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Registered dietitian and Intuitive Eating co-author Elyse Resch returns to help dispel myths about intuitive eating, including that it means *only* listening to instinct and not the rational brain, that it’s incompatible with eating-disorder recovery, that it’s impossible in an environment rife with “ultraprocessed” foods, and more. She also shares her definition of gentle nutrition, plus some behind-the-scenes looks at the latest books in the IE series and her new intuitive eating app in development.
Elyse Resch, MS, RDN, CEDS-C, Fiaedp, FADA, FAND, is a nutrition therapist in private practice with 43 years of experience, specializing in eating disorders, Intuitive Eating, and Health at Every Size. She is the co-author of Intuitive Eating, now in its 4th edition, The Intuitive Eating Workbook and The Intuitive Eating Card Deck: 50 Bite-Sized Ways to Make Peace with Food (Bookshop affiliate links). Elyse is also the author of The Intuitive Eating Workbook for Teens and The Intuitive Eating Journal: Your Guided Journey for Nourishing a Healthy Relationship with Food, and a chapter contributor to The Handbook of Positive Body Image and Embodiment as well as a chapter contributor to Weight and Wisdom: Reflections on Decades of Working for Body Liberation. She has published journal articles, print articles, and blog posts.
Elyse does regular speaking engagements, podcast interviews, and extensive media interviews. Her work has been profiled on ABC, NPR, CNN, KABC, NBC, KTTV, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, KFI Radio, USA Today, and the Huffington Post, among others. Elyse is nationally known for her work in helping patients break free from diet culture through the Intuitive Eating process. Her philosophy embraces the goal of reconnecting with one’s internal wisdom about eating and developing body liberation, with the belief that all bodies deserve dignity and respect. She is a social justice advocate, a member of the Healer’s Circle of Project Heal—Help to Eat, Accept, and Live, and consults with and trains health professionals. Elyse is also a Certified Eating Disorder Specialist and Consultant, on the Advisory Board of Within Health, a Fellow of the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals, and a Fellow of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Learn more about her work at elyseresch.com.
Resources and References
Christy’s second book, The Wellness Trap: Break Free from Diet Culture, Disinformation, and Dubious Diagnoses and Find Your True Well-Being
Subscribe on Substack for extended interviews and more
Elyse’s first appearance on Rethinking Wellness
Elyse’s books Intuitive Eating, The Intuitive Eating Workbook, The Intuitive Eating Workbook for Teens, and The Intuitive Eating Journal
Christy’s online course, Intuitive Eating Fundamentals
2017 review of restrained eating and food cues
Elyse’s 2024 episode of Rethinking Wellness
My essay on the false dichotomy of intuition v. science
Transcript
Disclaimer: The below transcription is primarily rendered by AI, so errors may have occurred. The original audio file is available above.
Christy Harrison: You were last on the podcast in January of 2024, actually, January 1st of 2024. So it's been a little over a year. And I'd love for you to just catch us up on what you've been up to since then. Cause you've had a lot going on, right? You just had a new edition of the workbook that came out. Tell us about that.
Elyse Resch: Lots of things. Well, let's start with that. Yes, January 2nd was the official publication date of the workbook. And interestingly, I just opened my mail this morning and found Ventures, a newsletter for nutrition entrepreneurs, which is a practice group of the Academy of Dietetic Nutrition and Dietetics. They came out with this just wonderful review of the book.
And I had a couple of just quick lines from it that I thought would be helpful to read to your listeners. This is not the whole thing, obviously. "Particularly notable is the addition of a chapter on social justice, which explores how systemic issues like weight stigma intersect with personal experiences. This perspective is crucial for practitioners aiming to provide equitable and inclusive care." I thought that was so important. And then toward the end, they say, "Overall, this workbook is more than a guide. It's a call to action for practitioners to challenge harmful norms and foster healthier, more sustainable relationships with food." So I thought they did a good job. They said some other nice things in there, too.
So I'm really excited about it. It's updated. We sent it out to four different sensitivity readers to make sure that anything in the book was appropriate and got some wonderful feedback, worked very hard on it. And that's now out. And then in May, we're gonna start writing the fifth edition of Intuitive Eating.
Christy Harrison: Oh, my gosh, you guys don't stop.
