What we can learn about diet and identity from Yoga Girl's announcement that she's no longer vegan
“How I lived my life and how my brain worked as a vegan was actually harmful. It was no fun to sit around a dinner table with me talking about veganism." - Rachel Brathen, aka Yoga Girl
Rachel Brathen, aka Yoga Girl, is no longer vegan.
In an almost 2-hour podcast episode titled From Deprivation to Nourishment: The Journey Back to Animal Foods, she details her transition from beginning to think about eating animal foods again, to taking her first bites of egg, making bone broth, and roasting a whole chicken.1
I’ve listened to her podcast since the first episodes in 2017, and her veganism has always been a huge part of her identity, so this news was pretty shocking.
When she announced this change in her eating habits, it made me think back to all the moments when she talked about the benefits of a vegan diet to her followers. As she admits in her recent podcast episode, she was pretty insistent that veganism is the only “right” way to eat, and her strong emphasis on that may have unintentionally made listeners who are not vegans feel inferior (I’ll admit that I had that feeling a few times!).
In the modern day, our eating habits have become a major part of our identity, in the way that other things like religion were for past generations.
And by “habits”, I think what I am really saying is the restrictions we’ve self-selected (not those that aren’t a choice, like food allergies). Many people are excited to talk about the ways they’re restricting their diet to friends and strangers. And when that person is an influencer, their restrictions can impact their followers.
I think it’s important to remember that people’s eating habits can, and often will, change throughout their life.
When people share their eating habits publicly, it feels like an invitation for others to try to mimic their habits. And then when a person’s identity includes eating habits, it can leave a person feeling stuck if they ever decide they need to make a change. You might even feel like you’re being watched while you’re eating outside of your publicly-proclaimed dietary restrictions, in the same way Rachel did when she hid her chicken under bags of vegetables in the grocery store in Sweden.
As someone who worked as a dietitian in a grocery store and constantly heard unsolicited comments about my eating habits (For example, “Look! The dietitian is eating the pizza in the break room, someone take a picture!”), I understand that invasive, uncomfortable feeling of others being too invested in the way you eat. Just because a person is a dietitian, or insert any profession, we can’t and shouldn’t make assumptions about their eating habits. And to be clear, I never have, and never will be a person who doesn’t eat pizza - I’m writing to you from New Jersey, after all!
I think we all have something to learn from Rachel’s experience: our food choices are our own to make, and it is our right to change them freely.
This is also a cautionary tale about how much we talk about our eating habits with other people. Is it really necessary to close ourselves into these dietary boxes, only to have to claw ourselves out when we change our minds? What if we never gave ourselves these labels in the first place? Or what if we focused on telling others about the foods we love, rather than the ones we don’t eat?
I can understand why some people choose to be vegan, but I also think that people with an interest in shifting towards a more plant-based diet for health, environmental, and/or animal welfare purposes, can choose to eat fewer animal products and not take on the label.
Giving ourselves these strict eating rules can feel overwhelming - perhaps not in the moment we choose to adopt them, but often down the road. Rachel remarked that as a vegan she “had so much obsession around so many things that gave [her] such stress.” She continued to say:
“How I lived my life and how my brain worked as a vegan was actually harmful. It was no fun to sit around a dinner table with me talking about veganism. It was no fun to live in this dogmatic, like, you know ‘everyone else is bad and this is the only good way [to live]’. That is no way, at least for me, anymore, to live. I don’t want to live this way anymore.”
Near the end of the episode, she equated her shift in eating habits to feeling like rest.
“I don’t want to have my life be completely centered around what is ‘right’ or what is ‘wrong’ or what is ‘bad’ or what is ‘good’ around what I put in my body. I want to rest in my enjoyment of life and food.”
I couldn’t agree more with the idea that giving ourselves the freedom to eat without labels feels like rest.
It’s like taking a deep exhale.
I’m happy for Rachel that she’s allowing herself to experience more freedom around her eating habits, and appreciate her bravery in being willing to talk about it publicly.
If you’re reading this, I’d love to hear from you! How are your eating habits tied to your identity? How does that feel?
Brathen, Rachel. “From Deprivation to Nourishment: The Journey Back to Animal Foods.” Yoga Girl, https://www.yogagirl.com/podcast/from-the-heart/from-deprivation-to-nourishment-the-journey-back-to-animal-foods.
You do such a nice job Brittany, providing different perspectives on eating habits!
It's funny though, how my own public eating habits are just the opposite of what you describe in this article. Rather than wearing my diet on my sleeve as a "badge of honor", I try to eat "normal" in public, while for medical reasons, try to do better at home to keep my saturated fat and cholesterol intake to within recommended guidelines. Do you have a perspective on "closet dieters"?