All Food Is Real Food
From Pop-Tarts to diet culture, and back again: what my childhood breakfasts taught me about “junk food”
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Growing up, I don’t think I ever skipped breakfast before school. I probably would have, had I not been able to eat my beloved Toaster Strudels, Pop-Tarts, and cereal bowl concoctions (Frosted Mini Wheats and Honey Nut Cheerios together is a staple for me to this day, with Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Grape Nuts swapped in there frequently).
At the time, I didn’t think much about it. Breakfast was just breakfast.
But somewhere along the way, foods like these acquired a reputation. Not just delicious, satisfying, or convenient—nope, they were called “junk.”
I see the ripple effects of food language all the time in my work. I talk to parents who struggle to get their kids to eat breakfast before school—not necessarily because their kids won’t eat, but because the foods kids reliably say yes to have quietly disappeared from the menu. The Pop-Tarts. The sweet cereals. The frozen waffles. The granola bars.
These are the easy, quick foods—the foods that often make the difference between a child eating something before school…or leaving the house on an empty stomach.
But often those convenient options have been outlawed in parents’ minds, and understandably so—caught up in the crosshairs of diet culture’s judgment and fear. Because when the message is “you are what you eat,” what exactly does that make those of us who eat the foods labeled “junk”?
The point is, when these foods aren’t allowed in our homes—when the pantry is stocked instead with only raw almonds, dried fruit, rolled oats, and perhaps the occasional semi-sweet baking chips—they begin to take on a strange kind of power. Pleasure gets rationed, sweetness gets shamed, and the foods that are deemed off-limits start to feel more alluring, more special, and therefore more charged.
This happens for adults, too. Even once we have the capacity to go out and buy what we want (no longer dependent on our caregivers), we’ve been told not to, or at least that we shouldn’t.
Looking back, I recognize the privilege of growing up with so-called “junk” food not just being available, but being normalized. It was simply part of the pantry landscape—no locked drawer, no “special treat” status, no whispered guilt.
And because those foods weren’t limited or withheld, they didn’t hold a special kind of power. They were just…food. At least for a precious few years.
It didn’t take long for me to start feeling the effects of diet culture, especially once I left home for college. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s around that same time that I remember witnessing disordered eating behaviors in friends, hearing more about what’s considered “unhealthy,” and, unfortunately, mentally clocking the calories in far too many foods (RIP my precious brain space).
Over those years, the moral language crept in, and I can see now how it shifted my relationship with the “junk.” Foods that had once been neutral became something I ate excessively after a night out, then swore off the next day—only to crave them with a vengeance later.
The more I was exposed to the idea that some foods were “bad,” the more out of control I felt around them. And the more out of control I felt around them, the more convinced I became that I was the problem, and something needed to be done about it.
The “Bad” Foods Keep Changing
So, yeah. The idea that foods can be categorized as “good” or “bad” has been drilled into all of us. And this needs to be said: I was lucky that I was spared this type of food morality until my teens—many people can’t even remember a time in their life when food was neutral.
Diet culture likes to keep us on our toes, though, so the foods we’re told to fear—and the ones we’re told to prioritize—are a whole trend of their own.
The ‘50s made cabbage soup the king, but the ‘60s brought “points” to the forefront, when Oprah herself declared "I’ll be counting points for the rest of my life.” Special K hit the scene in the ‘70s, followed by SlimFast in the ‘80s along with low-fat everything. Yet a few years later, in the ’90s, carbohydrates were public enemy number one. Then came the gluten-free frenzy (thanks largely to Paleo influencers), “sugar addiction” propaganda, and, of course, the current vilification of “seed oils” (which are just polyunsaturated fats, and also…absolutely safe).
Today, a lot of this is repackaged as wellness: influencers promising “anti-inflammatory” diets, green powders, protein hacks, and detox protocols—maybe with a filter and a discount code. What’s old has been rebranded, but the underlying message hasn’t changed: Certain foods should be feared, others must be obsessively consumed. You can’t trust your gut (well, unless it’s flat), so outsource your intuition to someone selling you supplements.
Regardless of what the language-du-jour is, the binary persists: healthy or unhealthy, clean or toxic, whole or junk…it’s all the same morality game.
But what I really want highlight is that none of it is harmless—it drives shame, anxiety, stigma, and disordered eating behaviors.
