Enlighten Me

Rodney Crouther (00:07):
Hi, this is Rodney Crouther.

Eddie Sanchez (00:08):
And this is Eddie Sanchez.

Rodney Crouther (00:08):
And welcome to Enlighten Me.

Eddie Sanchez (00:11):
Hey Rodney. So I remember last time we spoke, you had mentioned you were going to be doing an episode on film.

Rodney Crouther (00:16):
Yeah, I was, because I love film. I love the film program here, but I got a chance to do some traveling this summer, and actually I pivoted to food. I got a chance to eat some different cultural foods and stuff we don't find as easily here in Texas.

Eddie Sanchez (00:29):
Wow, that's cool. I didn't realize you got to travel so much. Where were some of the places you went to and what did you eat?

Rodney Crouther (00:33):
I got the chance to go to London briefly. Oh, wow. And all the English people kept telling me, oh, London doesn't have native cuisine. We just steal it from other cultures. And they did. They had great Greek food and Indian food and lots of other stuff. But then, yeah, I started really thinking about how food really is a part of our identities as humans.

Eddie Sanchez (00:54):
So what was your favorite meal that you had out there?

Rodney Crouther (00:57):
Actually, the Greek food I had there was the best I've ever had. I thought it started and ended it with gyros, but it was an experience for pretty simple fair still.

Eddie Sanchez (01:12):
Yeah, that's really interesting how close food affects our identity as individuals. Just like you mentioned how they kind of import all these various ethnic foods. I'm sure that kind of adds to the metropolitan feel of London as well.

Rodney Crouther (01:27):
Oh, absolutely. Definitely made it feel international that you could be sitting at food from one part of the world and see food from six other cultures from the window where you're sitting.

Eddie Sanchez (01:37):
Who did you get a chance to talk to?

Rodney Crouther (01:39):
Hey, I was lucky enough to talk to Debra Harris, who specializes in researching food and culture.

Deborah Harris (01:47):
I'm Deborah Harris. I am a professor of sociology here at Texas State.

Rodney Crouther (01:53):
Quick note, the sound quality is a little different this episode. Faculty also travels during the summer and several of our interviews were over zoom. So we're talking about food and identity. And it occurred to me that cultural identity in food are two very big things for a lot of people. I'm a native of the South and definitely the foods I eat feel like part of my personality. Is that something you see just across cultures around the world?

Deborah Harris (02:22):
Actually it is. Yeah. I mean, food is one of the earliest ways we have of communicating and one of the things that we communicate about is our identity. And so food is a great way of strengthening those bonds, communicating those bonds to other people, sometimes drawing a line in the sand around those bonds, like who belongs, who doesn't. And so it's part of that intangible culture that it's such a vital part of people's identity.

Rodney Crouther (02:51):
What led you to this particular area of study in sociology?

Deborah Harris (02:55):
Well, a lot of different things. So I'm a sociologist in training, specifically interested in social stratification. That's where my Ph.D. work classwork went. And so I started doing some research, actually it was a research project that was related to food that led me to studying food and teaching classes in food and society. So I had done a project with my colleague Patti Giuffre, the sociology department about women chefs, and we looked at it as a way of looking at like, hey, how do certain jobs get coded masculine and feminine? And that was a really great case study for looking at that. And in doing the background work, the reading, understanding what was going on, I knew that there was a big food component about the history of food and how food intersected with gender, is that part of identity. And so it led me to reading a lot and thinking a lot about those issues. And from there I developed my Food and Society class and things have just branched off a lot since then.

Rodney Crouther (03:58):
When you're looking at food cultures, is it always based on something like ethnic culture or religious culture, or can the lines really just kind of fall anywhere?

Deborah Harris (04:06):
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, the lines are very permeable. I mean, if you think about where cuisines develop, you've got all sorts of things that go into developing a regional or a place specific cuisine. And so you've got things like agriculture, what's available in a certain spot, what can be grown, what can be raised there, what's readily available. Then you have to deal with things like migration. People are not static, so they move, new people move in, they sort of share their foodways. And so that sort of morphs and changes things. Also, issues like stratification and status, who has access to what, and then also things like religion, like you said, race, ethnicity, all these sort of different groups within that. So there's a lot that can go into food and identity and even the idea of values of using food to represent a particular social and personal values that someone or a group of people may have.

