A Story of Humans and Food: Making Peace With Our Plates

Introduction: The Most Natural Act Turned Most Anxious

Imagine for a moment: you are the direct descendant of the greatest survivors in human history. Your ancestors crossed ice ages, survived famines, resisted epidemics, migrated across the most hostile continents. Every cell in your body carries the memory of this extraordinary resilience. You are the pinnacle of millions of years of evolution.

And yet, today, you feel threatened when entering a supermarket.

We have achieved the extraordinary feat of transforming the most natural act in the world – eating – into a source of permanent anxiety. We are the planet's greatest omnivore, capable of digesting prodigious food diversity, surviving in all climates, transforming any resource into energy... and we fear an edible food on our plate as much as we should fear a tiger in the wild.

How did we get here?

This question is not trivial. It touches the very heart of our humanity, our relationship with life, survival, and ultimately, our collective capacity to carry our species' heritage toward something more beautiful. Because yes, despite our fears and contradictions, we are moving forward. And it's time to acknowledge this to finally make peace with our plates.

Chapter 1: The Central Role of Eating

At the Base of Everything: Eat or Be Eaten

At the base of Maslow's pyramid sits an imperative as old as life itself: eat or be eaten. This primordial reality has shaped every fiber of our being over millions of years of evolution. We are descendants of the sole survivors of all the famines that have marked human history.

This ruthless natural selection has engraved in us survival mechanisms of extraordinary sophistication. Our entire body is a marvel of adaptation designed to:

• Maximize absorption of every available calorie

• Store energy as reserves for periods of scarcity

• Drive us to eat even when we're not immediately hungry

• Develop a preference for energy-rich foods (fatty and sweet)

These mechanisms aren't bugs – they're features. They saved humanity for millions of years. The problem is they now face an environment they weren't designed for: permanent abundance.

We Don't Eat Only When Hungry

Here's what few people realize, and yet it's fundamental to understanding our approach to nutritional rehabilitation: we don't eat only because we're hungry.

We also eat to avoid being hungry. This nuance may seem subtle, but it's revolutionary for understanding our complex relationship with food.

Our ancestors couldn't afford to wait until they were hungry to look for food. In an environment where food was rare and unpredictable, those who waited until truly hungry before eating had lower survival chances. Hunger wasn't a signal to start eating, but an alarm signal indicating you'd already waited too long.

This is why we eat anticipatorily. This is why we developed meal rituals at fixed times. This is why your grandmother tells you to finish your plate "because you never know." She carries within her, unknowingly, the ancestral memory of famine.

Life's Pendulum: Between Tension and Release

The act of eating provides us with much more than simple nutritional intake. It offers us:

• Immediate relief: hunger tension dissipates

• Deep relaxation: our nervous system switches to parasympathetic mode

• Ancestral comfort: we feel safe, temporarily protected from danger

By eating, we tip the pendulum that constantly oscillates between tension and release. It's a rhythm as fundamental as breathing, as vital as the wake-sleep cycle.

In nature, for living beings, hunger is the rule; satiety is the necessary exception.

This biological truth has been inscribed in our genes for millions of years. This is why, even today, in our societies of abundance, we continue to feel an almost mystical satisfaction when we eat our fill. This isn't gluttony – it's biological gratitude.

Chapter 2: The Paradox of Modern Abundance

Humanity's Greatest Achievement

Since the Industrial Revolution, and even more since the mid-20th century, we have produced a society so efficient that it has made us lose sight of hunger's reality. Our exceptional capacity to have virtually eradicated famine in affluent societies represents one of humanity's greatest achievements.

Think about it: for 99.9% of human history, the question wasn't "what am I going to eat?" but "am I going to eat?". Our great-grandparents knew rationing tickets. Our grandparents remember hunger. And we open an overflowing refrigerator sighing "there's nothing to eat."

This complete reversal of situation occurred in barely three generations. Our biology, however, hasn't changed one bit.

And Yet, We've Never Been More Afraid to Eat

Here's the fascinating and tragic paradox of our era: we've solved the famine problem, and we've created a far more pernicious problem – the fear of eating.