Elyse Resch: New Harbinger is the workbook, but St. Martin's we talked with our editor there, and she's like, yeah, we love this book. Of course, they love selling books, and we're very excited about that. And we'll be adding a lot of stuff in there. Social justice, of course. I really want to update the eating disorder chapter, by the way, in the workbook, we have a chapter on social justice, as I just said. And then there's a chapter on incorporating intuitive eating into eating disorder treatment, which I think is so important because there's so much misinformation out there about intuitive eating in relation to eating disorders.
One of my bugaboos is when it said, oh no, you can never use intuitive eating with eating disorders and it's such a reductionist way of thinking about it. Yeah. So that's going to be in there too. And I want to write some other things. I want to write about polyvagal theory a little bit. Not so much that it would bore people, but just to understand a little bit more about how our bodies work and how intuitive eating actually helps us regulate ourselves.
Christy Harrison: I really would love to dig in a little bit about the eating disorders and intuitive eating piece because I know that is a common misconception and I don't think we've talked about it. We certainly haven't talked about it on this podcast. Maybe we talked about it a million years ago on Food Psych, my first podcast. But for people who haven't, and I don't even know if we have actually haven't gone back and listened to those, but I'm just curious to hear your perspective. Why is it such a myth that you can't use intuitive eating with eating disorders?
Elyse Resch: Well, because the narrative out there is that intuitive eating is all about just hunger and fullness. And sure, obviously, ultimately, we wanna help people become attuned to and trust their bodies, the signals that their bodies give them. But when someone is engaged in an eating disorder or in the beginning stages of healing, those signals are not accurate. There's so many physiological and neurochemical reasons why the signals aren't accurate.
So, okay, you're not going to be able to trust those signals until you're more nourished. For anyone with an eating disorder, however, intuitive eating brings up so much else, challenging diet culture, making peace with food, respecting the body, understanding your emotions. There's so many other aspects that can be used day one.
There is a treatment program out there, I don't know if I'm supposed to mention any, that's a wonderful one that gives each of the people that are in there copy of Intuitive Eating. From the beginning, they talk about the whole concept of intuitive eating versus just hunger and fullness. So I think that's the main reason and then it says to me that people who say that really don't understand intuitive eating.
Christy Harrison: Yeah, they're just treating it as a hunger and fullness diet. And they're just saying, "You can only eat when you're hungry. You have to stop when you're full. This is like the only aspect of intuitive eating that's important."
Elyse Resch: And it's not just in the eating disorder world. It's just out there in the world, social media, turning it into the hunger/fullness diet. And there are a number of myths about intuitive eating, but one of them is that intuitive eating is the way that you're going to be able to lose weight. And it's so the opposite of that. I do want to say that when the first book came out, the first edition, that was in 1995, 30 years ago, there was something in the first edition, I think it was even on the cover that said something about find your natural weight or something.
I do have to have a sense of compassion, self compassion for both of us as writers, co-author Evelyn and I, that we were not as evolved as we are now. And it was never to be said that this is about losing weight. In fact, your weight could stay the same. It could go up, it could go down. But because the word weight was on the cover it was a big, big problem. And that's, of course, been taken off for many years. So maybe that's where that myth came from. But that is not what intuitive eating is. It is not another diet for weight loss.
Christy Harrison: Thank you for sharing that. I think that is the problem with being an author of books, like physical things that exist in the world, when you're evolving past whatever you wrote in there. It's a tricky thing. I mean, if you write online too, but at least with that, sometimes if it's your own content online, you can update it yourself. Whereas with books, you have to rely on another edition and people understanding that the new edition supersedes the old edition and that they're probably going to find much more relevant current information in the new edition.
I think sometimes people don't really understand that. I know when I was in college and shopping for books too, I was like can I just get the cheapest book possible? And oh, it's an earlier edition. Okay, fine, I'll just do that. So I think that maybe those additions are still floating around out there too, and it’s helpful to know, don't look at that, look at the newer ones.
Elyse Resch: And I think it's also very important that it kind of showcases how we need to have empathy, compassion for ourselves, for others, for not judging, for looking at things and with clear eyes and taking in all the changes and nuances and all of that. There are some people that just, “Well, that's what you said then and so I'm going to believe that.” And have no empathy for the fact that we need to honor how we need to change based on how we learn. That's what life is about. We have to evolve on a regular basis.
Christy Harrison: I don't want to be around anyone who doesn't evolve. I feel like the people who evolve are the most interesting. And I don't think anyone really doesn't evolve. I think some people just don't really understand other people's evolution.
