When did healthy food get so depressing, asks Matt Preston

I reject the bleak, joyless food culture of gym bros and wellness influencers who view eating as mere fuel, or even the enemy.

Fed up with influencers telling you how to eat when they look like they’ve never, in their life, looked at a vanilla slice with a longing usually reserved for the love of your life (which I suppose, in a way, that slice may well be)?

Worried at the impact of body image on a younger generation obsessing about calorie deficits – what with their skinny parents on peptides and weight loss jabs already aping the very questionable current Hollywood trend for gaunt lollipop physiques?

Maybe you’re simply bored with ‘gym bros’ suggesting that a daily diet of steamed chicken breast, boiled sweet potato and egg-white omelettes is anything other than a monotonous life sentence?

It’s almost as if these people see food as the enemy rather than a good, if potentially slightly wild, friend that needs to be respected and loved but perhaps only given total free rein on occasion.

Their exhortations for choosing a ‘diet’ that is usually all about denial would be more palatable if they weren’t so boring.

I mean, when did society decree that good food had to be dull food?

The brutal truth is that boring food is the enemy of success when it comes to persuading people to eat more healthily.

In the UK, The Independent reported a few years ago that 50 percent of people who gave up diets did so because they were boring… And 30 percent of these people were bored in the first month!

Furthermore, diet fatigue can trigger negative emotions that themselves trigger emotional eating. Earlier this year a team of researchers from Beijing Normal University revealed that bored people ate more potato chips than sad people. Boredom causes a drop in dopamine, so our brains trigger cravings to eat, which increases dopamine levels.

Basically, you eat to feel good. Nice that someone has made that official!

It’s thought that for 30 percent of us, the mere thought of healthy food stops us from eating well. But does healthy food have to be dull? For example, research published in Frontiers in Psychology found that if a healthy food offering was seen as ‘exciting’, it was seen to be a more attractive option.

How to learn to love healthy food

I’ve spent the last year challenging the widely held trope – constantly reinforced by the TikToks and social media reels that bombard us – that healthy meals need to be bland, repetitive and uninspiring. Or, even worse, the commentary desperately trying to persuade you that frozen cottage cheese is a substitute for ice cream (it’s not) and that baking egg whites with berries and Greek yoghurt – oh lord save us – is just as enjoyable as a berry cheesecake.

That’s not a recipe for living. It’s more like dropping your monk’s habit for a culinary scourging. I reject the bleak, joyless food culture of gym bros and wellness influencers who view eating as mere fuel, or even the enemy.

So how do we make healthy food exciting but also keep it fun and joyous? Here are a few initial pointers I’ve picked up in what is becoming my new life’s work…

Focus on texture

Textural interest makes for interesting food. Research has revealed that many people find the texture of healthy food to be less appealing. Ideally, you want to deliver an appealing texture without sacrificing other goals. Think of the creaminess of avocado or slow-cooked cannellini beans; the chew of almost-candied, slow-roasted carrots, the crunch of potato chips from the air fryer or the snap of chilled cucumber and the pop of peas. There’s also the mellow juiciness of white-cut poached chicken or the chew of a great steak, which both remain superbly virtuous.

Seek out flavour bombs

I popularised this phrase for ingredients that add big punches of flavour in one of my cookbooks over a decade ago now (even if I recognise that Samboy chips pre-empted me and everyone else by almost 30 years!) Add stuff like umami-loaded anchovies, nutritional yeast, parmesan, slow-roasted tomatoes or Vegemite. Bring joy with a dollop of sriracha, char siu sauce and gochujang. Employ plenty of herbs, alliums, citrus and spices to help take a dish from dull to delicious. Even better (if you need it) is if these flavour bombs bring other benefits, like being loaded with extra nutrients.

Related story: 28 ways to cook with Vegemite

Sidestep the curse of convenience

‘Easy’ is the enemy of good intentions. Be prepared for the inevitable siren’s call of that addictive golden triangle of salt, sugar and fat by having something just as delicious, but quicker and far more luxurious on hand. Here I’m thinking about a tumble of fancy smoked king salmon with fresh dill and cucumber, cool satin-slippery tofu with a punchy Sichuan dressing or seared prawns dancing with lime juice, chilli, Thai basil and fresh coriander.

This is doubly important for those of us with a sweet tooth, and I’ve found Ninja CREAMi and my old-school ‘instant ice cream’ recipes that I was obsessed with a while back are vital sources of fun and joy here. Imagine if a pina colada or chocolate ice cream could be virtuous?! Imagine if you could could make a sugar-free sorbet in 45 seconds?

Healthy foods to love

Love protein. Love varied sources of fibre. Love sleep and early nights. Love moderation rather than restriction. Love drinking lots of water. Oh, and don’t stress – food anxiety isn’t healthy.

Pretty much nothing we’re saying here is really radical. It’s no different from what my country grandma would say back in the day as she pinched my chubby cheeks, banging on about how vegies, lean protein sources and wholefoods were good ideas. She also wasn’t a fan of junk food, and didn’t understand or embrace most ultra-processed foods.

Related story: Healthy high-fibre foods

This makes even more sense to me today. Hers is the wisdom that I keep in my head as I continue to develop a whole new suite of recipes for a better way of eating for me. Keep an eye out, as you’ll see them starting to pop up on my social media. I’d love your feedback!

The aim is to find ways for me (and I hope you) to eat joyously, deliciously and well without ever having a sense of self-flagellating sacrifice. Recipes that can deliver the nutrients that so many of us desire without the presence of crashing boredom and finger-wagging negativity. Could it really just be a matter of being smart and eating smarter? We’ll see!

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