This deep food fear, this anxiety about lacking connected to our primordial fear of dying, continues to inhabit us. But instead of protecting us from real famine, it has transformed into something far more insidious: a modern mythology that makes perfectly edible food appear toxic in our eyes.

We've generated a myriad of fears more or less connected to our survival mechanisms inherited from our ancestors:

• Fear of gaining weight (diversion of the fear of lacking resources)

• Fear of "bad" foods (diversion of the fear of toxins)

• Fear of losing control (diversion of the fear of chaos)

• Fear of social judgment (diversion of the fear of group exclusion)

As brilliantly explained in Claude Fischler's work on food anthropology, we live in a state of "nutritional cacophony" where contradictory messages generate unprecedented collective anxiety.

The Empire of Food Anxiety

The global wellness market reaches 7.2 trillion dollars in 2025. The diet industry alone represents 360 billion dollars. These astronomical figures don't just represent money – they represent our commodified collective anxiety.

The more we doubt our food choices, the more we consume:

• Calorie counting apps (4.2 billion dollar market)

• Dietary supplements (194 billion dollars globally)

• "Health" ultra-processed foods (621 billion dollars)

• Online weight loss programs (8.1 billion dollars)

We've created an entire economy that lives off our food insecurity. And this economy has every interest in maintaining this insecurity. This is what I call modern grand parasitism – a system that literally feeds on our fears.

Chapter 3: The Extraordinary Power of Belief

We Create Reality Through Our Beliefs

The human species possesses an enormous, almost magical power: the ability to believe so strongly in certain things that we make them real.

This isn't magical thinking – it's pure anthropology. This is how we created France, money, justice, human rights. None of these things exist physically in nature. They're collective fictions, but fictions so powerful that millions of people are ready to live and die for them.

Our capacity to believe collectively and commit together literally allows us to create culture.

And culture isn't something that opposes our biological nature. On the contrary: culture is the human way of continuing the natural, evolutionary, and adaptive work of biology. It's our third heredity system, after genetics and epigenetics.

As I explain in my article on ethical dietetics, we have the power to consciously choose the stories we want to perpetuate and those we want to transform.

The Trap: No Longer Discriminating Among the Stories We Tell Ourselves

Here's the trap we've fallen into: we no longer sufficiently discriminate among the stories we tell ourselves.

Not all beliefs are equal. Not all stories deserve to be perpetuated. A story capable of making the planet's greatest omnivore – this extraordinary being who can survive in all climates, digest prodigious food diversity, transform any resource into energy – end up being as afraid of an edible food on their plate as they should normally fear a tiger...

That's really a shitty story.

And yet, we perpetuate it. We transmit it to our children. We reinforce it with every comment about our body, every diet undertaken, every "I shouldn't eat that" murmured before our plate.

The Nocebo Effect: When Our Beliefs Make Us Sick

The power of our beliefs doesn't stop at the psychological level. It has measurable physiological effects. This is called the nocebo effect – the evil twin of the placebo effect.

If you believe a food is bad for you, your body will react negatively even if that food is objectively nutritious. Studies have shown that:

• People convinced they're gluten intolerant react negatively even to gluten-free foods if they think they contain gluten

• The mere sight of a food judged "bad" can trigger a measurable stress response (cortisol, blood pressure)

• Negative beliefs about food predict digestive troubles better than the actual food composition

In other words: we make ourselves sick with our own beliefs.

Man is a funny animal, capable of feeling threatened by something cooked.

Chapter 4: Fear at the Supermarket – The Absurdity of Our Situation

We Are Evolution's Pinnacle... And We're Afraid

Reflect on the absurdity of our modern situation: we are evolution's pinnacle, and we feel threatened entering a supermarket as if we were entering a forest full of hungry beasts.

We feel like we're playing with our lives on our plates with every meal. A cookie becomes an existential threat. A restaurant dinner transforms into an anxiety-provoking ordeal. An invitation to eat at friends' homes requires military planning to "manage" what we'll eat.

This fear isn't rational. It's not proportionate. It's not adapted to our real environment.

"AVOID Eating Too Much Fat, Sugar, Salt"

Phrases like "AVOID eating too much fat, sugar, salt" repeated loudly certainly don't help us feel relaxed while eating.

