I am not a car
You are not a car, either.
In recovery, I catch myself repeating the phrase ‘food is just fuel’ to myself like it’s a mantra. Or a battle cry. You could call it an aggressive reminder, and the fact I have to work to believe this at all shows I have a lot to unlearn about diet culture.
When I’m afraid of eating, and hypersensitive to the implications of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods, the mantra/battle cry really helps. FOOD IS JUST FUEL! It doesn’t matter if I eat a few more carbs today. There is no ‘wrong’ time to eat. I will honour my hunger, and hunger means I need food, and food is fuel for my body. That kind of stuff.
But once I fully recover — or once I am recovered enough, as the case may be — I don’t want to have to remind myself of food’s neutrality. When you are starving and your body just wants to survive, it’s not going to be picky. Any food will do. It’s just fuel. But when you are physically and emotionally nourished, you notice how this fuel comes in different flavours, and satisfies different cravings, and performs different functions physically, emotionally and socially. If food was just fuel, we wouldn’t eat cake on our birthdays or mince pies at Christmas. We wouldn’t experience different cuisines across the world — or if we did, we’d think nothing of those varied flavours or the cultures that created them. We wouldn’t bring food into our traditions or our daily routines. We wouldn’t have fika, the Swedish method of drinking coffee with something sweet. I don’t want to live in a world without fika.
If food was just fuel, we’d have no need for variety.
The sheer number of options is often overwhelming for both undereaters and overeaters alike, while their convenience can be a double-edged sword. But isn’t it wonderful that we get to choose? And not just the ‘good’ foods, the ‘healthy’ options, the ‘guilt-free’ choices (urgh). All the choices. An informed yes to some and an attuned no to others. I can’t tell you what’s good for your soul, but neither can a diet product. There’s more to life, I promise.
When you have an eating disorder, you may forget that food is there to be enjoyed — or perhaps you never thought that way in the first place. Too often, we’re told to associate food with greed and gluttony. At best, it’s hedonistic, indulgent, pleasure-seeking. But why is that wrong? Oh, heavens, no, she’s ENJOYING HER SENSES! Call the asylum! Get the straitjacket!
Pleasure — be it food or sex or anything that feels remotely nice to our bodies — has been censored, shamed and silenced for centuries.
You can’t expect a car to run without petrol. Of course, the key difference is… any guesses? That’s right! We’re not cars! The ‘food is fuel’ metaphor has its place, especially in the early stages of recovery when physical health is prioritised. But the real, glorious joy of being human is our ability to indulge our senses, experience pleasure, and in doing so, connect with ourselves and others. That we put ourselves through such puritanical, ascetic denial is a crying shame.
Food is fuel, but it’s not just fuel.
If you need help
Always seek medical advice in an emergency. In the UK, you can call NHS 111 option 2 for mental health support. Find a list of helplines around the world here.