Cake is Healthy
By: Mary B.
Grapefruit White Chocolate Cake by Yossy Arefi. Learn how to make it here!
Diet Culture affects us in ways we may not even realize. It’s convinced many of us to adopt its values of thinness, “perfect health”, and “clean eating”, even if pursuing these things leaves us feeling hungry, irritable, guilty, insecure, or frustrated. Which is why we believe in questioning your notions of health and wellness. What would the happy and healthy version of you live like and feel like?
Which brings us to cake :) What is the first thing you think of when you hear the word “cake”? If your instinct is to label cake as “bad” or “unhealthy”, ask yourself why? When did you first learn that cake was a bad food? What makes it unhealthy? What do you believe will happen if you eat cake? For those of us who have lost hours and energy (and money) to the endless cycle of diets and pursuit of weight loss, challenging the ideas of diet and health is an empowering step towards “food freedom”. You may not know how it feels yet, but it IS possible to support your physical and emotional wellbeing without food rules and rigidity. (You can learn about the non-diet approach and it’s health benefits on our resources page).
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That said, we at K&M cafe believe cake is a necessary component to individual wellness, because health is not just about what we eat- it’s also impacted by how, why, and with who we eat! (Not to mention a slew of other determinants which we’ll get into later). For now, we invite you to explore the ways that cake contributes to your happiness and wellbeing. Here are some of ours. Do any of these resonate with you?
🍰Cake is food. It will be digested just as any other carbohydrate, fat, and protein. It provides some micronutrients and fuel to help our bodies make energy. Yes, we know it’s not as nutrient dense as a salad, but it’s still food that our body will use to function.
🍰Cake supports our emotional wellbeing. By allowing cake to be a part of our diet, we are able to practice neutralizing our thoughts about it so we no longer feel guilty about eating it! We remind ourselves that it’s not “good” or “bad” or “unhealthy” or “sinful”. It’s just cake!
🍰Cake improves our relationship to our food and to our body. If we restricted cake, we could potentially eat too much of it to the point of discomfort once we finally decided to bake one for ourselves. Labeling cake as “off limits” strains our relationship with that food, and makes it difficult for us to eat it in a way that’s pleasurable, relaxing, and mindful. Giving ourselves full permission to eat cake allows us to connect to the experience, so we can better appreciate our point of satisfaction and our level of fullness.
🍰Cake hits the spot! Honoring a craving reduces the chance of us eating a bunch of other foods to replace the one thing we really want. When we let ourselves eat the cake, we can savor it, appreciate it, then move on with our life because we feel satisfied!
🍰Cake connects us! It’s a part of many traditions, celebrations, parties, and more. Enjoying a slice of cake with people we care about is a common cultural practice. Also-- homemade baked goods is definitely one of our love languages.
🍰Cake evokes memories. We often associate particular recipes with special people or periods in our life. Recreating an experience through a cherished cake recipe provides an opportunity to celebrate that person or time in our life.
🍰Cake is a vessel of creativity! Imagine a world without bakers and pastry chefs and cake artists. Just kidding, don’t even think about that, it would be horrible. But really, baking is an opportunity to try new flavor combinations, interesting ingredients, seasonal fruits, and a variety of textures. We can also practice decorating techniques. It’s art we can eat!
🍰Cake is a necessary part of our varied diet. All foods fit! Allowing ourselves to eat cake doesn’t mean we’ll want it every day for every meal. It’s just one food choice amongst all the others. Foods for pleasure AND foods for nutrition both contribute to our overall wellbeing. We don’t watch TV for educational purposes only. Why would we expect ourselves to eat food only for nutrition? We deserve pleasure, too!
🍰Cake inspires joyful movement. *Turns on “Birthday Cake” by Rihanna and starts twerking*
🍰Cake can mitigate stress. You must be here because you saw our Bake It Off video series! So yeah, obviously we employ baking cake as a stress management tactic. Transforming eggs, flour, sugar, etc, into a delicious snack is a beautiful, calming, and rewarding process!