Imagine if we applied this logic to other fundamental needs:

• "AVOID breathing too deeply"

• "BEWARE of sleeping too much"

• "BE CAREFUL about drinking too much water"

These messages, although apparently well-meaning, create what I describe in my analysis of the food violence meter as internalized systemic violence. They transform every act of eating into a potentially reprehensible act.

Nutritional Cacophony

But worst is the constant contradiction of messages:

• Monday: "Coffee is bad for health"

• Wednesday: "Coffee protects against Alzheimer's"

• Friday: "Coffee is a superfood"

• "Eat eggs" → "Avoid eggs" → "Eggs are perfect" → "Maximum 2 eggs per week"

• "Fats make you fat" → "Good fats make you lose weight" → "Fat is life" → "Beware of saturated fats"

This cacophony generates what researchers call "societal orthorexia" – a collective obsession with "healthy" eating that paradoxically harms our mental health. I discuss this in detail in my article on orthorexia and eating disorders.

We have virtually eradicated famine, we no longer have to search for potentially toxic food in nature, and yet we're more afraid of eating than ever.

Chapter 5: The Invitation to See Our Magnificence

What Humans Are Really Capable Of

Through this text, I want to invite you to see what humans are truly capable of. Because yes, we carry our traumas, our fears, our dysfunctions. But we also carry something extraordinary: our capacity to transcend, to heal, to create beauty from chaos.

We have invented:

• Democracy and justice: Imperfect systems but representing the aspiration for equality and equity

• Science and medicine: We've doubled our life expectancy in a century

• Art, music, gastronomy: Forms of expression that transcend the merely functional

• Philosophy and ethics: Frameworks for reflecting on the meaning of our existence

• Solidarity systems: Social security, free education, social rights

Each of these inventions testifies to our capacity to transcend our primal instincts to create something greater, more beautiful, more just.

What We've Rid Ourselves Of

We have almost completely rid ourselves of:

Cannibalism: Once widespread in many societies, now almost eradicated and universally condemned.

Generalized famines: For the first time in human history, famines are no longer due to natural catastrophes but to political decisions. This is enormous progress, even if it's tragic when they still occur.

Numerous deadly diseases: Smallpox has been eradicated. Polio almost. Child mortality has dropped 90% in a century. We live twice as long as 150 years ago.

Institutionalized slavery: Although forms of exploitation persist, legal slavery has been abolished everywhere in the world.

Systematic corporal punishment: Barely a century ago, left-handed people had their left hand tied to force them to write with their right. Children were beaten at school. These practices, though not completely disappeared, are now widely condemned.

We've Come a Long Way

We've come a long way as a species.

If you go back just five generations in your family tree, you'll probably find:

• People who experienced hunger regularly

• Women who didn't have the right to vote

• Children who worked in factories from age 7

• People who died from diseases that are trivial today

• Communities where life expectancy was 40 years

And today, you're here, reading this text, probably well-fed, with access to education, healthcare, information. We're clearly moving in the right direction if we take sufficient perspective.

There's Still So Much to Do

There are still many battles to fight on numerous subjects, obviously:

• Economic inequalities are growing

• Climate change threatens our future

• Discrimination persists in new forms

• Wars continue to ravage entire regions

• Oppressive systems find new forms

I don't deny these realities. I don't minimize the scope of work that remains. But I refuse the paralyzing pessimism that prevents us from seeing the distance traveled and makes us believe all is lost.

To fight these battles effectively, let's stop fighting with ourselves.

Chapter 6: Making Peace With Our Plates

Let's Not Fight With Ourselves

The first step to participating in healing the world is healing our relationship with ourselves. And that begins, very concretely, with our relationship with food.

Let's not fight with ourselves. Let's make peace with our plates. Let's nourish our body AND our freedom.

This peace isn't capitulation. It's not "laxity" or "complacency." It's a lucid and benevolent recognition of our humanity in all its complexity.

As I explain in my approach to eating disorders, healing never comes through more control, more restriction, more violence toward oneself. It comes through kindness, listening, progressively restored trust.

