Ultra processed foods are becoming the new 00s diet culture
Please don't quote an Eddie Abbew TikTok at me, I beg
This is a post that I didn’t want to write, in fact, I’ve put off writing it several times, but it was another Eddie Abbew TikTok video that finally broke the camel’s back.
I can’t remember how old I was when my mum took me to a Weight Watcher’s meeting. In fact, I actually think Slimming World may have been my first diet club experience. All I know is, I subsequently spent my entire teenage years flip flopping between the two.
There is no doubt in my mind that those years completely fucked my relationship with food.
It wasn’t breakfast, it was ‘healthy extra A’, aka 250ml of semi skimmed milk and ‘healthy extra B’, aka two Weetabix, if I was on Slimming World.
While, Weight Watchers meant weeks of Ryvita, extra light Philadelphia and wafer thin ham. So, I could stockpile my points to have a “normal” weekend with my friends.
Even though I no longer follow these diets, I look at people who intuitively eat, like TikTok’s Nara Smith, with jealousy.
I wish I had that healthy relationship with food, but these diets taught me to both demonise and idolise ‘bad’ foods. Chocolate = bad, but if you have tuna steak for dinner instead of salmon, you can have that Twirl.
Instead of focusing on making your meals as nutritious, filling and enjoyable as they could be, you were making hideous low calorie dishes with Quark, because it was the only way you could still have those ‘treats’ that made your day bearable.
This is why I eye roll every single time Eddie Abbew pops up on my TikTok feed.
If you’re not familiar with him, he’s the guy that goes into supermarkets and calls everything “Shit”.
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Now, I won’t lie, Eddie does have some good points. Like his video breaking down why Coco Pops isn’t a great breakfast choice. But, overall, he demonises food to such a degree, it’s ridiculous and potentially dangerous.
Most people couldn’t and wouldn’t want to follow an Eddie Abbew diet. Which seems to consist of meat, organs and eggs.
I don’t want to have my first meal of the day at 5pm and I definitely don’t want it to consist of 8 eggs, lamb chops and mince.
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As a former body builder (whose previous steroid usage, is, in my opinion, a fair point of criticism), Eddie clearly has the mentality to enjoy this type of food regime, but for the majority of us, his diet would make us utterly miserable.
Especially, if you’re prone to regular egg icks, like myself.
While, I do think there are important conversations to be had around the ultra processed food conversation, there’s also no denying that this topic is quickly being hijacked by charlatans and the fad diets that ruined so many of us before.
I say diets, because that’s exactly what it is and if you don’t believe me or he continues to deny it, take the fact that Gemma Collins is now working with Eddie on the lead up to her wedding…
Oh, and if you’re looking for a nutritionist to follow, may I recommend Joshua Hill, who I have recently discovered and is not only helpful but also hilarious.
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My Mum has been badly damaged by dieting culture from the 1980s onwards. I don’t remember a time when she wasn’t on some fad diet and even though she no longer talks of dieting she eats like a tiny little bird, certainly not enough for an adult woman. Yet she isn’t skinny like you would expect someone with her diet to be. I can only imagine it has something to do with her dieting for so long that has badly affected her metabolism. Not sure how I have survived this skewed eating intact.
“Instead of focusing on making your meals as nutritious, filling and enjoyable as they could be, you were making hideous low calorie dishes with Quark..”
I didn’t consider myself much of an absorber of diet culture until I realised I ONLY cooked with disgusting fry light. I was 33 when I realised I could cook with butter and it would be… fucking delicious?