I’ve been following Melissa Urban on Instagram for a while now. Five years, at least. Honestly, the Melissa Urban who exists on Instagram today seems like a whole departure from “It Starts with Food.” I read one of her other books, “Food Freedom Forever,” a few years ago, and that seems much more aligned with what would be a sustainable long term way of eating for me.
I think this book did push me to eat healthier – I’ve been eating less bread, less pasta, and I’ve been cooking more since reading it. I think it also gives me the push to try cooking healthier foods that I’m unfamiliar with.
But also, food is not solely nutrition. If food was strictly nutrition, we would just have Soylent for every meal, forever. Food can be culture, it can be comfort and community and celebration. I think this book misses out on some of that. I want to eat healthy because I care about my body and I care about my health, but I also want to be able to have hot chocolate with marshmallows on Christmas Eve and not be thinking about what “It Starts With Food” says in their section on sugar and sweeteners.
“We’re going to start with at least one thing we should all agree on: Sugar does not make you healthier.
“Do you want to argue with that? Can anyone make the case that added sugar contributes positively to our health?
“What may surprise you is that both sugar and artificial sweeteners fail all four of our Good Food standards.
“We think of the sweet stuff first when describing foods that provoke an unhealthy psychological response. Because the sweetness of sugar is addictive, eating an excess amount is easy. The more sugar we eat, the more we get acclimated to high levels, and the more we want.”
I fully believe that sugar is not healthy for me. I know that the hot chocolate and marshmallows are not the optimal health choices. But I also spent Christmas a thousand miles away from my family, and hot chocolate while I played games with friends made that a little more comforting.