Validating Our Complexity

Let's validate the complexity of our being and our needs.

You're not just a digestive tube to be optimized. You're not just a machine to be programmed with the right nutritional inputs. You're a complex human being with:

• Physiological needs (nutrition, energy, satiety)

• Emotional needs (comfort, pleasure, appeasement)

• Social needs (sharing, conviviality, belonging)

• Cultural needs (identity, transmission, meaning)

• Aesthetic needs (beauty, creativity, expression)

• Spiritual needs (connection, gratitude, transcendence)

The human condition is sufficiently complex without adding another layer with anxiogenic food rules and contradictory injunctions.

The Wisdom of Our Double Heritage

We can use the wisdom we've inherited from two extraordinary sources:

Our Biological Heritage

Millions of years of evolution have endowed us with sophisticated regulation systems:

• Hunger: A reliable signal of our energy needs

• Satiety: A complex system integrating quantity, quality, and satisfaction

• Cravings: Coded messages about our nutritional or emotional needs

• Pleasure: A guide toward what's good for us

• Disgust: Protection against what could harm us

These signals are reliable if we trust them. The problem is we've learned to ignore them, fight them, mistrust them. We've replaced our body's wisdom with calorie counting apps, pre-established diets, rigid external rules.

Relearning to listen to these signals is what we do in our nutritional rehabilitation work.

Our Cultural Heritage

Millennia of culinary traditions have created:

• Rituals: Shared meals, set tables, moments of gratitude

• Techniques: Cooking, fermentation, seasoning that maximize nutrition and pleasure

• Combinations: Food associations that work nutritionally and gustatively

• Meaning: Food as expression of identity, love, creativity

As shown in my analysis of plant-based and vegetarian eating, each culture has developed food wisdom adapted to its environment and values. None is "better" in absolute terms – they're all creative responses to the challenges of nourishing humans.

Chapter 7: The Meal – A Multidimensional Ritual

The Meal as Care for Our Multiple Needs

The meal is a ritual through which we can care for our multitude of human needs.

No need should be left aside. None is worth less than another. This holistic vision of eating is at the heart of our support philosophy.

Foods are tools to which we can assign roles to care for this subtle balance of needs:

For Physiological Needs:

• Nutrition: macronutrient intake (proteins, carbohydrates, fats)

• Micronutrition: vitamins, minerals, antioxidants

• Energy: capacity to support our activities

• Satiety: appeasement of physical hunger

For Emotional Needs:

• Comfort: foods associated with security, childhood, good memories

• Pleasure: flavors, textures, aromas that bring joy

• Appeasement: regulatory effect on the nervous system

• Celebration: marking important moments

For Social Needs:

• Sharing: the meal as a moment of connection

• Conviviality: creating bonds around the table

• Belonging: affirming cultural identity

• Generosity: pleasure of offering and receiving

For Cultural Needs:

• Identity: expression of origins and values

• Transmission: perpetuation of family traditions

• Meaning: connection to a story larger than oneself

• Creativity: innovation while respecting heritage

For Aesthetic Needs:

• Beauty: visual pleasure of presentation

• Creativity: self-expression in preparation

• Harmony: balance of colors, shapes, flavors

• Art of living: elevating the everyday

For Spiritual Needs:

• Gratitude: recognizing what nourishes us

• Presence: attention paid to the moment

• Connection: sense of belonging to the living

• Transcendence: going beyond mere function

The Art of Choosing the Right Tools

Obviously, a chicken-potato-broccoli plate will be more effective than ice cream for achieving satiety + essential nutrients + energy stability.

But ice cream in the sun on a beach crushes that plate for spending a good afternoon with friends or solo in terms of pleasure + comfort + celebration + presence in the moment.

It's not about denying nutritional differences between foods. It's not about saying "everything's equal." It's about recognizing that:

1. We have multiple and legitimate needs – not just nutritional

2. Different foods serve different needs – and that's perfectly normal

3. Context matters enormously – what's "good" depends on the moment, our current needs, the situation

4. Excess restriction creates compulsion – the more we deprive ourselves, the more we end up cracking

As I explain in my article on binge eating and food crises, most food control losses aren't due to lack of willpower, but to excess restriction and deprivation.