Eddie Sanchez (05:07):
So I thought it was really interesting how she used the words food value.

Rodney Crouther (05:12):
Yeah, no, that was a way I hadn't thought about it before too, but I can definitely see it. I've definitely got foods that say home to me and it means a specific place and a group of people.

Eddie Sanchez (05:22):
Yeah, exactly. That's what I was thinking as well off the top of my mind. I was thinking arroz con pollo, which is just rice in chicken. But I mean there's certain, like you said, there's a history, there's a story behind it. There's a certain value that I put on it as a food that it's a comfort food, but it also means all these different things to me as well.

Rodney Crouther (05:46):
Yeah, and at home in the Deep South, there's definitely foods I associate with events like funerals or weddings that I know I'm always going to see at these events. Part of what we do as part of celebration or grieving or anything like that.

Eddie Sanchez (06:01):
The same thing with Christmas holidays. We eat tamales a lot and that's just a holiday food. But it also, I don't know, it adds to the aura of the event, but at the same time it also kind of signifies who we are as individuals, as a Latino, as a Mexican American.

Rodney Crouther (06:19):
And actually she brought up some really interesting perspectives too, that it's not just about what you're born into. There's food cultures that you get to choose.

Eddie Sanchez (06:28):
Did she give you some examples about that?

Rodney Crouther (06:29):
Oh yeah, absolutely. And once she says ’em, I think it'll be like, aha, of course.

Deborah Harris (06:35):
Like vegetarians, people who are vegetarians, how many people go, I'm vegan. I mean, that's very much a identity statement, right? But it's about their behavior around food and their choices around food. So, so values can be a very, I'm a flexitarian or I'm this, and so people use all sorts of labels like that to discuss not only their food choices, but also it being a sign of their larger social values.

Rodney Crouther (07:03):
So it's not just the culture you were born into. These can be cultures that you choose as you grow.

Deborah Harris (07:08):
Yeah, I mean, and it's a great example, I mean and when we were talking about this, we talked about barbecue and that's such a great example of these things being really malleable and really affected by some of those characteristics I was just mentioning. You mentioned being from around the Memphis area, any Memphis based barbecue—

Rodney Crouther (07:29):
Very different from Texas.

Deborah Harris (07:30):
Oh yes. And I, being from Alabama, have heard — if I had a dollar for every time that says "barbecue doesn't need sauce," I would be able to fly to Alabama and have barbecue with sauce anytime I wanted it. Memphis Barbecue, one of the things that shaped it is the location. It's there on the Mississippi River. There's tons of trade routes.

Eddie Sanchez (07:48):
I thought it was really interesting how she brought up the trade routes because we live in such a global society. I grew up in a time where everything was pretty much accessible to me, but it didn't dawn on me that certain foods were created in certain regions because at the time that's what was available to them.

Rodney Crouther (08:05):
Yeah, absolutely. I think and if you dig into the history of a lot of our cultural foods, a lot of it's shaped like that.

Deborah Harris (08:12):
They're able to get access to things like molasses and ingredients like that that really shaped how they started doing those wet and dry rubs and the sauces and things like that. And then of course, you're talking about migration and population here in Texas, you had those early barbecue cultures being shaped by the German immigrants and the Czech immigrants, and that's why we have the big, you're going to have that great sausage at all the barbecue restaurants here in Texas and of course very much beef based, which the cattle that was plentiful in Texas. So all these things show that these things are very much shaped by place and time, who is there, but it can also be very, very intentional. So when we were about, again, barbecue made me think about food and identity. There's these two great barbecue restaurants in Central Texas that I think described this so well.

(09:04):
There's one called Distant Relatives in Austin. It is an award-winning food trailer, and the pitmaster there is a Black man and he uses barbecue to tell the story of the African diaspora in America. So he combines traditional Texas barbecue like smoking methods with the pecan woods of the South and really lots of nose to tail, which is the way a lot of African Americans throughout our history in the United States have had to eat and just bringing in things like smoked peanuts and smoked side dishes with black-eyed peas. So really this idea of showing all the different ways that identities through food can be combined. Wow. Another great one is KG Barbecue, which is a man from Egypt who immigrated to show his — started business in barbecue. And so they have these great ribs with pomegranate molasses sort of combining that East and West sort of flavor. So that's an example. Like you said, these things can be so permeable and change over time and over space.

