“If you had to choose between eating tacos every day or being skinny for the rest of your life, would you choose hard or soft tacos?” This quote can be seen all over Pinterest and Etsy, and while it seems innocent enough, the implication is that tacos are delicious, yes, but also unhealthy.
The idea that cultural foods (ie, non-Western cuisine) do not meet healthy standards and should be treated as “cheat” foods does not sit well with Mexican foods. Many different cultures also believe that the foods they eat are not up to par. Amber Alexis Charles, MSPH, RDN, a nutritionist based in Trinidad and Tobago, says people in her country consider Caribbean foods unhealthy or bad as a result of misinformation about the cuisine. “In health and wellness spaces, we don’t see our foods represented, and if they are, they’re probably in ‘The red list of foods,” says Charles. “What’s out there are the foods that are ‘American or European, and we struggle to see how we fit into health spaces and how to use our foods.”
So what is healthy food?
There tends to be a black-and-white mentality when it comes to eating healthy, especially here in the United States: some only imagine whole grains and fresh fruits and vegetables when they think of the phrase. While foods touted as “healthy” provide much-needed nutrients to the body, they often conform to Western food standards, leaving other cultures feeling as if their foods are inferior. “I often hear that our cultural diet doesn’t have many vegetables and that many of our staple foods are unhealthy, like rice and corn,” says Krista Linares, MPH, RD, a Latino dietitian based in Los Angeles. “Often people only count green leafy vegetables and overlook some of the other healthy vegetable options we have in Latin food, or think that vegetables have to be their side dish to count.”
This view ignores other aspects of eating that go beyond macro and micronutrients, including autonomy, culture, preference, background and variety. A study looking at the relationship between food and ethnic identity in a group of Mexican American women calls food an important part of culture and cultural expression. Cara Harbstreet, MS, RD, LD, a nutritionist based in Kansas City, Missouri, defines healthy eating based on what it isn’t: “It’s not restrictive, punitive, or rigid,” she says. “It is not disrespectful or dismissive of individual needs, taste preferences or cultural practices.”
What happens when you label a kitchen “unhealthy”
Defining a cultural food as “unhealthy” implies at least a few assumptions: that health is the primary motivator for its consumption, and that the food would be more acceptable by Western health standards if it were modified and improved. No matter what the intent, trying to “improve” and “healthy” a culture’s food, especially when you’re not of that culture, is troubling — you’re saying you set the standard when it comes to health and healthy eating.
Take the decades-old misconception that MSG (monosodium glutamate), a flavor enhancer used in many different cuisines, is unhealthy and even toxic. This widespread opinion can be traced back to a bad review of MSG from the 60s, when a doctor reported getting sick after eating Chinese food. This became a negative association with the cuisine and perpetuated racism against Asian-Americans, even though current research shows that there is actually no strong scientific evidence linking MSG consumption to the ingredient’s alleged side effects. (Again, most of the glutamate we consume is found naturally in foods such as anchovies, parmesan cheese, tomatoes, potatoes, seaweed, and nuts.) “If you hear something enough times, you start to believe it,” says Harbstreet. “If you constantly hear that white rice is inferior, or that MSG is toxic, you eventually start to internalize that message.”
There is room to add nutrients to cultural meals, but again, that doesn’t mean that the culture as a whole is “unhealthy” or that even the dish needs to be completely changed. As a nutritionist, I think there are ways to improve the nutrient density or nutrient composition of any recipe through different cooking techniques or changing ingredients. However, “it’s important to be competent with cultural humility before you ever try this, and it’s probably best done on an individual level,” says Harbstreet.
Once again, when you broadly label a cuisine as unhealthy, you also ignore the broader systemic barriers that can contribute to health—it’s not just limited to what we eat. Factors such as safe housing, education, income, access to health care, and literacy skills, among others, also play a role in our overall health and quality of life.
How can we celebrate culture?
Recently, I attended a retreat in Tulum, Mexico, a destination with a vibrant history and amazing food. But instead of celebrating this, the guild decided to “healthy” the foods: corn tortillas were replaced with wheat and seed bread; white rice was swapped for brown rice and beans. These changes were not listed as an option for allergies or intolerances – it seemed to me that they were put in place because Mexican food was not considered nutritious and had to be healthy.
We can begin to undo this kind of mentality by realizing that all food still provides nutrition and that cultural foods are not inherently unhealthy or in need of fixing. “Embracing your cultural foods is the greatest form of resistance against a society that constantly asks you to change the way you eat and adopt other food cultures,” says Alexis Charles. As an individual, you may want to focus on changing one or two ingredients or foods in a meal—but that’s very different from putting an entire culture in an unhealthy category.
