The Chocolate Dilemma: Finding Freedom Beyond Food Rules

I couldn’t believe my ears when Mollie had come home from her first week of kindy, just 5 years old and shared this little chocolaty nugget with me.

"Mummy, today we learnt we can’t eat milk or white chocolate anymore, only dark chocolate, and not too much. Mrs Fulcher told us it’s unhealthy and will make our body sick."

What I wanted to say was, “It sounds like Mrs Fulcher could probably benefit from a few sessions with mummy” but what I did say was. “Baby, what do you think about that? Does that sound right to you?”

The thing is, I have no idea what Mrs Fulcher actually said to them in class that day. I have no idea if she did in fact tell them that chocolate is unhealthy or makes their body sick, or gives them diabetes or should only be a ‘sometimes’ food, but I do know what Mollie took from it, loud and clear. Chocolate is unhealthy and will make me sick if I eat it. You see that’s how food rules work, a slither of logic is inflated to these fixed beliefs that completely miss the mark. 

It probably won’t surprise you that we speak very differently about chocolate, food and nutrition in general at home. We choose to be a food-positive home and concentrate on all the things food gives us, not what it takes away. On more than one occasion, Mollie’s friends have asked me perplexed, if I really believe there’s no such thing as an unhealthy food. I secretly squeal when this happens because it means Mollie is pushing back against those messages when they come up in class or the playground.

Unless you have a rare food allergy or there’s a food safety issue or other very specific situation, I don’t believe any single food is healthy or unhealthy. It’s the relationship we have with those foods that can be healthy or unhealthy. Nutrition science is complex and is far more nuanced than good food or bad foods, and we need to acknowledge that there is no one right way to eat for all of us.

Unlike food preferences or nourishing frameworks (like Intuitive Eating or the RAVES model), food rules are rigid, black-and-white commandments, most often rooted in privilege and morality. There’s a lot of ‘shoulds’ and shame driving them. Their aim is to give us the illusion of control. If we can control our food, we can control our weight, our cholesterol, our health generally, and even control how others perceive us. What we know with food rules, and what I see happening in my clients every day, is that the food rules actually start controlling us.

Something that is poorly understood in the nutrition world is how restriction drives desire. When we restrict food that we love, either physically or mentally, they get an almost magnetic quality about them. We call it the binge restrict cycle and it’s incredibly common. Have you ever found yourself finishing a family-sized packet of chips or lollies after trying to limit your intake? That’s not a coincidence, it’s eating psychology. If you ate those foods without the rules, as much of them as you wanted and when you wanted, how magnetic or exciting would they still be?

Diet culture disconnects us from our body in so many ways, but one of the sneakier ways is by imposing these rules about what foods to eat and avoid. The language I hear around nutrition information is so often grounded in shame and guilt. Both terrible seasonings for food and a sure fire way to make us feel shitty about our choices. While these rules claim to keep us ‘healthy,’ in reality all they do is complicate our relationship with food. They disconnect us further from our innate body wisdom and direct us away from what works for us.

When our nutrition knowledge gets shaped by food rules (hello Mrs Fulcher), of course we feel confused about what to eat. Of course we get hooked by thoughts that we are a piece of shit for choosing the ‘unhealthy’ food. Labelling foods creates a power dynamic, in our tender hearts and minds, and we become ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for eating those foods. Bugger it, I’ve blown it anyway, might as well eat it all and I’ll start again tomorrow. Of course we find it challenging to hear and respond to our body signals of what, when and how much to eat. Of course we don’t trust our body.

Food rules create food noise (an internal dialogue driven by fear and shame) which makes it impossible to tune in to our body and discover how food makes us feel. I don’t mean feeling like a piece of shit morally, I mean, how is your tummy feeling? How is your energy? You thirsty? How does your relationship with food play out on your body image? Connected eating gives us full permission to eat all the foods, and then invites us to explore if that’s how we want to feel after eating. Connected, intuitive eating doesn’t stop at full permission to eat all the food.

When you heal your relationship with food, explore your own food and body story and excavate how these rules became the ruler, you get to interact with them differently. Like the thousands of thoughts my brain produces daily, the food rules that get spat out are not fact. “Oh hey brain, thanks for reminding me I’ve already eaten bread today. I know you used to have some fear and noise around that but I’m going to enjoy my sandwich now.”

Food rules sneak into our consciousness both directly and indirectly. They linger from our diet graveyard and weave their way into healthcare advice. When I work with clients to explore their food rules, they rarely remember the exact source because they all cloud and contradict each other. Was it a diet program, a GP’s advice, or my neighbour? Not to forget the astounding amount of misinformation and fear mongering on social media. Wellness wankery is at an all-time high. Even more of a reason to turn inwards to body wisdom rather than trusting #carleycutscalories knows what’s best for your body.

The confusion about healthy eating that plagues so many of us, stems from these conflicting food rules, created by people who have no idea about nutrition science. We all eat which apparently makes us all experts in nutrition. May I just say after completing my 4 year nutrition and dietetics degree with first-class honours (yay me!), there’s one thing I know for sure, you darling, are, and always have been the expert of your body. Yes even you. You have just been bombarded with weight stigma and food rules that make it feel like you don’t.

No doubt nutrition is a tool that can support our health, but rigid food rules that instil fear and shame do the complete opposite. When nutrition becomes a weapon against us, it’s no longer supportive for our health. The key difference is the intention behind the choice. Diet culture doesn’t own the benefits of vegetables, whole grains, or omega-3s—just like it doesn’t own joyful movement, sleep, or sunshine. Focusing on our behaviours like increasing vegetable intake is very different from focusing on outcomes like weight loss. Choosing nutrient-dense options isn’t automatically dieting or restricting. Intuitive and connected eating invites us to nourish ourselves in a way that works for you and your unique bodies needs.

If you struggle to decipher whether a behavior is driven by a rule or a choice, ask yourself: Am I choosing this from a place of self-care or self-control?

Obviously, a carrot and a slice of carrot cake offer different nutritional benefits, but can we make them morally neutral? A peaceful relationship with food recognizes that all foods provide something valuable for our body. We need high energy foods to fuel our brains and muscles. We need a variety of different food groups to gift our body all the vitamins and minerals it needs to thrive. We need to include play food that offer pleasure and satisfaction so we don’t find ourselves in that binge restrict cycle.

• A food rule: Only have carrot cake on cheat day after earning it at the gym.
• A choice: Not feeling like carrot cake now; craving a crunchy carrot with French onion dip.
• A framework: Wanting cake but knowing it won’t sustain you on its own, so having it alongside your lunch rather than instead of.

You are the expert of you. No one could ever know how a food feels in your body. If you have been dieting for a long time, you might not be able to connect just yet which is very normal. Working with the right non-diet professional can support you to reconnect with those interoceptive messages. When food is just food, when we take it off the pedestal, it loses its magnetic power. Removing the morality from food allows us to remove it from ourself. Eating chocolate doesn’t make you bad or indulgent, and being plant-based doesn’t make you virtuous. Food is for nourishment, pleasure, connection, fuel, safety, healing, energy, and sustenance.

Let’s be really clear, pushing back against diet culture and food rules is an uphill climb. Some people won’t understand the food freedom language you speak because most of us are educated by diet cultures food rules. So when it feels challenging, it’s because climbing up a hill is challenging, but trust me, the view from the top might just be the most peaceful, nourishing & delicious one of your life!