Rodney Crouther (10:10):
Wow. So that almost feels like cuisine diplomacy where your different cultures are blending and coming together.

Deborah Harris (10:17):
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's one of the things that people like about food and it's a great way to help people come together and explore different cultures and different places is because you can see that really interesting sort of mismash over time.

Eddie Sanchez (10:41):
I find it really interesting how oftentimes I'm just eating food, but I'm not really thinking about the cultural aspect of it. But whenever I try new food, it definitely makes me want to delve a little bit more into a given region or country, what have you. For instance, I've had some Japanese food recently, and so it makes me want to read up on it and learn a little bit more about Japanese cuisine and Japanese history and why it's made a certain way.

Rodney Crouther (11:06):
Yeah, absolutely. I definitely at dim sum realizing some of the foods on this Chinese menu actually do some of the same parts of the pig that we use in Mississippi that you don't often find on American menu normally. So yeah, it did create kind of an instant feeling of like, oh, we do have something in common.

Eddie Sanchez (11:26):
A cross-cultural feeling. Yeah, it's just interesting how you don't really think about how food is a representative of a given culture, a place or people, but I mean, it's there always in the back of your mind, but when you really sit and think about it, like this conversation you had with Dr. Harris, that's when it becomes that much more recognizable.

Rodney Crouther (11:46):
That reminds me, I don't think I've ever seen any kind of cultural festival or celebration that didn't have a food component. So I think that becomes part of how communities reach out to other communities.

Deborah Harris (11:57):
Yeah, I think it can be one of the most easy ways for people to kind of get people in the door. There's this whole concept called gastrodiplomacy with the idea that's sort the intersection of food and political science that countries use their food to as the sort of soft diplomacy to get other people to think about their country in a more positive light. You want to learn more about it. The country of Thailand is a huge part of that. Their government really pushed, that's why a lot of small towns, even towns you might not expect, might even have a Thai restaurant that even got encouragement and sometimes even funding by the government to spread the knowledge of their culture and their country by food. And that was sort of an easy open door for the country to use, and it sort of helped pave the way for more tourism and the hopes that maybe this might also lead to more political alignment as well as social and cultural alignment.

Rodney Crouther (12:57):
That's really fascinating. I knew about it casually, but I didn't know it went to that organized high level.

Deborah Harris (13:04):
Yeah, and we're seeing a similar thing now with if you think about the cultural dominance of a lot of the pop culture things in Korea, K-pop, also seeing what's one of the big food trends right now. It's like Korean food, like Korean fried chicken and things like that, some of those flavors. So that's a similar thing of using culture to pave the way or at least smooth the way a little bit for more cultural combinations and just introducing more people to a culture and giving them a positive association with it.

Rodney Crouther (13:33):
That could be their new pathway to world peace, just a huge food festival.

Deborah Harris (13:37):
There is also definitely limitations to that. I mean there can be sort of this food tourism can be, it can get a little commercialized. So I mean that's one of the things we have to think about is when we attend these festivals or when we encounter food from another culture, is it just sort of surface level or do we learn a little bit more about the history and where these ingredients and these dishes come from and what it means to the people? And I always encourage people if they're going to a place as a tourist to try to do a food tour, but not just the ones where you go to the coolest most happening restaurants, but go to ones that really talk about the cultural meanings of different foods and how they developed and how they were established and things like that.

Eddie Sanchez (14:26):
That's a really good reminder to be much more cognizant of just like she said, the history of the food that I'm eating, especially because I do go out and eat a lot of times and try different foods and I definitely want to be more aware of the value I suppose that these particular foods have for a given culture.

Rodney Crouther (14:46):
Yeah, I mean it's kind of like that ongoing conversation about cultural appropriation. You want people from outside your culture to come in and share what you love about it, but you want them to get the whole story, not just cherry pick and not really understand and respect.

Eddie Sanchez (15:03):
So who did you find to talk to?

Rodney Crouther (15:04):
I talked to Dr. Lauren Butler.

Lauren Butler (15:08):
My area of research is weight stigma and de-stigmatizing nutrition and behavioral health interventions. I am in the School of Family and Consumer Sciences nutrition and foods program.

Rodney Crouther (15:21):
We're talking about food and identity and I think your area of research really hits right in the nexus of that.

