Why do some people have an aversion to anything that could be considered "diet" food?
I have an aversion to sugar free products that are supposed to have sugar in them or they’d suck, like candy, or fat free products that are nothing but fat or they’d suck, like sour cream. What I’m referring to are regular, naturally low calorie foods that some people would actually avoid because…diet.
For example, I’d been asking my husband to bring home some plain popcorn. I love pop corn. It has virtually no calories and you can chow down for an hour. However, he kept bringing home “extra buttery popcorn,” and kettle corn, which has sugar on it (blech. Kids wouldn’t even eat it!) That defeats the whole purpose of low calorie food.
He kept saying they didn’t have any regular popcorn, so the next time we were at the store together I found some. I showed him and he said, “Yeah I saw that, but it says ‘approved by Weight Watchers’ on it. Why would anyone want to eat that?”
I found that so odd! It’s… pop corn!
When he made some of that nasty kettle corn when the kids were here the other day I commented on how gross it tasted.
He said, “Well, it says ‘Weight Watchers’ on it so I figured you’d like it.”
I said, “I guarantee you it does not say ‘Weight Watchers’ on that kind of pop corn!” And it didn’t.
Another time, years and years ago, when I changed my eating habits to ingest fewer calories I “invented” a really yummy burrito. The beans and the cheese are fattening so my purpose was to use half of the beans and cheese I normally would (OK. I still cheated on the cheese!) and replace them with lettuce, tomato and green onions. Instead of sour cream I just added extra salsa. It is SO good. It’s a staple of mine to this day. (I was making regular burritos for dinner one night and my then-husband kind of complained because mine was so big and fat where as theirs were regular size. “Why can’t I have one that big?”
I said, “You can. I just have to take out beans and add lettuce and tomato.” He made a face and never brought it up again.)
I had a friend then who was very over weight, by at least 100 pounds or more, and constantly fighting it. She made a comment that I had been losing weight recently, and I told her about my burrito (among other changes I’d made,) but made the mistake of calling it a “diet burrito,” as a joke.
She grimaced and said, “That sounds just gross!” and refused to consider it.
What is up with those reactions to naturally low calorie foods when they’re presented in certain context?
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36 Answers
Probably because foods labeled “diet” usually don’t taste very good.
And, it usually costs more than the same food that isn’t labeled diet. Why buy “Weight Watchers approved” pop corn when you can make your own without the endorsement?
When you called your burrito a “diet burrito” it implies that something yummy is left out. (I make burritos at home the same way. Sour Cream has no business being in Mexican food.)
It was the only regular pop corn that was available. It actually cost less than the “fancy” stuff.
That makes sense @zenvelo. But why would people deny their own knowledge? It I had used low-fat beans, and low-fat cheese, something seriously yummy would have been left out, but I didn’t.
When I’m working I’ll stock up on $.99 frozen, microwaveable TV dinners. My favorite is turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes, the peas with the pearl onions in them, and some cherry cobbler stuff. For $.99 though, the portions are much smaller than people normally eat. It was fine for me. Super good, too.
Someone once commented about the fact that those meals are endorsed by Weight Watchers. It was stamped on the box. They said I was so slender as it was, why would I want to eat Weight Watchers stuff? I hadn’t even noticed.
I dislike anything packaged as a “diet” food, but do drink the occasional, couple a month, diet Pepsis and like some of the Lean Cuisines and buy lowfat cottage cheese and yogurts and 1% milk. I also love Kettle Corn.
I’m a foodie at heart and while some lite products are fine if I’m going to make something delicious like a pan of lasagne I don’t want to use low fat cheese or yogurt in place of sour cream, I want the real McCoy.
Funny. Lasagna came to my mind a bit ago! If it’s meant to be full of fat or sugar, and you don’t want that…then don’t eat it! Don’t substitute shit.
Lord. Years ago, when I lived in Wichita, I had a friend who used to make “butter ball cookies” at Christmas. Man they were so good, but I only had them at Christmas time when she made them and handed them out.
Last year, around Christmas, I remembered those cookies and emailed her for the recipe. I followed her directions (they emphasized REAL butter and REAL vanilla) but something was off. They were nothing like I remembered.
I asked her what was up, why weren’t they like I remembered?