Elyse Resch: Well, there's plenty of people today that are devolving, if that's a word. Going backwards.
Christy Harrison: Well, thank you for sharing that. And I think that's useful for people to hear how the new edition has changed. I'm curious why you felt it was important to include that new material. Obviously, evolution is happening and your own evolution. Was there anything in the previous workbook in the intervening years because it came out in 2017, was there anything that started to feel like it was really missing and that's why you wanted to include it?
Elyse Resch: Well, I think it's more about my own personal journey of being an advocate for social justice and framing so much of my work through a lens of social justice and knowing that it's a topic that had to be addressed. Understanding how much oppression there is in the world for anyone with a marginalized identity and for people who are suffering from weight stigma and the physical and mental effects of being rejected and things projected on them. And we can't look at just simply the importance and I don't mean the word “simply” as I'm saying it, but the importance of being in tune with your body and having satisfaction, enjoying your food.
We have to recognize, first of all, that there is food insecurity in the world. This is mentioned in the book, too. We need to talk about the fact that not everybody can get enough food. So it's part of the social justice concept in it. And we have to have compassion for people in the world who don't fit that stereotype. Who does anyway? I don't know if there's anybody who really does. So I think it was more coming from that.
I spent a lot of time with my teenage clients, by the way, talking about social justice, which has been so interesting for me. The openness of some of the teenagers when they're coming to me because of their eating disorder and their focus on being as small as they can be, and I talk to them about this, it's like a light bulb goes off in their minds. It's, “Oh, yeah. I believe everybody should have equal treatment and justice and respect and all of that. But here I am promoting something that actually, in the opposite of it, affects so many people.”
I'm Jewish, and in my religion, one of the values of it is something called tikkun olam, which basically means “repairing the world.” That is our job while we're on this planet, to do something when we leave that has helped the world. And so that's always been part of my value system and always part of what's driven my work. And so I think repairing the world includes taking a look at all of the oppressions in the world, including, as I said, weight stigma and all of that.
Christy Harrison: You're also working on a new intuitive eating app, which sounds very exciting. Can you tell us about that?
Elyse Resch: Well, this is the most exciting, not that the books aren't exciting. Of course they are. But this is something new and different. It's something I will say has always been my dream. I've always wanted to have an intuitive eating app, but I have to admit that I am very technologically challenged. I'm kind of proud of myself that I know how to use a computer and an iPhone and all that. So there was no way that I was gonna be able to do it on my own.
I met this incredibly lovely woman, who comes from a different world. She has an MBA and understands technology and all of that. We've been collaborating for a year now to bring this forward. The name of the app is Savvy Intuitive Eating. And I love the word because Savvy, it's a knowing.
We built the app as a companion for anyone who's on an intuitive eating journey. And it includes daily exercises and lessons so people can really get in touch with their psychology, the root of their thoughts and their feelings around food and their bodies and change their mindset and habits so that it serves their whole wellbeing.
And what's so important about having this app is the accessibility. Not everyone can work with a certified intuitive eating counselor. Not everyone can necessarily have reading skills that help them stay focused on a book. So this is accessible to everyone.
And we really wanted to include younger generations, especially those who are spending so much time on their phones. I think of it as they're kind of velcroed to their phones. We can pull the phone off of them, but it goes slapping back on them. And there are so many competing diet apps and posts in social media that are diet culture oriented.
In fact, let me say this without mentioning it, there is an app out there, a diet culture app, that has actually used my words, words I have written in one or two of the books. And it's infuriating. They're out there, some of them saying that they're about intuitive eating, but they're really not. They're diet culture.
So we want to have all people, and especially the young people who are so entrenched in diet culture to create an alternative. It's a compliment to the books. I'm not saying that people won't be reading the book, but it's a compliment.
And there's so many things that can be done in technology in terms of personalization and interaction and feedback and live support that obviously, as the app grows and improves over time, we're going to be adding so many more of these components to it. So it's super, super, super exciting and I can't believe it's actually happening. We're going to have a soft launch in March and Christy, if you're interested, I'll send it to you.
Christy Harrison: I would love to see it. Yes, yes, absolutely.
Elyse Resch: What's wonderful about working with Caitlin is that she's been on her own intuitive eating journey, which she's very public about, and she brings her own lived experience to it. But she also brings a lot of wisdom from the work she's done in her life in other ways in her professional field. And I bring in so much content and it's so much fun.