Lauren Butler (15:30):
Absolutely. I have learned so much over the course of my career as a dietician around how important food is to identity and how unfortunately sometimes that important relationship can be overlooked.

Rodney Crouther (15:42):
When we see food and identity talked about in mass media, it's often about body image in terms of things like diet fads or bodybuilding fads and people chasing these ideal images. Is that something that drives a lot of your work?

Lauren Butler (15:57):
Absolutely. My earlier years as a dietician and an academic were spent working to help folks lose weight. That was my focus. And then furthering research related to weight loss and weight management. And I over the years have really gained a different perspective on how important it is to focus on overall health and wellbeing. And I've seen in my clients how detrimental it can be when body image is the main focus and especially when there's a negative feeling about body image that can be really hard for people.

Rodney Crouther (16:33):
And we have to eat to live. But I bet those body image issues for a lot of people changes their relationship with food or colors it.

Lauren Butler (16:40):
Absolutely. So what happens with folks that I've worked with is that they will come to me feeling really unhappy about theirselves, especially with regard to their body image. And the first thing they'll say is, well, if I just lose weight, I'll feel better about my body image. And what we know is that in fact, the National Eating Disorders Association defines positive body image as really having a true and holistic perspective about our bodies regardless of whether or not we lose weight. But what happens is, yeah, it really affects folks' relationships with food when they see the only way to change their body image is to lose weight.

Rodney Crouther (17:18):
Well, and that makes me think of another thing when we talk about body image, weight loss is the big thing, but is that the only body image issue that affects how people relate to food?

Lauren Butler (17:27):
Absolutely not. I've also worked with folks who don't want to lose weight. They want to gain muscle mass to the point that it really becomes an obsession and there can be some key flags around what their relationship with body and food is like that can be detrimental to their overall health.

Rodney Crouther (17:48):
So your work really isn't about changing people's relationship with a particular food group like sugars or protein or fat or cholesterol or something. It's a little more holistic than that, right?

Lauren Butler (17:58):
Absolutely. Yeah. It's interesting when we talk about relationship with food, and sometimes I'll talk about things like fear foods and so some people, a fear food is a food that is just what it sounds like a food that folks are really fearful to eat for whatever reason. Maybe in their mind they think if they have sugar, for example, that they're automatically going to gain weight, but it's not always sugar. Some folks have that fear around other foods and it's different for everyone. And oftentimes, like we were talking about body image, the fear around those foods is driven by thoughts about how that might change their body. Sometimes that's fear about gaining weight or not being able to lose weight, and in other instances that might be fear about how that's going to negatively impact a person's ability to gain muscle mass, for example, which is another big body image concern.

(18:47):
And fear foods are different for everybody. For many people in our country, those fears are really driven by messages that we hear about foods that have been associated with weight gain, like highly processed foods, high fat, high sugar foods. And one thing that I really try to work with in my research is this relationship with culturally relevant foods. And so in some cases, folks have a lot of anxiety or fear around consuming cultural dishes that they may have grown up eating because they've been told that those foods are going to impact their body weight.

Eddie Sanchez (19:26):
Man, Rodney, it's really interesting to hear her say that because I definitely have my fear food. So for instance, culturally tortillas are a big thing in Mexican cuisine, but I've always been told how horrible they are for you. So I really, really, really try to limit them to once a month maybe, but I love them, absolutely love them, but it is that fear, that body image thing where it's like if I eat them too many times in a week, I'm going to gain weight and I'm not going to be happy with myself. So yeah, it's glad to hear at the very least that it is a thing and it isn't just me being crazy.

Rodney Crouther (20:01):
No, it's not just you being crazy. I kind of got the same thing with fried foods and a lot of things with sugar in it's what I grew up on, but now it's also like, yeah, that's going to be an extra two days at the gym for that one thing.

Eddie Sanchez (20:16):
Did she talk about any examples in different cultures?

Rodney Crouther (20:19):
Yeah, she said there are actually a few that she runs into all the time in her wellness work here.

Lauren Butler (20:24):
Absolutely. So a big one that I've come across, especially working with persons of Mexican heritage are some traditional Mexican foods such as rice and beans.

Eddie Sanchez (20:34):
I was literally thinking rice and beans as she was talking about the fear foods earlier. That's something that I also got raised with to believe that especially the rices like you're just going to gain weight if you just eat nothing but rice and meat and rice.