Well, the recipe originally called for 1 cup of butter and 1 cup of sugar. But she had reduced it to ½ a cup of sugar so they wouldn’t be so “fattening.” WTH??!!
@Dutchess_III Haha, hey, as long as you aren’t 500lbs. and need to be airlifted out of your house enjoy the good stuff, right? Peoples obsession with dieting is much more unhealthy than eating a few butter ball cookies or a slice of real, fattening, lasagna.
If you’re going to eat that particular item, then eat it. If you think you shouldn’t, for whatever reason, get it the hell out of the house.
My husband (who is a foodie) made no-bake cookies the other day with the grandkids. (Little Zoey there is a natural gymnast, I’m telling you! Look how compactly she put herself on the counter!)
Anyway, he sent about ½ of them home with the kids. I ate THREE that night, which is a major pig out for me. Haven’t had once since. Rick’s been slowly eating the rest, which was about 15. He is not aware of his calorie intake the way I am, and gets distressed when he starts putting on weight. Well, duh, dude. Quit bringing that fattening junk shit home, and quit making it. If it’s not in the house you can’t eat it.
When I make my butter ball cookies (twice a year or so) I take half of them to the gals at the utility office. I tell them it’s a bribe so they won’t shut my shit off any more! Of course, they have nothing to do with it.
I usually eat 4 or 5 over the course of two days, and I leave them out in the open so they get stale after that. :D . When Rick makes brownies, I eat one when it’s warm. After that I’ll get me a big slice, put it in a bowl, then pour water over it.
A lot of different things go on with diet-food-avoidance, including:
* Some things labelled / named “diet” are fairly unpleasant or less enjoyable than the “non-diet” version.
* Having had some unpleasant examples, some people may tend to assume everything diet is going to stink, and become unwilling to try.
* As in your husband examples, people can & do end up with expectations of badness associated with the labels or ideas “diet”, “healthy”, “lite”, “plain”, or even “vegetable”.
* There can also be a shame counter-reaction set up, and/or a “you can’t make me” power struggle.
All of that @Zaku. And I actually agree with it. If it’s labeled “diet” it probably tastes like crap. But in my case we’re talking about regular old popcorn! It tastes like…popcorn.
It’s like the aversion causes them to deny their own rationality.
Yep. Well, decisions based on labels and one-dimensional logic tend to have that problem, especially when the labels get broadened from things labelled “diet” to anything plain or low-calorie or whatever.
Oh, another thing that happens is a lot of manufactured food has semi-addictive ingredients that confuse the body into craving them, resulting in people who crave saturated fat, high-fructose corn syrup, salt, etc., and that craving/addiction becomes part of their “what food do I want?” thinking.
You mean like my impulsive craving for a Taco bell Burrito Supreme about an hour ago? It was great! LOL
I do not like Mexican food with meat in it, except for Taco Burgers from Taco Tico. I don’t like hamburger in any of my restaurant food, unless it’s an actual hamburger.
See above. It’s because they don’t taste that good.
Having said it though, I tried being a vegetarian for a while, because a buddy convinced me it was the only way to get a six pack. By the time I gave it up (I’m 6’5” and tall guys don’t easily get a classic six pack-way too much effort for little reward ), I had a lower tolerance for real rich foods like beef and butter and whole milk.
I eat those things occasionally, but not a lot at one sitting.
The point being you can condition yourself out of wanting grease, sugar and salt in your food if you go to the trouble.
Just like any other conditioning.
I understand that actual diet diet food sucks. I wouldn’t waste my time with it.
But in my examples they weren’t “diet” foods. One was simply popcorn, but endorsed by weight watchers. Who cares?
In the other it was simply cutting back on certain portions of fat and adding lettuce and tomato. Those burritos are delicious, IMO and they are NOT diet food. But the fact that I referred to them as that, as a joke, immediately turned my friend off.
I conditioned myself out of wanting fat and grease and sugar in my food a lot of years ago.
Because it’s usually tasteless.
Oh man. I know that @kritiper. The food I’m referring to is perceived as diet food when it’s not. Just the perception, and not the reality, is enough to throw people off. It’s in the details.
Or just read my response just above yours.
The only “diet food” I know of that tastes like it’s supposed to taste is Diet Dr. Pepper.