We meet every week for two hours. So it's quite a commitment. It's been going on for a year and it's brainstorming sessions that we have and she'll ask me a very important question about how do you think we should present this or that and, and we go back and forth and we come to agreement that's going to be the best for the world. So thank you for asking about it. But it is, it's just so exciting.
Christy Harrison: That's really exciting. I'm excited to see it because what you describe with the prompts and the activities and stuff like that. When you said psychology, my mind immediately went to Noom, the diet app that calls itself anti-diet, that says that it's about intuitive eating but actually is twisting it in service of a diet. And it says it uses psychology and has these prompts and stuff. But it's actually just diet tips that it's giving people. It's not anything new or different. It's sort of recycling old diet tips and diet culture ideas with a little sprinkling of cherry picked intuitive eating thrown in.
Elyse Resch: Yeah. And it puts so much responsibility on the person and the person is a failure and “you just have to do this right.” Well, since you mentioned it, Noom is the one I was referring to. And interestingly, both Evelyn and I decided we're going to sign up for this app to see what they're doing just for like a week or so. I couldn't stand it. I mean I had to just deactivate it very quickly.
But when I saw my words, literally my words, not just generalized but literally, I was furious. And so the great hope is that Savvy Intuitive Eating will be something that is such a counter to that and that really gives what it promises versus something like Noom, which nobody gets what they're promised on it. Better psychological understanding, better connection with their bodies. No, it's just a reduced calorie restrictive plan.
Christy Harrison: Yeah, Good and bad food rhetoric, all of that stuff. I'm excited to check it out. You mentioned there's an interactive component, like live coaching or something. Is it AI?
Elyse Resch: No, no, no, it's not live coaching at the moment. Understanding technology to me, oh boy. But it's what the user is putting in, the information they're putting in, they're going to get responses connected to what they've said because of so much we're putting into the app. I mean, if I had Caitlin on, she could explain it to you in a more technological way.
Ultimately, we are going to want to find a way to connect people to intuitive eating counselors if they need to be. Before anybody starts looking at whether they have an active eating disorder, the app is not for people with active eating disorders, they need higher levels of care because they're not being monitored on the app. When they go into a program, like I mentioned earlier, and they're utilizing intuitive eating principles, they also have people there who are, whether it's the dietitians or the counsel, the therapists or caregivers or whatever who are able to guide them.
When you're on an app, you're on your own. So we really don't encourage people who have an active eating disorder to start with the app. But eventually, with any hope, anyone who has an eating disorder and is getting treatment and is evolving and healing from it, this is a great companion for them to help solidify so much of what they've learned.
Christy Harrison: And can they work through it with their treatment team as well? Is there a way to collaborate on it?
Elyse Resch: Well, there's not a collaboration. It's not even out yet. So we're going to be improving it and changing it as time goes on. But it is something that they can bring with them. It's something they can do on their own, going through the lessons and the exercises and bring that to their counselors.
And I am hopeful that there will be a lot of counselors who will be encouraging their clients to get this app and bring what they know, bring what they've learned into sessions. It's just a companion. Read the book, listen to the book, use the app. And it's really going to help you get a deeper sense of yourself and a deeper sense of intuitive eating. So I wish I could answer your questions more technologically. I'm sorry.
Christy Harrison: No, no, that's totally fine. I'm curious to see when it comes out. And I know that the tech stuff is a different skill set, but it sounds like to me it's almost sort of an interactive workbook type thing. And I probably shouldn't say this as someone who's written a workbook in the presence of someone who's written multiple workbooks, but I'm not really a workbook person. That's not how I learn the best.
I do like to interact with material, but I more like to walk around listening to it. And so when I did my intuitive eating course, I did audio versions of all the workbooks too, so that people could do what I do and listen in the car and just think about it. And I would create space to kind of answer the journal exercises in my head and stuff like that, because that's how I like to do it. And if I'm listening to an audiobook of something, I'll pause and think about it and jot down some notes or whatever. But I don't really like to sit down and do a workbook. So I feel like an interactive app could be helpful for someone like me.
Elyse Resch: I know, absolutely. And here's the thing. I don't really expect my clients to do the homework in the workbooks. I have the My Intuitive Eating Workbook for Teens as well as the grown up Intuitive Eating workbooks. And they're so bombarded with schoolwork that we'll do an exercise together in a session and it's very, very helpful. But I don't give out assignments. We're all so busy, whether they're teenagers or college students.