Who Gets Harmed by “Junk” Labels
Some of the foods most often labeled “junk” are cultural staples, rich with tradition, identity, and memory. I can’t count how many clients have come to fear their longtime family recipes—foods prepared by grandparents, served at celebrations, embedded with memory—because a practitioner once told them to “swap it out” for something more “balanced.” Whether it’s arroz con gandules, injera, pancit, or red beans and rice, the impact becomes: your culture isn’t “clean” or “healthy” enough. And yet these recommendations often boil down to negligible nutritional differences—maybe one extra gram of fiber—at the cost of connection, dignity, and joy.
The cereals I grew up eating without a second thought, and the traditional meals my grandmother used to cook us, would later land on plenty of those “avoid” lists.
Neurodivergent individuals also face unique harm. People with sensory processing differences—autistic folks, those with ADHD—rely on predictable textures, flavors, and routines. Crackers, cereal, and packaged snacks aren’t indulgences; they’re anchors for the nervous system. (I mean, when has a Dorito ever let you down like a mealy apple has?). When these foods are labeled “junk,” it’s not just judgment—it’s a threat to nourishment, safety, and autonomy.
Then there’s the myth of food addiction. Most cravings aren’t about the food itself; they’re about restriction. I often ask my group membership: “Have you ever felt out of control around broccoli?” The answer is almost always no.
We’re led to believe that we have some kind of “addiction” to the “junk.” Yet constantly craving the “bad” foods is not reflective of the chemical makeup of those foods themselves, nor is it due to a lack of “will power”—but, rather, a direct result of those foods being restricted and deemed “off limits”.
It’s not a coincidence that many of the foods we’re told are “addictive” are highly accessible, affordable, and, frankly, delicious. The current wellness narrative may frame it as a sugar crash or a dopamine hijack, but these fear-based claims rarely hold up under scientific scrutiny. More often, they reflect food scarcity—past or present, physical or mental—and the cultural script that teaches us to moralize pleasure.
If you want a much deeper dive into the scientific research that debunks food addiction and sugar addiction, this episode is an oldie but a goodie.
Disordered Eating and Diet Culture
For people navigating eating disorders, these moral terms reinforce restrictive patterns and food fears, making recovery harder. Even outside clinical diagnoses, food restriction drives obsession. The more a food is limited—physically or linguistically—the more we fixate on it. Guilt, shame, and the “binge-restrict” cycle often follow.
To complicate this experience further, research shows that people who restrict certain foods actually experience a heightened pleasure reward when they finally eat them, which is yet another factor that can make us feel “out of control” and driven to repent through “discipline” the next day. Rinse and repeat.
Diet culture profits from this cycle. By framing foods as moral or dangerous, it keeps us anxious and vulnerable to marketing. And the rise of wellness culture has blurred the line between health and obsession. Today’s focus might not be as blatant as calorie counting, but it’s hiding in cortisol talk, protein hype, “hormone balancing” diets, seed oil hysteria, and blood sugar hacks. Fear sells—and if we fear our bodies, we’re easier to market to.
The more our access to a food is limited—even if that limitation is only felt through the language we use—the more we will fixate on it.
Anti-Fat Bias Underneath It All
Negative food labels often come with a side of anti-fat bias, implying that consuming certain foods leads to weight gain and, by extension, failure. This perspective perpetuates discrimination against people in larger bodies, reinforcing harmful stereotypes and stigmatization.
We cannot know anything about the way a person eats based on their body size (in fact, food plays a relatively small role in our weight compared to genetics and social determinants), and food choices are not a virtue signal. Everyone deserves respect and dignity, regardless of their size or food preferences. Challenging anti-fat bias is a critical step toward a more inclusive and compassionate society.
Wellness culture often forgets that access is a privilege. It’s easy to call certain foods “junk” when you can afford to choose alternatives. But for many, the foods vilified by wellness influencers are the most practical and consistent options available—not because of poor choices, but because of sensory preferences, chronic illness, or systemic inequities. Condemning them isn’t just about elitism—it’s about ableism and oppression.
So, with that, a few gentle reminders when it comes to the language you use to describe food:
“Junk food” = something many people rely on for nourishment, sensory preferences, joy, culture, tradition, connection, and affordable energy.