I personally hate fat free half and half. Not that it tastes horrible, but I noticed it leaves a film in the cup that you have to take some effort to remove. If it is doing that to my cup, what is it doing to my insides? Creepy.
If you are looking to lose weight, my daughter has found a really good method that seems to work with almost no downsides…count calories. She found an app she uses to help, but that is the gist of it. The app had her put in her current weight and what she wanted to get to and how long she wanted to take to get there. it then calculated how many calories she could eat in a day. She said for the first week, she felt like she was a little hungry, but that passed and she stuck with it….lost 60 pounds. Count calories and go for a half hour walk at least once per day. No restrictions on what she can eat other than the calories.
I tried to use only fat-free or “lite” mayo. Have you ever made tuna salad with fat-free/lite mayo?? UGH!
Fat free food that is supposed to have fat in it is disgusting! Miracle Whip Lite isn’t bad, though.
Counting calories is the only way @seawulf575. Just doing that causes you to naturally avoid fat and sugar heavy foods, without having to think about all the ridiculous biology involved.
I use lite mayo on occasion but lite MW is nasty.
The term low-fat on a container of yogurt may mean there are added ingredients including sugar, starch and other additives. By the way low-fat milk or any dairy products, for developing kids like under 8, is considered bad because children have to have fat to build brain cells and neurons.
@Tropical_Willie True but in this day and age most kids are getting more fat than they need a lot of the time.
MOST of the time @Coloma. And it’s not even the fat. I mean, growing up we ate boatloads of fat. Almost everything was fried. Everything had butter in it. We weren’t fat. I think there are two key differences:
Kids eat “snacks” today. They snack all day, every couple of hours. We ate 3 times a day, period. In my teen years I didn’t even eat that often.
Kids don’t get out and play.
Not true @Coloma,I know several younger moms that have absolutely no normal fat milk or yogurt in their house and have kids aged 1 to 9 years old. The moms are trying to lose weight.
It is the moms that are not buying “Full fat” anything; to make the moms lighter. The kids are in two or three after school and weekend sports teams. (Maybe mom never lost the baby weight after the kids were born) IDK !
“Baby weight” is a bull shit excuse.
My step daughter has a girl who is 5’ 11 and weighs about 250 pounds. She is in after school sports. She’s also eating everything in sight when she’s home and out and about. One time we had a barbque. One of the offerings was chips with Chive Dip. She sat down and ate the entire container of Chive Dip, by herself. No one else got any. Mom never said a word.
She was eating out of a chip bag in the car when they drove up. We had the barbque food about 10 minutes later. She kept eating long after everyone else was done.
@Tropical_Willie: It’s very possible, even likely the kids are eating meat (contains fat), cheese (contains fat), french fries and other fried foods (contains fat), processed foods (contains fat), fast foods (contains fat). The list goes on and on. We don’t just get our fats from milk.
We ate all of that @jca. Not much fast food though. It wasn’t really a thing then.
My daughter was a chubby baby, and while they recommended keeping infants on formula until they were one year old but I took her off formula at about 9–10 months and put her regular milk. She was fine. Same sort of thing as puppy chow and kitten chow. haha
Putting pets on an adult food at a few months less than a year old is fine too.
Puberty is also happening years sooner in the last decades because of more fat and nutrition in kids diets. Hormones too of course, in dairy and meat.
Girls now start menstruating at 10, 11, 12 when it used to be 15,16,17 or even later.
Well, you know, they were back in our day too. I started at 12. Hell, I my breasts started hurting when I was just 8. I was starting to develop.
I remember in the 80’s that same thing went around, about girls starting so early.
@Dutchess_III Yep, I should have said in the last 50 years or so. I was not quite 13 too.
I’m going to do some fact checking on this.
Ok from the quick reading I did it’s not so mysterious. Girls in the 20th century in general hit puberty earlier than in the 19th most likely due to better diets. They were just healthier overall.
Some of it may be due to certain specific hormones that may be found in foods today. Don’t remember the name of it and didn’t look deeper (I’m on my phone) but I will tomorrow.
Some of it is caused by obesity which has sky rocketed you know.
Right., body fat is critical to menstruation, why athletes and anorexics stop menstruating when body fat levels are too low.
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