Concrete Examples of Food Use

Situation 1: Intense Work Day

• Primary need: Stable energy, concentration, lasting satiety

• Optimal choice: Balanced meal with proteins, complex carbs, vegetables, good fats

• Why: This type of meal maintains stable blood sugar and provides all nutrients necessary for optimal brain function

Situation 2: Evening with Friends After a Difficult Week

• Primary need: Comfort, conviviality, shared pleasure, letting go

• Optimal choice: Festive meal, pizza, dessert, laughter and presence

• Why: This type of moment nourishes our social and emotional needs, equally important for our overall well-being

Situation 3: Quiet Sunday Morning

• Primary need: Gentleness, taste pleasure, time for oneself

• Optimal choice: Slowly savored breakfast, what you really want

• Why: This moment of self-connection nourishes our capacity to be present and treat ourselves

Situation 4: After an Argument or Stressful Moment

• Primary need: Comfort, nervous system appeasement

• Possible choice: Comforting food from your childhood, prepared with care

• Why: Emotional eating isn't a problem when it's conscious and not the only regulation strategy

What's important isn't always making the "nutritionally optimal" choice. What's important is becoming the conscientious user of your foods, capable of choosing according to your real needs of the moment.

Chapter 8: Becoming the Conscientious User of Our Food

Personal Responsibility Without Guilt

If we allow ourselves to become again the conscientious user of foods on the path of our personal responsibility, with the goal of nourishing the free and integral expression of ourselves, foods gradually lose the superpowers we'd given them over us.

This power to make us lose our means. This power to dictate our mood. This power to define our value. Foods become what they've always been: tools serving our life, not masters dictating it.

This transformation doesn't happen overnight. It's a progressive learning, sometimes with ups and downs, like any true growth process. But each small step in this direction brings you closer to a freedom you may have forgotten – or perhaps never known.

In our dietary support in Paris, we work precisely on this restoration of your decision-making power, your capacity to trust your body and your choices.

The Three Pillars of Conscious Food Use

1. Knowledge Without Obsession

Understanding nutrition basics is useful – knowing that protein builds tissues, carbohydrates provide energy, vitamins participate in metabolic reactions. But this knowledge must remain a tool, not a prison.

The difference between useful knowledge and toxic obsession:

• Useful knowledge: "Legumes provide plant proteins and fiber, interesting to integrate regularly"

• Toxic obsession: "I must eat exactly 120g of legumes per day to reach my plant protein needs, otherwise my day is ruined"

2. Benevolent Listening to Our Signals

Your body talks to you constantly. It tells you when it's hungry, when it's satisfied, what it craves, what feels good. The problem is we've unlearned how to listen to it.

Relearning this listening is all the work we detail in our approach to nutritional rehabilitation:

• Recognizing different types of hunger (physical, emotional, social)

• Identifying early satiety signals

• Distinguishing craving from need

• Respecting your body's natural preferences

3. Adaptive Flexibility

Life isn't a long quiet river, and your eating can't be rigid if you want it to truly serve you. Flexibility isn't weakness, it's adaptive intelligence.

Being flexible means:

• Adapting choices according to context (work, weekend, vacation, illness)

• Accepting that some days are "less optimal" nutritionally

• Knowing how to adjust without panicking or feeling guilty

• Trusting that the body self-regulates over time

From Fear to Trust: A Progressive Path

The passage from food fear to self-trust doesn't happen with a snap of fingers. It's a process that looks like this:

Step 1: Awareness

• "I realize my relationship with food makes me suffer"

• "I understand this suffering isn't inevitable"

• "I glimpse that another way of living is possible"

Step 2: Cautious Experimentation

• "I test small relaxations of my rules"

• "I observe what really happens (not what I fear)"

• "I discover my body doesn't systematically betray me"

Step 3: Growing Trust

• "I accumulate proof I can trust myself"

• "I develop kindness toward my 'lapses'"

• "I start seeing foods as allies, not enemies"

Step 4: Recovered Freedom

• "I eat according to my needs without complex calculations"

• "I enjoy social meals without paralyzing anxiety"

• "I make conscious choices without rigid rules"

• "I feel at peace with my body and my plate"

This path isn't linear. There are back-and-forths, moments of doubt, sometimes relapses. That's normal and human. As we explain in our article on eating disorder recovery, relapses are part of the healing process.

