The case for low-fat muffin tops!

Recently, I was chatting with a client as I took her through her workout. We were discussing the danger of talking about foods in moralistic terms, i.e. the tendency that we all have to label foods as either "good" or "bad." I (naturally) took the position that no food is good or bad, it just is. Food is inanimate and and by nature benign: the way that we think about food is what causes us to perceive food as good or bad. I'll always argue that when we assign these labels to foods, we do ourselves a disservice because what we're really doing is self-identifying as good when we eat "good" foods and bad when we eat "bad" foods. When our self worth is defined in terms of what and how we eat, we base our value on a completely arbitrary system, a system that tells us: "My sense of self is completely skewed towards what I do (or don't do) rather than who I am." Unfortunately, this way of thinking is very common and very insidious.

My client had a different thought. She was very adamant that yes, there are foods that are good and bad! She said that to be considered good, a food should be either nourishing and pleasurable, or just plain pleasurable. The metric is entirely subjective and relative to the individual. One person's pleasurable could be another's bad, and vice versa. For example, we know that spinach is a nourishing food, but it's not necessarily pleasurable for everyone. For some, spinach may be the least-appetizing vegetable they can think of to eat, in which case they should not force themselves to eat it but rather find another equally-nourishing green vegetable that is pleasurable. Alternatively, one may be hard-pressed to find anything objectively nourishing about french fries, but if the pleasure factor is high, it's a good food despite how fries may be vilified by the healthy-eating community!

It would be hard not to get on board with this alternate theory of good/bad foods as relative to the tastes of the individual. I was, however, curious how my client would classify "diet" foods, and what place, if any, they would take on this spectrum. Unsurprisingly, she had a strong opinion on the matter and needed little coaxing to reveal her true feelings about such foods: that they are bad, period, and not worth the calories they're reduced by. She recalled a conversation she had with a friend who is on a diet and eats low-fat muffin tops as snacks. Needless to say, she does not approve! She said that she just "doesn't see the point of them."

I considered her overt disdain for low-fat muffin tops, and how the way that she bristles at the idea of eating a "diet-friendly" muffin shows how evolved her perception of food is. I admire how she does not allow her food choices to define her. I think that she made a very good point that is not at odds with my aversion to labeling foods as good or bad. Her system of categorization of foods is not arbitrary; rather, it implies a considerable amount of forethought and mindfulness. If she wants to eat a muffin, she will eat one and make darn sure that it fulfills her criteria!

However, I did have to play devil's advocate...

Before I get there though, I must confess: I would never choose to eat a low-fat muffin top or other "diet-friendly" food now because it would not satisfy me. Satisfaction is the axle around which my nutritional commitments rotate, and the reason why I am able to "navigate the nutritional middle" with relative ease. In short, satisfaction is what makes moderation feasible. When I am satisfied by my meals, I don't feel deprived and don't find myself reaching for something I don't want or need later in the day.

Personally, a low-fat muffin top would increase my satisfaction quotient by a factor of 0. Whether I ate it in the morning or as an afternoon snack, it would leave me feeling deprived and chances are I would find myself grazing the cupboard later for something I would later regret. This is not something I've always known about myself, however. It's taken several years and a lot of trial to error to determine that a low-calorie snack pack or low-fat muffin top will not take the edge off of my hunger, but only add to it. Furthermore--and this is embarrassing to admit!--eating a snack like this earlier in the day used to not only make me more likely to binge, but help me justify my binges, as if these diet foods were my Get Out of Jail Free card!!!

All this to say that one gal's kryptonite is another gal's best defense...

...which brings me around to my point: low-fat muffin tops and other "diet" foods in general are only bad if they do not serve a greater purpose, by which I mean they help to increase our overall satisfaction and move us steadily towards our goals. As far as I'm concerned, it is not my place to judge one person's choices as better or worse than another's because #bioindividuality!!! We are all as different psychologically as we are physically and biochemically, which means that we all experience hunger, cravings, and energy fluctuations differently. In other words, while a low-fat muffin top might turn me into Little Miss Cravings, it might be just the thing to take the edge off a craving for someone else. By all means, if snacking on a low-fat muffin top is a tool that you need to use to keep hunger and cravings at bay, keep on keepin' on and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

What foods help YOU take the edge off your cravings?