What do your food choices say about your values?

Jamie, I thought of you—our garden is packed full of lettuce. Do you need any?”

This text message came through on Friday while I was driving home from dropping off my son at his first job. His lunchbox was packed with homemade food to support him through a long, hot day. I was headed home to my daughter, who was eating the sourdough pancakes I’d just made, to pack up her gear and lunch for an excursion up north.

Besides finishing my housing article, sending off a podcast for editing, and replying to client emails, I added three more things to my to-do list: make dressing, harvest lettuce, buy fish.

Finally, I knew what I’d make for dinner at the cabin.

My friends planned to eat at the lodge, but I preferred to cook food I’d procured and knew where it came from. It was a last-minute trip, and I hadn’t yet decided what to make for my daughter and me. Normally, it was pizza night, but I’d save that for our return.

Knowing I’d have fresh lettuce, the menu was obvious: wild fish poached in butter, lemon, and garlic; leftover rosemary home fries made with local organic potatoes and my sister’s rosemary salt; and a green salad with avocado, olives, feta, pumpkin seeds, and homemade red wine vinaigrette.

Easy. Delicious. Aligned with my standards.

Some people think I center my life around food. In fact, I center my food around my values.

For years, it has baffled me that people have family values that guide behavior, decisions, and identity—kindness, respect, trust, integrity, accountability—yet often have no values that guide family food, mealtimes, or wellbeing.

What if we connected our values with food?

Be kind to our bodies. Respect Mother Earth. Trust in our innate potential to be well. Procure food with integrity. Be accountable to our choices.

I realize it’s not obvious to connect personal, financial, or family values with food values. At the lake last weekend, a woman from southern Idaho described herself as “a mountain girl” and insisted on touching the water with her bare feet. A few minutes later, I saw her eating chips from a plastic bag. As I wondered about this divide, the wind picked up and blew a candy wrapper across the sand, followed by a plastic lid from a to-go cup.

I wanted to judge the people swimming in the lake, catching fish in the creek, and booking horseback rides while simultaneously eating foods that neither resembled nature nor nourished the people consuming them. But I’ve let go of judgment. Instead, I turn to observation: Our culture does not value food from the earth—our culture values convenience. (Plus, I’ve been that person, too.)

Do you have principles that guide your food choices?

If not, eating can remain confusing, conflicting, guilt-inducing, and disconnected. Clarifying our food values can become an anchor—helping us make decisions that feel aligned, reduce angst, and improve our relationship with food.

Below are a few ways to get to the root of what you value and, subsequently, create food values that align with your other values.

Investigate your relationship with your mind. Do food choices dominate your thoughts? Do certain foods trigger self-criticism? If so, you’re not alone. I’ve been there—and return there still. Yet I can come back to my values, which center on wellbeing and how I want to feel: strong and capable in mind and body.

Explore your relationship with your body. Our culture celebrates a “perfect” body, distorts beauty, and encourages comparison. Food plays a crucial role in body peace because when we eat well, we often feel better in our bodies.

Understand your relationship with your emotions. Do you eat to soothe pain? Drink to escape? What lies beneath your cravings? Our emotions communicate with us, and recognizing them can help us make choices that nourish our deeper needs rather than simply quiet discomfort.

Reflect on the food values you hope to pass on to your children. Is gathering around the table more important than a from-scratch meal? Which food traditions do you want to cultivate? How do your own words and behaviors around food shape your loved ones’ relationship with eating, nourishment, and wellbeing? Sometimes, our children’s health and happiness become the catalyst for examining our own choices.

Clarify your relationship with your environment. Do coworkers bring ultra-processed treats to share? Is your dining table buried beneath mail and clutter? Do you eat at your desk while answering stressful emails, in your car while stuck in traffic, or while scrolling through ads and doom on Instagram? Our environments can support mindful eating or enable mindless eating.

Contemplate your relationship with nature. Food that nourishes us comes from Mother Earth. Do you prioritize foods your body recognizes? Spend time among trees, flowers, birds, and insects? Walk barefoot on dirt and rocks? Or rely on chemicals to manage the landscapes around you? Often, our wellbeing reflects our relationship with the natural world.

Finally, reflect on what brings you joy. Do you love mountain biking but struggle through rides because you’re hungover and depleted? Do you love cooking but feel too busy or tired to do it? The activities that bring us to life often depend on the nourishment that supports them.

These prompts offer a starting place for clarifying food values. One underlying intention is to understand how both synthetic and natural worlds influence our choices. How we value our minds, bodies, creative pursuits, and wellbeing creates a foundation for aligned food values. And how we value ourselves ultimately reflects what we value in the world.

Implementing food values for your personal nutrient needs—and your family’s nuanced needs and preferences—is tricky. That’s where I come in. Please reach out if you’re overwhelmed by what to eat! I’m here for you.