Chapter 9: The Liberation Bonus

When Fear Marketing Has No More Hold

Here's the extraordinary bonus of this approach, the one we don't talk about enough: fear and anxiety marketing has no more hold on us when we're at peace with ourselves and we've revealed ourselves to ourselves as the trustworthy being we've always been.

Think about everything you become immune to:

• Advertisements playing on your body insecurity

• Influencers selling "miraculous transformations"

• Fad diets promising the definitive solution

• Anxiety-inducing articles about "hidden poison on your plate"

• Hurtful comments about your body or food choices

When you trust your body, you become impervious to manipulation.

This deep immunity is precisely what we cultivate in our global nutritional support approach. We don't simply seek to give you new food rules – we help you develop your own inner compass.

The Freedom to Choose Consciously

When you're no longer prisoner of your food fears, something magical happens: you become free to choose consciously.

This freedom doesn't mean you eat "anything anyhow." On the contrary. It means your choices become:

Authentic: Based on your true needs and desires, not what you're told to do

Adapted: According to your real situation (energy, schedule, social context, emotional needs)

Flexible: Able to evolve according to circumstances without generating stress

Aligned: Consistent with your deep values (health, pleasure, ecology, ethics, culture)

Peaceful: Without the weight of guilt or anxiety

This is the freedom we seek to restore, whether you come to us for eating disorders, for obesity management without restriction, for balanced vegetarian support, or simply to regain a serene relationship with food.

The Domino Effect on Your Entire Life

Peace with your plate is never isolated. It creates a domino effect on your entire existence:

On Your Energy:

• More available mental energy (you no longer spend hours thinking about food)

• Better physical energy (your body receives what it needs)

• Reduced decision fatigue (fewer exhausting choices to make)

On Your Relationships:

• Social outings become enjoyable again

• Peaceful family meals

• Possibility to share convivial moments without stress

• Positive model for those close to you, especially your children

On Your Self-Esteem:

• Restored confidence in your capacity to care for yourself

• Reduction of constant self-criticism

• Pride in your progress rather than shame for your "failures"

• Self-kindness extending to other areas

On Your Creativity:

• Rediscovered pleasure in cooking

• Culinary experimentation without fear

• Openness to new flavors and cultures

• Self-expression through food

On Your Overall Health:

• Reduction of chronic food-related stress

• Improved digestion (stress greatly disrupts digestive function)

• Better natural weight regulation over the long term

• Healthier relationship with physical activity

Chapter 10: Our Humanity Deserves Better

Our Generation's Challenge

We may be the first generation in human history to have simultaneously:

• The problem: Collective food anxiety unprecedented in scale

• The means: Resources, knowledge, and tools to remedy it

• The responsibility: The possibility not to transmit this burden to our children

We have the power to break the cycle.

Our grandparents knew real hunger and transmitted to us the fear of lacking. Our parents knew the explosion of diets and transmitted to us the fear of gaining weight. And us? What do we want to transmit?

We can choose to transmit:

• Trust in body wisdom

• Pleasure of eating without guilt

• Diversity of food choices without judgment

• Benevolent self-listening

• Celebration of shared meals

This choice begins now, with you, with each meal taken with more awareness and less fear.

Humanity Advances – Let's Join the Movement

Contrary to what the constant flow of bad news might make us believe, humanity is advancing on many fronts:

In Healthcare:

• Growing recognition of non-restrictive approaches in nutrition

• Development of integrative medicine considering the whole person

• Growing consideration of mental health on par with physical health

• Progressive training of healthcare professionals in compassionate approaches

Socially:

• Body-positive movements gaining visibility

• Growing questioning of systemic fatphobia

• Diversification of body representations in media

• Public conversations about eating disorders breaking taboos

In Education:

• Schools beginning to teach self-listening rather than diets

• Parents refusing to transmit their own food fears

• Professionals training in non-diet approaches

• Communities forming around food kindness

We participate in this movement from our practice in Paris, and we see people regain their food freedom every day. It's possible. It's real. And you can be part of it.

