Why Are We So Afraid of Bread: Conquering the Fear of Bread

This conversation may shock and surprise you. Today, non-diet dietician, Tracy Brown and I have an informative conversation about bread avoidance. Over the last decade--bread has become a "scary" food to many who are dieting or trying to lose weight. But, is bread really something we should be afraid of? Is the frightening truth that we've been manipulated and guided towards certain foods and away from others because of popular trends or even politics? What? Have we been conditioned to be afraid of bread or are we making personal choices about bread based on what's best of our individual health and biochemistry? Here are a few of the things Tracy and I discuss today:

• I share my story of bread avoidance and fear of bread that started sometime after the low-fat craze ended in the early 2000s.
• Tracy gives a history of bread--how bread has risen and fallen in popularity since ancient times.
• We discuss how being afraid of certain foods can make it harder on our bodies to assimilate and digest them.
• Is avoiding bread really about belonging
• We talk about books like, "Wheat Belly" that talk about curing other body ailments by avoiding wheat and how to understand and utilize this type of information about food groups.
• Tracy encourages us with the truth that all bodies are different, and how restricting certain foods just because someone else is doing it (or because someone has a medical reason for doing it) does not mean this is the answer for our unique body and unique physiology.
• Tracy drops a truth bomb on me when I share all my concerns about bread!
• Stay until the end when Tracy blows my mind with a statement about the ways popular diets (Keto, Paleo, Vegan/Plant-based) recycle through history and why they do!

Maybe fear or afraid of bread isn't the words you would use, but perhaps you've been avoiding bread for a long time for fear that it would make you fat. This episode has so much truth about how we demonize certain foods as a culture without a lot of backing from science. If you follow the diet trends, you may notice that bread is back with the plant-based diet--after being on the "bad foods" list for so many years with the Paleo and Keto trends. I just read that celebrity Jennifer Anniston has decided she's no longer afraid of bread. A clear sign that the bread avoidance trend is coming to another temporary end. But Tracy and I discuss the truth of how those of us with disordered eating tendencies never really go back and add the "bad foods" back to our diets--even once they become popularly accepted again. Instead, we just keep restricting and taking things away. Today's conversation sheds some real light on how fear-based eating is really not what God designed.

Tracy Brown,RD,LD/N  is a trauma informed nutrition therapist/eating disorder dietitian, stress recovery coach and nutrition counseling skills teacher.  She walks besides people wanting to heal their relationship with food and weight as well as feel safer and less stressed in their bodies.  Her testimony of recovery from eating disorders, trauma and the new age is meant to bring glory to God’s mercy and grace. Since 2006, she has guided people one on one and in groups in healing from disordered eating and chronic dieting, many of which also have other stress-related conditions at www.tracybrownrd.com/get-started and  https://www.tracybrownrd.com/free-gifts (to stop bashing your body).

Learn more about Tracy Brown, RD here: https://www.tracybrownrd.com  or follow her on Instagram here or here.

Listen to Tracy's story in her first interview on Compared to Who? here: https://comparedtowho.me/body-image-trauma-healing-ed-featuring-dietician-tracy-brown/

Join the friends only email list here for regular encouragement here or at: www.comparedtowho.me

Find out more about Group Coaching (next group starts April 4, 2022) here. Or: https://comparedtowho.me/body-image-coaching/

Have you read Heather's books