Rodney Crouther (20:45):
And beans is so good.

Eddie Sanchez (20:46):
It's a classic meal, but I'm glad to hear that it's OK for me to eat it a little more.

Lauren Butler (20:52):
I've even had clients, patients, students, community members comment to me that they've been told that that combination of foods is particularly bad for their health or will contribute to weight gain in a way that often feels really stigmatizing.

Rodney Crouther (21:08):
Excellent. I can relate to that just as an African American man from the Deep South. Definitely I've been told for years about the risk of certain traditional Southern foods and my risk of heart disease, for example, some of which makes sense and some of which I just keep eating because it's cultural to me.

Lauren Butler (21:26):
And that's another being from the South as well. Before coming to Texas State and working with African American community members, I also heard some stigma and fear around some of the foods that you might be thinking of. Things like even collard greens that are cooked with ham products. People would be thinking about ways to change those or they would say to me that they shouldn't eat those foods. And the reality is that some of those foods are often consumed not every day. They may be celebratory as part of that healthy relationship with food that you and I have been talking about. So those celebrations, those times when we come together with our family, with our friends, food is a really important part of that if we think about the spiritual and social connections with food and with our identity. And so when those fear foods come up and folks begin to be afraid of eating foods that they've had deep meaning in their lives and deep meaning in their family's lives, they may even miss out on those family gatherings because they're afraid to consume those foods or they feel pressure to eat those foods and not be able to say no — to me from a holistic perspective that really isn't the holistic health that even the World Health Organization says that we should be aiming for, which is really spiritual, physical, and mental health.

Eddie Sanchez (22:50):
Did she offer any advice on how your average everyday person can improve their body image and their diet?

Rodney Crouther (22:55):
Yes, she did, and I found it pretty encouraging.

Lauren Butler (22:58):
It's tough. I think the best way for me is to really kind of explain to folks this idea and oftentimes my patients will relate to the information that I'm sharing and say, oh yes, I've felt that way and I don't want to feel that way anymore. So for many people, they've come to me because they have struggled around their body image and their relationship with food and feeling fear and anxiety around food. Oftentimes, for many years they've tried dieting, they've had these negative experiences with their cultural foods where they feel like they can't have them, but they're also a very important part of their life and they're just tired and looking for somebody to guide them into a healthier relationship with food. And to answer your question, it's usually with a lot of self-reflection, we might, I usually ask folks to write down what they're eating every day now, not calories, none of that, right?

(23:54):
But I just want to get a sense of what they're eating every day and to kind of see what their patterns are. So again, thinking about fear foods, people typically have patterns where they're avoiding some of the same things or they're eating some of the same things over and over again. And so that's a really great place to start is just to have that assessment of what the person is typically consuming so we can see where are the opportunities to help them add in things that might help to bring some peace to their relationship with food.

Rodney Crouther (24:27):
Over the years of your research, have you seen a change in how social media impact people's body image as it relates to their diet?

Lauren Butler (24:36):
Oh, yes, absolutely. So with the rise of social media, as you mentioned, when I started my career, we didn't have things like TikTok and Instagram. I don't even know if we had Facebook actually for all of my career as a research dietician. And I think the thing that I see is there's two sides of it. There are a lot of accounts out there that are providing a lot of misinformation about food and exercise. One of the big things I see is sometimes we'll see folks that are just in that season of life where they're younger, where they maybe have the ability to work out more often, say, than someone who's middle age that has three or four children in a family that they're focusing on. And so it's kind of a misconception because my patients, clients will see these folks on social media that have kind of the body that they want and think, why can't I have that and what am I doing wrong? When in reality they're not doing anything wrong. It's natural and normal in the human experience for all of us to go through different seasons of life. Sometimes we may not be able to do the same things that we did when we were younger, for example, and also our bodies just change over time.

Rodney Crouther (25:50):
When you talk about fear foods, I definitely remember when media got really into talking about celiac, and I knew several people who did not have celiac but went gluten-free anyway, because that idea that gluten was bad, it went viral.

