One of the most commonly asked questions I get from clients is,
“I really want to eat more local and less processed foods, but how can I do that without feeling stressed about food all the time?”
It’s a slippery slope to dabble in the localvore, sustainable food movement and not slide down the rabbit hole of black-and-white thinking with food, body shame, and fear of illness (or weight gain) when you don’t follow the eating locally “rules” 24/7/365.
I was introduced to the local food scene when I was in grad school.
While taking a required course on environmental nutrition, I learned about the environmental and economic devastation caused by eating bananas in the US (most banana production is near or south of the equator) – there went my banana-a-day routine.
I also learned how to cook wholesome meals using local and seasonal ingredients almost exclusively. I even volunteered on a biodynamic farm on the weekends. All of this was indoctrinating big time and I became passionate about supporting local farms and farmers – which is great, except for the fact that I was recovering from an eating disorder at the same time.
I’ll admit the flavors coming from local and seasonal foods are amazing! They don’t need dressing up with sugar, fat, and salt – which at the time, my disorder-eating brain LOVED having a reason to not eat foods higher in sugar and fat since those were also higher in calories.
During that time, I became hyper-focused on what I was putting in my mouth – where it came from, how it was grown, how far it traveled to my plate, etc.
This made eating complicated because I was also learning how to re-feed my body after nearly a decade of a restrictive eating disorder. This new set of only eat-locally-rules popped up waving a flag that said,
“Yes, don’t be afraid of the carbs and high-fat foods – as long as they’re local, seasonal, and sustainably grown!”
If that’s not a total mind-fuck for a fragile mind still stuck in the diet mentality, I don’t know what is.
As a poor grad student, I spent obscene amounts of money on groceries to support my eating local, seasonal obsession. My stomach would get worked up in knots when I’d visit my parents in rural Oregon, where there wasn’t access to the just-right local, seasonal, organic ingredients that I was used to.
What is Orthorexia?
This was my dance with Orthorexia or the fear of eating foods that are deemed unhealthy and not aligned with “clean eating.” Diet culture has lots of adjectives linked to this condition that casually pop into wellness and natural food marketing campaigns.
With my bank account running dry, my gut stressed out most of the time, and my family growing impatient with my evangelical opinions about food, something had to give.
Fast forward a handful of years later, when I took my eating disorder recovery seriously, I started to step away from my hyper-focus on eating locally and seasonally. I couldn’t afford it anymore – in more ways than one. I let my passion for supporting local farmers and sustainable foods systems go quiet until I could get my relationship with food back on solid ground.
Eating locally can be a part of gentle nutrition – check your motivation first.
When clients ask me how they can incorporate more local and seasonal foods into their eating routine without diving off the diet culture cliff, I ask them,
“What’s your motivation for wanting to eat this way, and how will doing so affect other parts of your life?” (financial, time commitments, travel or accessibility)
Many of the people asking me this have spent years, even decades, on the diet-wellness-environmental nutrition hampster wheel, trying every diet that aims to promote healthy living for the eater and the environment (and to hopefully lose a few pounds while they’re at it).
The message you get from diet culture and your internal Orthorexia is that you must follow a localvore way of eating 100% or else…
You’ll get chronic illnesses like diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and the environment will implode with your carelessness in eating one bag of chips – gasp!
I agree that eating in a way that supports local farmers, producers, and the environment can be a part of getting back to your intuitive eating roots. But, and this is really important, that’s hard to do if you have fallen into an Orthorexia mindset and you haven’t done the work to heal your relationship with food, period.
Following the localvore way of eating from a gentle nutrition perspective is super nuanced and quite honestly, at the beginning of healing your relationship with food, your body needs to learn to trust that all foods are allowed in a healthy, balanced diet. You need to develop mental muscles of flexible thinking to avoid falling into the rigid black-and-white mentality that often comes with eating for environmental reasons.
If you’re just starting your Orthorexia healing journey back to intuitive eating and eating in support of local, sustainable foods is important to you, I recommend working with a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor and dietitian who can help you work through the nuances of gentle nutrition and challenge any lingering diet mentality that may be clouding your motivations for becoming a localvore.
Learn more about working with me by scheduling a Discovery Call.
You can schedule a 20-minute discovery call and receive weekly emails with additional strategies and insights on how to reduce stress and overwhelm from trying to eat perfectly and how to reclaim your health after years of following all the food rules.
Read more about Intuitive Eating:
