Description
Joining me on the CIHAS pod this week is writer and poet, Amy Key. Amy has a new book coming out in April called Arrangements in Blue, which explores living in the absence of romantic love. She also wrote this incredible essay for the Vittles Substack called In Praise of Cravings which I was a little skeptical of at first, as you’ll hear us talk about, but which ended up transforming the way I thought about cravings. Amy subverts the idea that we should pathologise our cravings and invites us to explore how food can be a gateway to satisfying non-food cravings as well. Amy also talks really openly about her own relationship with food and how she experienced an eating disorder as a teen, and how part of that healing now is trying on the word fat and noticing how that feels.
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Here’s the transcript in full:
Amy: And you're sort of doing all this mental gymnastics that, um, for me just became a huge waste of intellectual effort. And I thought to myself, I'm just not prepared give food that bit of my brain anymore and that much time.
I'd rather focus it on making delicious food that I enjoy to eat, that I enjoy preparing, that I want to share with other people. And also I'm not prepared to be hungry because if I am hungry, I'm thinking about food all the time. And I, you know, I find that I don't really, don't really have like much snacking type habits because I'm satisfied in a way that I don't think I'd previously been. And it was, that was really liberating for me. Just saying, ah, I'm gonna let, just let all that bit of my brain go, cuz let you know, life's too short for me to devote all this brain power to it and I've got other things I could be doing.
INTRO
Laura: Hey, and welcome to another episode of the Can I Have Another Snack podcast where I'm asking my guests who or what they're nourishing right now, and who or what is nourishing them. I'm Laura Thomas. I'm an anti diet registered nutritionist and author of the Can I Have Another Snack newsletter. Today I'm talking to the writer and poet Amy Key.
Amy wrote this incredible essay for the Vittles Substack called In Praise of Cravings, and as you'll hear us talk about, when I first read the essay, I was kind of skeptical about it, but there was this moment in it that transformed the way that I thought about what Amy was saying, and now I can't get the idea of trusting cravings and leaning into cravings out of my head.
Amy subverts the idea that we should pathologise our cravings and invites us to explore how food can be a gateway to satisfying non-food cravings as well. So like how creating someone's favourite dish can help us feel connected to someone we miss, and someone who we're longing. Amy also talks really openly about her own relationship with food and how she experienced an eating disorder as a teen, and how part of that healing now is trying on the word fat and noticing how that feels.
So we'll get to Amy in just a minute, but first of all, a couple of notes. This is your last shout for my Raising Embodied Eater's Workshop on the 21st of February. It's a 90 minute workshop where we're going to be reflecting on your own relationship with food and your body growing up and thinking about how you want to parent your kids around food and around their bodies.
We'll talk about how food rules pressure restriction and trying to micromanage how much and what our kids eat can backfire and harm the relationship with food, and it could also make picky and fussy eating worse. We'll talk about how to support kids innate hunger and fullness cues with flexible structure. We'll think about how to let go of the
It's time for part 2 of our November ALL OF THE SNACKS podcast. If you missed part 1 then check it out on the CIHAS site, or scroll back in your podcast app. Part 1 was a available to all listeners, but part 2 is a paid subscriber-only bonus episode.
In this episode, CIHAS audio engineer Lucy...
Published 11/19/24
Ok so here's what happened: as we do every month, Lucy and I resolved to keep our answers snappy when we recorded our monthly ALL OF THE SNACKS episode. But instead we did the opposite and talked for like 90 mins. Rather than cutting a bunch of stuff, we decided to split the episode into two...
Published 11/05/24