We Deserve Better Than Fear

We deserve better than spending our lives afraid of our plates.

Think about everything you could do with the mental energy you currently spend:

• Counting your calories

• Feeling guilty after a meal

• Obsessively planning your meals

• Avoiding certain social situations

• Criticizing your body in front of the mirror

• Reading contradictory articles about nutrition

• Comparing your eating to others'

Imagine this energy reinvested in:

• Your passions and personal projects

• Your authentic relationships with loved ones

• Your creativity and talents

• Your contribution to the world

• Your presence in the present moment

• Your joie de vivre simply

This is the life you deserve. This is the life waiting for you.

Chapter 11: Humanity Has Survived Much Worse

A Reassuring Evolutionary Perspective

Allow me to offer you a perspective that, I hope, will soothe you: humanity has survived millions of years of real dangers without counting a single calorie, without knowing macronutrients, without reading a single article on nutrition.

Our ancestors:

• Crossed ice ages

• Survived devastating famines

• Migrated across deserts and oceans

• Adapted their eating to all the planet's climates

• Developed immune systems capable of handling extraordinary microbial diversity

And they did all this by simply following their sensations: hunger, satiety, pleasure, disgust, craving.

Your body descends from this lineage of survivors. It carries within it this ancestral wisdom. Trusting this wisdom isn't naiveté – it's recognizing that millions of years of evolution have created a remarkably efficient system.

Let's Not Let Imaginary Dangers Imprison Us

The tragic irony of our era is that we've almost completely eliminated real food dangers (natural toxins, contamination, shortages) and we've created imaginary dangers far more invasive (fear of gluten without intolerance, sugar phobia, fat terror, etc.).

As we explore in our article on orthorexia, this fear of "toxic" foods has become for many more disabling than real nutritional problems.

Humanity has survived millions of years of real dangers. Let's not let imaginary dangers imprison us today.

This phrase isn't an invitation to carelessness or anything goes. It's an invitation to put things in their proper proportion. To distinguish real risks from unfounded fears. To develop this psychological immunity we talked about earlier.

Joining the Lineage of Conscious Survivors

You're part of an extraordinary lineage. Every human who lived before you succeeded in nourishing themselves well enough to survive, reproduce, and transmit life. You are the result of this unbroken chain of success.

But you have something your ancestors didn't: the possibility of conscious choices. You're not obliged to eat everything available for fear of lacking tomorrow. You can choose according to your needs, your values, your preferences.

This freedom of choice is an extraordinary privilege. Let's use it with wisdom, not anxiety.

Chapter 12: An Invitation to Action

First Steps Toward Liberation

If this text resonates with you, if you feel you're ready to begin this path toward a more peaceful relationship with food, here are some concrete first steps:

1. Take a Break from the Cacophony

For one week, try to abstain from:

• Reading articles about nutrition or diets

• Following anxiogenic "wellness" accounts on social media

• Listening to conversations about diets and weight

• Weighing yourself or measuring your body

Observe what happens. How do you feel without this constant noise?

2. Start a Food Kindness Journal

Each day, note:

• A moment when you listened to your body

• A meal that gave you pleasure

• Something you're grateful for related to your eating

• A small victory in your relationship with food

This journal isn't for counting or controlling – it's for noticing and celebrating.

3. Practice One Mindful Meal Per Week

Choose one meal per week where you:

• Eat without distraction (no screen, no reading)

• Observe the colors, smells, textures of your food

• Chew slowly and savor

• Notice your hunger and satiety sensations

• End with a moment of gratitude
  4. Replace a Rigid Food Belief with a Flexible Belief
  

  Identify a food rule that weighs on you and transform it:

  • "I must never eat sugar" → "I can choose to eat sweets when I really want them"

  • "I must finish my plate" → "I can stop when I'm satisfied"

  • "Carbs at night make you gain weight" → "My body knows how to handle carbs at any hour"

  5. Talk to Someone About Your Journey

  Find a trusted person – friend, partner, therapist – with whom to share what you're going through. Verbalization is often the first step toward change.