Lauren Butler (26:08):
Absolutely. And that's just one of the fads is this viral phenomenon that happens. But with celiac disease, you're absolutely right to bring that up because that is a autoimmune disease where we actually can test to see if there's an autoimmune response to consuming gluten and a very small percent of the population, and I don't know the numbers, so I'm not going to quote it, but I know it's less than 10% actually have that health concern. There are folks who are gluten sensitive, there are folks who are allergic to gluten. As with food allergies, it's really actually much harder than people think to diagnose food allergies. That's another misnomer. It's not just the gluten-free. There's other things, I'm trying to think. The keto diet, that one was another one that was just really popular. I think again, it all just comes down to really those types of diets can disrupt a person's relationship with food if they're adopting those diets because they want to change their body weight, shape, and size.

(27:09):
Now, there's nothing wrong with consuming a diet that we know is supportive of health, right? With fruits and vegetables and lean proteins and the foods that we know really are supportive of our health. Where it becomes a concern from a holistic and a mental health perspective is where that fear really starts to dictate all of those food choices. For example, I'll tell you a story. I had a client who was going to had the opportunity to take a trip out of the US, an international trip, and they didn't want to go on the trip because they told me that they couldn't eat the foods, that they had to adhere to this strict diet that they wouldn't be able to adhere to, not for health reasons, but for body image concern reasons, and that's so sad that they wouldn't to go out and have this amazing experience.

Rodney Crouther (27:55):
Yeah, food's one of my favorite parts of travel.

Lauren Butler (27:58):
So that was very sad.

Rodney Crouther (27:59):
What's your quick advice for people to build a healthier relationship with their body image in their diet?

Lauren Butler (28:07):
I think if we're thinking about college students, for example, one of the things that I would really encourage there is to really think about food access. So we know that many college students actually struggle with consuming enough food to support their bodies, and it can be really difficult oftentimes to find three meals a day, for example, when you're in college, and that actually can continue on into adulthood. I was actually surprised when I moved into this area how many people that I worked with that weren't eating three meals a day. So I think some quick advice around body image is to just maybe take a look at how many times a day that you're eating. If you're not able to consume those three meals a day, ask yourself why. If it's a food security concern where you're not able to access those foods, check out Bobcat Bounty on campus, for example, and maybe assessing, do I have fear? Do I have anxiety around the foods I eat and my body image and how much of my day is spent thinking about those things? And then there are lots of resources that can help you to get support around how to heal that relationship with food and body.

Rodney Crouther (29:24):
We'll be right back after this.

Eddie Sanchez (29:37):
Rodney, so it definitely put me in the mood to go home and have some fried chicken and maybe a little bit of these foods that might not be the healthiest for me, but I'm trying to find balance in my life.

Rodney Crouther (29:46):
Yeah, I've been fighting through all the peach season in Texas to not make three peach cobblers every week, but I think maybe after that conversation I can let myself go make one.

Eddie Sanchez (30:00):
And I know realistically it's a balance to everything that we can enjoy some of these maybe on a healthier foods on occasion, but at the same time, we also have to have our good healthy meals as frequently as we can. So did you get a chance to talk to anybody about that aspect of food?

Rodney Crouther (30:18):
Yeah, I actually spoke to someone who specializes in giving people advice on wellness and how to create a healthier eating lifestyle.

Lindsey Menge (30:30):
My name is Lindsey Menge and I'm a senior lecturer and dietetic internship director here at Texas State and our nutrition and foods department.

Rodney Crouther (30:37):
And you also do work with our WellCats program here on campus, is that correct?

Lindsey Menge (30:41):
I do. I've been really fortunate to, I am actually an alum of Texas State, so I completed my graduate degree here and I was lucky enough to be involved in research with WellCats at that time, and then have been teaching here ever since and have continued that work today. So I work with a really great team and we get to think about wellness for everyone on campus, which is really something that I enjoy being a part of.

Rodney Crouther (31:08):
We're talking about food and how it plays into our identity, American pop culture and social media, and a lot of businesses really focused on diets and dieting and weight loss and body image, but I'm guessing that doesn't really track neatly with living a healthy lifestyle all the time.

Lindsey Menge (31:28):
I think that there — a lot of the misconception out there is an idea of perfection around your diet and that there is one perfect way to eat. And when we think about identity or culture and how that can influence our diet, there are so many different ways to have variety in the things that you're eating and still be honoring your traditions and having that be a part of the identity in which you operate. And so there isn't a one size fits all with it, and it can be tough out there when you're hearing so many mixed messages around food to really feel secure in what you're doing and what you're choosing for yourself.

Rodney Crouther (32:09):
Yeah, sure. When you see a video on TikTok or YouTube, it's always from someone going, "This is the only way to eat. This is the diet for everyone. This is the only way to be healthy."

Lindsey Menge (32:20):
And there seems to be an idea of there's a mystery out there, it's what you haven't been told or things along those lines. And so part of the work that we do with WellCats and the work that we do within the nutrition department as a whole is just how do we dissolve some of those misconceptions and help people find more freedom and a feeling of joy in the foods that they're choosing?

Eddie Sanchez (32:48):
I got to be honest with you, Rodney, whenever I think of dieting, I often fall into the latest trends. I try a little bit of keto or maybe a little bit of paleo or something that I might see online, and I'll try to incorporate it into my eating habits, but I know that's not always the best way to go about staying healthy. Did you guys talk about the differences, I guess, how to eat for your overall wellness, keep it consistent versus a diet that I'm going to give up in a week?

Rodney Crouther (33:18):
Yeah, we did, and it seems that a lot of it is really breaking that mindset comes down to not following necessarily those really rigid rules of we have to only eat foods on this list and we can't eat any foods on that list. And you know what? Dr. Menge explains it a lot better than me. I'll let her tell you.

Lindsey Menge (33:37):
I think eating for wellness first and foremost is thinking about progress and not perfection that we are really focusing on what can we do to augment someone's diet? How can we add to what you're doing right now to just improve the healthfulness of that diet? So we really try to steer clear of the idea of having to take away foods, but more about what can we bring in that just brings the color into your diet, that brings variety into your diet, that brings even just playfulness and celebration into the foods that you're choosing, right?

Rodney Crouther (34:15):
I think about when I hear about diets like paleo or any other fad trendy diet, it doesn't take into account anything that you've alluded to, cultural preferences or religious restrictions or all the other things that go into what an individual person eats.

Lindsey Menge (34:33):
And so often with a lot of the fad diets that are out there, it can really lead to restrictive patterns that can be detrimental to someone's health. So a person might be engaging in that initially because they want to do something to improve their health, but then in the long run, that might not actually be serving that purpose. And so sometimes there's a time and a place for making certain types of dietary modifications, but for the most part, the goal is really to find a blend of what is part of your day-to-day culture, your day-to-day foods that have been part of your upbringing. How do we have that there? And also think about the healthfulness of that plate, and there's room to do both.

Rodney Crouther (35:24):
If someone's coming to WellCats looking for advice on how they eat, do your counselors spend a lot of time trying to help people make that distinction between a diet and just healthy eating in general?

Lindsey Menge (35:34):
Yes. We really try to think about lifestyle and how to make a healthy choice the easy choice. That's typically the motto that we say with WellCats, because our goal ultimately isn't to take foods away, but to just think about how to create that balance in the things that you're doing. There's room for the foods that you enjoy, and then hopefully in work with us, you can also find ways to enjoy foods that maybe are ones that haven't been part of your regular diet or try new things.

Rodney Crouther (36:05):
Yeah, I mean, I think about that myself when I think, oh, my doctor told me I should watch my cholesterol. I only think about what I can't eat, which is honestly does make it harder to make a sustainable change.

Lindsey Menge (36:18):
And it's not to say that there might not be foods that we want to think more in moderation, but so often when we have more of the perspective of what can I add to increase the healthfulness of my diet versus what can I take away oftentimes then some of the things that we would want to see in more moderation just naturally start to go that direction when you're adding in more healthful foods. So a lot of times we will recommend to just even think about how can I get more colorful foods into my diet? Variety is so important to our health. We get such a mix and blend of different vitamins and minerals when we have different types of color. So if you're someone who's been going to the grocery store and you kind of pick your typical foods and you stick to those, maybe the next time you go, you look at the aisle and you say, OK, what's something that's maybe a red fruit or vegetable that I haven't tried? Let me put that in my basket today and see what I can do with it. So just again, having more curiosity with food and thinking more about that variety to the things that you're doing can create a lot of fun in the kitchen and really increase the healthfulness of your diet.

Eddie Sanchez (37:30):
I will say that I love my colorful foods. Definitely peppers, our red, yellow, orange, green peppers. I love all of those.

