, that included something about "Don't ask teens if they have a boyfriend/girlfriend, ask them about their hobbies, or what they're most looking forward to on their plate!" and I was suddenly filled with anxiety, because, no, don't do that. If you had asked Teenage Me what I was most looking forward to on my plate, I would have assumed that you were admonishing me for only having two foods on it, lecture me about how I can't have dessert if I don't eat my vegetables, nagging me to "Just try it," and possibly throwing in some remark about "Back in my day, if we didn't eat what we were told, we got a whipping!" Questions about my nonexistent love life would have been comparatively less fraught.

Don't comment on people's food choices. Don't comment on kids' food choices. Don't comment on teens' food choices. Don't comment on adults' food choices. Don't comment on people's food choices.

Don't ask teens if they have a boyfriend/girlfriend either, although, if that tradition must continue, I'd at least like to add age balance to it. If you ask a 15 year old if she has a boyfriend, she should legally be allowed to ask you how your divorce is coming.

[punkeropercyjackson]

Bf who drinks coffee Gf who only

with no sugar drinks sweet flavors

[melljam]

gitae sinisterly devouring food

evidently very evil !

[leohtttbriar]

the way neelix is actually the most right but this episode would've been bad if the solution to the conflict was Jokes.

[qirarey123]

Another comic redraw! Decided to remove their masks to show their expressions

[storybookprincess]

this might sound painfully obvious, but the key to not wasting all your money on takeout is keeping food in your house that you like & is easy to prepare

to me, the two big draws of ordering takeout during the week are 1. it tastes good. and 2. it is very low effort. especially as someone who lives with a chronic illness, all of the good intentions to cook a healthy meal every evening are pretty meaningless when i come home exhausted or in pain. and it's an exercise in futility to keep attempting that & then getting frustrated with myself when i fail. eating at home needs to be both easy and appealing, or it's simply not going to happen. and i'm going to order takeout

for me, this boils down into two main practices. first, when i'm feeling up for it, i like to batch cook on the weekends. i make a big serving of something that will keep well in the fridge for several days, and then just reheat it in the evenings. and when i'm not well enough to cook, it means ensuring that i have pre-prepared food on hand that requires no effort beyond sticking it in the oven

the key to success with this method is the following: the food needs to be something i will genuinely enjoy eating. sure, it probably won't be quite as good as a meal made by a professional in a restaurant, but it does have to be tasty & satisfying. again, the first appeal of takeout is simply that it tastes good

and most important of all, we CANNOT let perfect be the enemy of good. "but liv! are you really just telling me to keep a package of dumplings in my freezer to eat during the week? is that really healthy or cost effective?" well, if your options are the frozen dumplings or takeout, then comparatively, yeah, it is probably healthier or cheaper or both. we don't live in an ideal world. we live in this one. and we need to work within the parameters of the real world rather than aspiring for an ultimately unreachable ideal and then getting mad at ourselves when we fail.

tl;dr: to stop overspending on takeout, keep food on hand that you want to eat and requires minimal effort to prepare. that's it. and don't let imaginary rules and standards sabotage you along the way.