What Makes a Meal?
Is it "balance"? Is it protein? Is it a certain amount of food? Or is it something else entirely?
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It’s dinner time.
You look in the fridge. You open and shut the pantry.
Your brain either floods with an overwhelming amount of thoughts, or perhaps none at all.
Maybe you’re exhausted, maybe you’re tapped out on making decisions for the day, maybe every human being in your house has conflicting food preferences, maybe you need comfort, maybe you’re really craving some pizza, or maybe you just want to pour yourself a giant bowl of cereal and call it a fucking night.
But wait, your mind races…
Pizza isn’t a meal — I should make a salad too.
As much as I want cereal, I should add some protein.
The kids just want buttered pasta with cheese…but we need veggies.
Takeout again? That’s not “healthy.” I should cook.
It would be great to just sink into the couch with something yummy, but no, we should eat together at the table.
Even if you don’t say these thoughts out loud, they linger. They come from all the stories we’ve absorbed about what a “proper” meal should be.
What it should look like.
Where we should eat it.
How it should be “balanced.”
How we should prepare it.
What it should never be.
These rules sneak in quietly, but they carry a loud message:
There’s a right way to eat—and everything else is failure.
And though diet culture works tirelessly to teach us fear and control, the truth — stripped of all the noise — is this: we were never meant to carry guilt into our meals.
Food doesn’t have to be photogenic to “count.”
It doesn’t need to be “nutritionally complete” to be valid.
It doesn’t have to check every box to nourish you.
Instagrammable meals might be pretty—but aesthetics don’t equate to worthiness.
Yes, the diet and wellness industries will always have a new opinion on what is “acceptable” to have on our plates (or bowls, because I’m #teambowl).
So gently remember that your body isn’t a trend. It follows what’s accessible. What feels good. What fits your day, your needs, your capacity.
When we put rigid rules around what constitutes a meal, or what is a virtuous plate of food, we wind up reinforcing stigma and judgment — toward ourselves and others.
The reality is, eating is not a moral practice, it’s a human one.
A person’s access to food, preferences with food, and definition of convenience with food will always be relative. It’s for this reason that our individual approaches to eating will never be captured in universal or ubiquitous experiences.
For example, some people love cooking and some can’t stand it. Some have time, and others don’t. Some have the physical ability to stand and chop, but many don’t. Some find comfort in boxes and jars and microwave beeps (hi, it’s me, I love the microwave), whereas some find it in frying, roasting, or baking. And some do both—because life is layered like that.
Our food choices reflect more than hunger—they reflect our realities and our privileges.
So yes:
A meal is still a meal, even without protein.
A meal is still a meal, even if it’s “all carbs.”
A meal is still a meal, even if you eat it standing up.
If it’s the third night in a row of takeout.
If it comes from a box.
If there are no vegetables in sight.
All foods have a place in a nourishing, autonomous, and respectful relationship with your body.
Inevitably when I say things like this, someone will come out of the woodwork and say:
“So you don’t think anyone should ever eat a vegetable ever again? You think we should just live on takeout for every meal? You hate protein and are telling all of us it’s not important?”
If that’s what they hear in this message, well, it’s unlikely that anything I say will change that. But just in case:
No, I am not saying any of that. Part of diet culture’s game is to perpetuate all-or-nothing thinking with nutrition and food choices. So when I say “you’re allowed to eat a meal without protein”, we’ve been conditioned to hear that as “never eat protein again”.
What I’m actually saying?
Food is allowed to be flexible. In fact, autonomy with food leads to improved health outcomes. You are allowed to trust yourself when it comes to what makes sense for your life, your body, and your enjoyment. You have the right to eat freely, because a satisfying meal doesn’t need to meet anyone’s standards but your own.
In the end, maybe what makes a meal isn’t found in the minutiae of what’s on your plate, but in the radical act of pausing amidst the chaos and deciding: I am worthy of nourishment—however that looks.
Food is food. A meal is a meal. No conditions and no justification needed.
Are you inside my head? You stole my internal monologue.....Every frickin day! 🫠
I am also #teambowl!!! 😉I love that and this! Thank you for always making sense of everything going on in my brain around food/nutrition/movement!