But people carry their phones around. I'm going to be showing my age, but I remember when I got my first phone in my car. Some young people will not even understand this. There was an actual phone that was attached to the car and it was great because it made me feel so much safer. In case there's an emergency, I can pick up the phone.
And then the mobile phones came out and I thought, I don't want that. What do I need that for? And then it was, well, maybe I'll get one. I'll leave it next to my bed in case the regular phone goes out and I have some kind of emergency. Well, I don't go anywhere without my phone now, except when I'm losing it, which is 12 times a day. Where did I put my phone? But it's just a different world.
And so I think most people who can of course afford to have a telephone. Well, I actually wonder, there's so many things out in the world where you have to do it on your phone. What about people who can't afford it? It really upsets me.
But in any case, if you have a smartphone and it's with you all the time, you could be sitting somewhere waiting for something to begin, whether it's a doctor's appointment or a class or whatever, waiting to pick up your child at school, and you've got it right there and can go into it and grow with it.
Christy Harrison: Yeah, that's great. I'm so excited to hear about that and experience it too, when it's available to try. One thing that I would love to dig into today a little bit that we've talked about offline is the relationship between intuition and rational thought, intuitive eating and the idea of rationality. And I think that, specifically when it comes to eating, but there's also all these other ways that intuition is sort of pitted against rationality in science and stuff like that.
I think there's this mistaken notion out there that intuitive eating means just completely leaning into instinct and cutting yourself off entirely from the rational part of your brain. I know you've heard that criticism before, but neither of us agrees with that. So can you talk a bit about the role that rational thought plays in intuitive eating or intuition?
Elyse Resch: Well, I have this model that I think of as intuitive eating as a dynamic interplay of instinct, emotion and thought, which speaks to several parts of the brain. The survival part, which is what the dinosaurs had. It's the part that just gives you your hunger signals, your fullness signals, your likes, your dislikes. It is instinctual.
However, we have to recognize that emotions, and not just emotions, illnesses too, can interfere with our instincts. So we can't just simply say, “Oh, yeah, you don't have to do anything else. Your body will just tell you.” And some of the time it will. Boy, mine does when my blood sugar starts to drop and I recognize that I am hungry and I need to eat something.
But sometimes, for example, in the beginning of the pandemic, I had clients who had Covid and lost their taste and their smell. And so they really had no appetite. Cause I think so much of appetite comes from those other parts, tasting something, smelling something. However, they had to use the rational part of their minds to say, “Oh, gosh, illness has now interfered with my instincts. I cannot just trust my instincts right now. But I am intellectually, rationally, which is the neocortex, the rational part of the brain, I know I need to eat. I have to eat in order to nourish myself, in order to feed my immune system and get better. So I will eat.”
And emotions, we all know that emotions impact our appetite, our hunger signals, whether it decreases them or increases them or so much of the vagus nerve coming from messages from the brain to the gut. And so I think that we have to honor these emotions. We have to look at what may be interfering with our instincts and then be wise enough to use what we know rationally to feed ourselves. So much of my work is to help people look at all these three parts.
And a lot of what I do is teaching. By the way, I've probably said this on every podcast, but I used to be an elementary school teacher. When I got out of college, I taught second grade and then went back to graduate school later. And so much of what I'm doing is also giving information to people that they can use rationally to help them make the best decisions for themselves.
For example, talking about how when they're in primal hunger and they're starved, the instinctual part of the brain is going to release a chemical that's going to get them to eat as much as they possibly can to stay alive. Well, that's a good reason they can call upon to make sure that they're eating enough throughout the day. So emotions, how do they affect everything? How are you feeling when you're really, really anxious?
I've had a couple of clients who've had to take exams. One of them is someone who is a licensed clinical social worker and she's been one for many years. But she had to take her exam to get licensed. She's had an eating disorder for quite a while. But she knew, and we talked it through that she was gonna be anxious, she was gonna have no appetite, but she needed to eat really well before she sat down for a three hour exam. So that's a really good example of where we're using our rational minds to take a look at our instincts, to honor them, to see if they're working for us or not.
Christy Harrison: Totally. Yeah. It goes back to that idea that intuitive eating is not just the hunger and fullness diet. There is also this aspect of self care and using that rational part of your mind to say, “I'm going to be hungry, I'm going to need to fuel myself for this exam. But I'm also going to feel anxious. And so how can I get myself the fuel that I'm going to need? And I'm probably not going to feel hungry. I'm going to eat when I'm not hungry.” But that doesn't go against intuitive eating. It actually is intuitive sometimes to eat when you're not hungry.