  And if you feel you need professional support, know that we are here to help you. Our approach is precisely the one described in this article: compassionate, non-restrictive, centered on your freedom and overall well-being.

  For Healthcare Professionals

  If you're a doctor, nurse, psychologist, or any other professional in contact with people suffering from their relationship with food, I invite you to:

  Question Your Own Beliefs: We all carry biases about food and weight. Recognizing them is the first step to not transmitting them to our patients.

  Train in Compassionate Approaches: Non-diet approaches, HAES (Health At Every Size), intuitive eating are scientifically validated and much more effective than restrictive approaches in the long term.

  Use Non-Stigmatizing Language: The words we use have impact. Replace "obese" with "person with higher weight," talk about "health" rather than "weight," avoid moral judgments about eating.

  Refer to Appropriate Specialists: Eating disorders require specialized care. Knowing when to refer is as important as knowing how to treat.

  For Parents and Educators

  If you have children or work with them, you have immense power not to transmit food fears:

  Model a Healthy Relationship with Food: Your children observe you. They internalize your relationship with food and your body far more than your speeches.

  Avoid Comments About Weight: Not about theirs, not about yours, not about others'. Value other aspects of identity.

  Trust Their Regulation: Children are born with an innate capacity to regulate their appetite. Our role is to provide varied and nutritious foods, theirs is to decide how much to eat.

  Create Pleasurable Moments Around Food: Cook together, discover new flavors, celebrate shared meals without pressure or control.

  We specifically address these issues in our support for families and loved ones facing eating disorders.

  Conclusion: Living and Eating, Two Sides of the Same Coin

  A Final Word of Hope

  We've reached the end of this journey through our human and food history. I hope I've convinced you of some simple but profound truths:

  You are magnificent as you are. Your body is the result of millions of years of successful evolution. It deserves your respect and kindness, not your constant war.

  Your relationship with food can change. It's not inevitable to suffer in front of your plate. Thousands of people before you have regained their freedom. You can too.

  Humanity advances. Despite everything that's wrong, despite all the regressions and battles to fight, we're collectively progressing toward more awareness, kindness, wisdom.

  You're part of this progression. Every step you take toward more peace with yourself contributes to collective healing. You're not alone in this approach.

  The Invitation Continues

  Living and eating are two sides of the same coin.

  We can't live fully if we're afraid to nourish ourselves. We can't flourish if we spend our energy fighting our body. We can't contribute to the world if we're prisoners of our own food rules.

  Lighten your relationship with food and free yourself from what doesn't serve you.

  This phrase, which is our signature and philosophy, isn't just a slogan. It's an invitation to:

  • Recognize what unnecessarily weighs on you

  • Allow yourself to let go of what no longer serves you

  • Trust your inner wisdom

  • Live more lightly, more freely, more joyfully

  Going Further

  This text is just a beginning. If you want to deepen your understanding or journey, we've developed numerous resources:

  • Our complete approach to nutritional rehabilitation

  • Our articles on different eating disorders

  • Our ethical philosophy in dietetics

  • Our consultation modalities

  And above all, don't hesitate to contact us if you feel you need support. We're here to help you regain that peace with your plate, that trust in your body, that freedom that's yours by right.

  A Final Personal Message

  As a dietitian specialized in eating disorders, I've supported hundreds of people on this path to liberation. I've seen extraordinary transformations. People who didn't think they could ever eat without anxiety. People who believed they'd have to struggle their whole lives. People who'd lost all hope.

  And I've seen them regain their freedom.

  Not overnight. Not without difficulties. But progressively, patiently, with kindness toward themselves, they relearned to trust their body. They rediscovered the pleasure of eating. They reconciled with their humanity.

  If they did it, you can too.

  Human history is a story of resilience, adaptation, transcendence. You are the heir to this magnificence. It's time to claim it.

  Bon appétit. Good life. Good journey toward yourself.

  Living and eating are two sides of the same coin. Lighten your relationship with food and free yourself from what doesn't serve you!

  Alexis Alliel
  Dietitian-Nutritionist specialized in eating disorders
  Paris 6th, Paris 20th, Le Raincy