“Clean eating” = a marketing term rooted in supremacy culture, racism, and elitism, and implies that other foods are “dirty”.
“Real food” = a term that doesn’t make sense (no matter what RFK says). All food is real unless it’s a toy, and this just suggests some foods are “fake”. Our food system has actually evolved to fortify and supply indispensable nutrients in packaged food. Without these convenient options, many of us would struggle to meet our nutritional needs.
“Guilty pleasure” = another one we can all let go of, because guilt has no place on our plate, and pleasure is a crucial part of a compassionate relationship with food.
“Indulging” = a word that can imply we (or someone around us) isn’t worthy of that food at all times (which we are), and that it must be “earned” somehow.
“Detoxifying” = not rooted in nutritional chemistry, and the only way we truly detox is through our liver and kidneys.
And lastly, yes, even “healthy” and “unhealthy” uphold food morality—all foods can contribute to our health, including the mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical.
When I started healing from disordered eating in earnest, one of the first things I did was to deliberately stock my kitchen with foods I had come to believe I shouldn’t eat “a lot”. These were the foods I felt I couldn’t control myself around, and needed to limit. It took time, but gradually my brain and body habituated to them being around—no longer scarce, no longer something to earn, no longer anything other than a food I could enjoy whenever I wanted to. It felt like a return to younger me. The one who could trust her instincts, her appetite, her joy.
This isn’t really about what I decide to eat or you decide to eat.
Because we will all make different choices based on our unique bodies, experiences, preferences, and lives.
It’s simply me saying:
What if just call food…food? (The way most of us did before we were taught otherwise.)
Food is food. Pizza, cereal, broccoli, chicken, cupcakes, bananas. All of it. We can call it by its name, and in doing so, we’re helping shift the cultural narrative, and creating a more affirming and safe space for all humans to eat with autonomy and without shame.
Unlearning these binaries helps dismantle nutritional elitism and racism, supports marginalized communities, and pushes back against the fear-based rhetoric driving so much disordered eating today.
It takes time to release language that has been repeated to us for decades, normalized in schools, doctor’s offices, headlines, and dinner table conversations. These phrases become automatic before we ever stop to question them.
But if it took practice to learn this moral language around food, it just takes practice to replace it with something more compassionate, more inclusive, and more honest.
That’s been my plan, at least. And I’m happy to report, the practice has been working.
Have you been trying to change your language around food?
What are your least favorite terms for food?
How have you seen moral language impact those around you? Your kids, friends, coworkers, family?
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One of the best things I did for my mental and physical health was allow myself unrestricted access to sweets!
There was a time I couldn’t keep ice cream in the house out of fear I would eat it all. Now, I always have a gallon in my freezer.
I eat some when I want it and move on without guilt. It just no longer holds the power that it used to.
For a while now, I have stopped restricting food in my house and I have stopped placing moral value on food. It took a while for me to get to this point, and I still have work to do. I have struggled with disordered eating since I was a teen, and I am now 50 with a 14-year-old daughter. I don't want her to learn what I was taught by diet-culture. I buy chips, cookies, ice cream, M&M's, and so on. I also by fresh fruits and vegetables, frozen vegetables, rice, pasta, lean proteins (I don't cook meat at home, but we will go through the In n Out drive thru on occasion), and so on. At her Dad's house, there are no cookies or chips or snacks that she enjoys eating. He labels food as "healthy" or "unhealthy" and he doesn't keep "junk" food in the house. It's his house, so his rules. I respect that. But at my house, where she lives 75-80% of the time, it's my rules. Which are very few rules when it comes to food, except maybe moderation, chips aren't a meal, etc. Also, by daughter and I are both autistic (both just recently diagnosed). We have preferences. I eat a bowl of honey nut Cheerios for breakfast every morning. I need carbs in the morning. One big thing I have noticed is that, just because my daughter and I have easy access to foods like cookies, chocolate, chips, and ice cream, it doesn't mean we will eat it all the time. In fact, I sometimes have to throw it out because it has expired. When I used to restrict these foods, I would binge. And then I'd feel guilty and ashamed. I would hate myself. And then I would restrict, again. Only to then binge, again. It's a cycle I have mostly broken for myself, and a cycle that I hope my daughter never learns.