Elyse Resch: I call it practical hunger. That's in the journal I wrote, the Intuitive Eating Journal. I called it practical hunger. Looking at this interestingly, so many of the diet culture models out there are basically telling you what to do and you're having to remember eat at this time, eat only this food, don't eat that food. It completely pulls it away from the instincts and it pulls it away from autonomy and one of the deepest basic psychological foundations of intuitive eating is autonomy, is that we can make decisions for ourselves without being told what to do out there.
Yes, we need some facts, as I said, sometimes we need to be taught some things that we have not learned. But then it's up to us to make decisions. And diet culture takes that completely away from you. So diet culture takes away your trust in your instincts and the hunger fullness diet is only about instincts and that's not the whole intuitive eating, as we just said. So, so many aspects.
Christy Harrison: And it's also sort of making hunger and fullness into this rigid construct that is somebody's telling you what to do. Again, it's sort of an autonomy stripping practice actually, by saying you can only eat when you're hungry. You have to stop when you're this amount of full or whatever.
Elyse Resch: Yeah, and they'll use numbers, a hunger and fullness scale, just to give a person an idea. In the scales we describe, it's more descriptive of what you are feeling like, you're neutral, no feeling of hunger or fullness or you're starting to feel hunger or you're starting to feel fullness. So it's unfortunate that some people misinterpret it and they go, no, I'm only at a 4.2, so I can't eat yet.
Christy Harrison: Therefore, I'm not allowed to eat.
Elyse Resch: Right, right. And so again, going back to the app, so much of this is explained in there to people who have misinterpretations of intuitive eating. And of course, that's in the books too.
Christy Harrison: Totally. I could see an app actually being misinterpreted as, “Do I need an app to tell me? Because it's supposed to be just about listening to my body or whatever.” So I'm glad you said that the app is also about taking away these misinterpretations.
Elyse Resch: Well, yeah, and there's so many aspects of intuitive eating that people need to hear and explain to them. And so many people have grown up in homes with very rigid eating rules or family members who are entrenched in diet culture and they need to have some new ways of thinking that they won't get in other places necessarily.
Christy Harrison: Right. It's important to have that modeled for you and then you can kind of decide what to do with it or not. I've had a few participants in my courses or clients ask why do I need all of this instruction or intellectualization? Why can't I just eat what I want? And it usually is people who are sort of looking to listen to their eating disorder actually or the disordered part of their mind.
I found that when people are really chomping at the bit to just throw out every part of that rational part of the brain, I feel like it's wanting to go all in on the hunger and fullness diet or something like that.
Elyse Resch: And some people wanting to go all in on making peace with food. “So I'm just going to eat anything I want and I'm never going to stop.” That's not exactly what making peace with food means. And it doesn't honor the concept of habituation, which is the definition, the greater the stimulus, the less the response.
So the more that you have permission for eating what you want, that's where your body kind of kicks in and your taste buds kick in and your psychology, your emotions. It's just not as exciting anymore because you get to have whatever you want and it doesn't ever go to that place of out of control eating. Unless somebody is pseudo intuitive eating. They're not really digging into intuitive eating, they're just kind of cherry picking what principle that they're going to go with and not look at the whole picture.
Christy Harrison: Right. Well that leads us into another sort of criticism of intuitive eating I would love to talk to you about, which is that there is this misconception out there, I think, about intuitive eating and I think this misconception is going to become more prevalent as anti-processed food discourse ramps up. This idea that people can't possibly trust their hunger and fullness cues in this food environment because there's so much “bad food,” right? There's all these terrible, terrible processed foods that are engineered to make us not be able to stop.
And the real solution is supposedly to avoid these foods completely, right? Because you can only be intuitive with whole, minimally processed foods. And you and I would not agree with that and would not call any foods terrible and don't subscribe to that rhetoric. But that is the argument that's out there and I have seen it become more prevalent over the last few years. So I'm curious to hear how you respond to that.
Elyse Resch: Well, I'm kind of laughing a little bit because here's the thing, when that language comes out, it only makes this divide between good and bad foods. So people hearing that ultra processed foods are bad and still wanting them when they start to eat them, they feel all the same shameful feelings that diets of any kind produce.