Rodney Crouther (37:39):
And actually she gave me an idea of something I can do just in my own cooking at home when I start doing things like deliberately adding more colors, I ended up looking up recipes that I might not have tried otherwise. It turned out to be great and become part of our routine. So I think that was a strategy where you're not ruling out anything. It's like, "Hey, see what else healthy you can add in here."

Eddie Sanchez (38:01):
Except for cauliflower. Right? Cauliflower is not on that list.

Rodney Crouther (38:06):
Let's talk a little more specifically about, WellCats, everyone who listens may not be aware of what exactly WellCats is and what kind of resources it has for everyone. Who is WellCats for, is it just students?

Lindsey Menge (38:18):
So, WellCats is for employees of Texas State, so any faculty or staff of Texas State are automatically members of WellCats and are invited to participate in any of our services. We have a variety of different offerings, so nutrition certainly is one part of our programming and we offer things like cooking classes twice a month. We also have nutrition one-on-one counseling sessions with, we have some fantastic graduate students that are in our program that help to support those counseling sessions. We also provide nutrition education series where we will have a topic of interest. We did a couple last year on the microbiome, which is something lots of people have interest in. And so we'll sometimes pick hot topics to talk about around nutrition to help keep faculty and staff more informed about some of the things they might be hearing out there to be able to get evidence-based information about those.

(39:17):
We also provide fitness and exercise classes through our WellCats programming. We have different classes every day of the week outside of the weekend. I'll say that every day of the work week. And we have amazing instructors that help to facilitate that programming as well. And then we do all kinds of other, we write newsletters and blog posts, and we do podcasts like today and we do, we're about to start a book club. There's a whole host of things that we try to do to engage faculty and staff to just how can we bring wellness into our every day? And we're really fortunate that we have a university that is so supportive of that programming for us.

Rodney Crouther (40:04):
Are there some resources that students can find on campus if they're looking to build a healthier eating lifestyle?

Lindsey Menge (40:10):
The Student Recreation Center has many great resources for students on campus for how to engage in more health promoting behaviors, and they offer classes and a variety of different services there as well. And then certainly our Student Health Center has many great resources available to students as well.

Eddie Sanchez (40:40):
Rodney, I know always tell you this, but it was a really great episode just because it made me think differently about food. Honestly. It kind of just made me a little bit more aware and also made me feel like it's OK for me to have my cheat meals a little bit more frequently.

Rodney Crouther (40:59):
It helped to hear some of our professionals point out that demonizing a particular food is not a path to health, that you have to be a little more holistic than that if you really want to achieve a healthier outcome or a healthier lifestyle.

Eddie Sanchez (41:12):
It seems as if allowing yourself some of these foods a little bit more is actually, it adds to the balance of things. It's much more sustainable than trying to just always eat, you know —

Rodney Crouther (41:24):
We all know the story of trying a really, really rigid diet. Nobody sustains that for more than a couple of weeks or a couple of months.

Eddie Sanchez (41:31):
Yeah, it's so hard.

Rodney Crouther (41:31):
And then you feel like a failure when you crack and go ahead and have a bunch of Snickers or ice cream.

Eddie Sanchez (41:37):
Yeah, so I guess it's probably better to have my Snickers ice cream once a week instead of trying to hold off for two months and going crazy one weekend, huh?

Rodney Crouther (41:47):
I'm definitely going to make a peach cobbler this weekend.

Eddie Sanchez (41:50):
Well, I'm definitely going to have fried chicken today, so I think I'm pretty excited about it.

Rodney Crouther (41:54):
Hey, you still got to enjoy your food, right? For sure. Alright, so Eddie, next month, what are we going to hear?

Eddie Sanchez (42:00):
I'm actually going to be talking about artificial intelligence with some of our researchers here at Texas State University.

Rodney Crouther (42:07):
Great. They're not building Terminator, are they?

Eddie Sanchez (42:09):
No, that's the good news that I don't think Terminator is going to be coming anytime soon.

Rodney Crouther (42:13):
That's a relief. Thank you for listening to Enlighten Me. We'll see you next month. This podcast is a production of the Division of Marketing and Communications at Texas State University. Podcasts appearing on the Texas State Podcast Network represent the views of the host and guests, not of Texas State University.