It used to be hard to find a café open on Good Friday. Not any more. Last Friday, we had breakfast at Marios in Brunswick Street, enjoying excellent coffee and awesome food. It set the scene for the weekend which was basically four days of cooking, baking and eating.
We had two family Easter celebrations – a picnic at a country airfield on Saturday and brunch at our place on Sunday morning. And then a wedding celebration on Sunday evening.
The four day weekend was finished off with a home made chocolate self-saucing pudding (because I need to somehow – ANY WAY POSSIBLE – use up the kilos and kilos and kilos of Lindt Easter Bunnies in our house).
I can’t think of a more perfect way to celebrate – family and food. And a rabbit that visits in the middle of the night leaving chocolate. What’s not to love?!
After breakfast on Friday morning, we popped next door to the bookstore, and as I wandered down the store, browsing the shelves, I saw this:
‘You should buy this,’ said one of my family because they (wrongly) think they are amusing.
No. No I shouldn’t.
In between all my weekend carb loading (not sure for what) I spent some down time reading and learnt all about orthorexia nervosa – yet another reason why self-styled health gurus and the rubbish they sprout is dangerous.
People with orthorexia nervosa are so consumed (no pun intended) by the thoughts of the quality of the food they are eating, they start to refine and restrict their diets. In the endeavour to only eat foods considered ‘pure and healthy’, people with orthorexia nervosa may become malnourished because of the strictly limited food they will eat.
The minefield of ‘wellness experts’ gets bigger and more treacherous every day. Whether it is clean eating, raw food, Paleo, quitting sugar or any diet that needlessly insists on restriction of foods or food groups, we need to see this industry for what it is: dangerous and incredibly harmful.
Orthorexia nervosa is not currently a recognised eating disorder, however there is a push to have it classified in the DSM-V, the classification and diagnostic tool used by mental health workers to diagnose mental illness.
Maybe a recognised eating disorder will be what it takes to finally realise and accept the danger and hazard posed by these charlatans.
Diabetogenic 
2 comments
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April 7, 2015 at 6:44 pm
pam oka
well said!
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April 8, 2015 at 8:31 am
skchrisman
I am often misjudged for my food restrictions, which are the result of a bushel-full of food allergies and sensitivities. This industry and it’s overload of information makes it difficult for people like me to be taken seriously. I lump dietary restrictions in a category of invisible maladies that are misunderstood and do grow quite tired of defending myself with “no…really, this is quite necessary” statements. I agree that one must look closely at what is being offered and make smart decisions in choosing materials to rely on for wholesomeness. While I understand your frustration, I must stand in defense of some people in this market (say, Sarah Fragoso) whom I rely on every day to provide ideas for wholesomely delicious recipes that make this amateur chef’s life deliciously healthy.
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