Episode 286: Influencer Dietitians: My Thoughts on the Recent Washington Post Article
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify
A recent Washington Post article about influencer marketing in the nutrition industry sparked some justifiably strong reactions. Erin shares her thoughts here — and it might not be what you expect. Pulling on her 13 years of clinical experience and a decade of sharing her work on a public platform, Erin explains why she's no longer interested in fighting the nutrition wars.
This conversation will encourage you to think about the ways you are influenced online and to build some discernment muscles with who you accept advice from. Consider this episode more of a "think piece" than anything else.
In this episode:
‘Big Beverage’ funding — is it really anything new? [2:53]
Why the ‘all foods fit’ mentality can be appropriate (but not always) [12:42]
How allowing space for multiple truths expands our perspective [17:32]
Why practitioners being TOO convicted in their beliefs can be problematic (client examples) [19:48]
Feel kinda judgy about influencers? Here's something to consider when consuming their content [22:39]
Using discernment with online advice [32:15]
Resources mentioned:
Article: The food industry pays ‘influencer’ dietitians to shape your eating habits
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Learn more about Diet Culture
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269: What I Eat in a Day (& Why)
146: Intuitive Fasting - An Opinion Piece on Our Wellness Culture
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Erin Holt [00:00:02]:
I'm Erin Holt, and this is the Funk'tional Nutrition Podcast, where we lean into intuitive functional medicine. We look at how diet, our environment, our emotions, and our beliefs all affect our physical health. This podcast is your full bodied, well rounded resource. I've got over a decade of clinical experience, and because of that, I've got a major bone to pick with diet culture and the conventional healthcare model, they're both failing so many of us. But functional medicine isn't the panacea that it's made out to be either. We've got some work to do, and that's why creating a new model is my life's work. I believe in the ripple effect, so I founded the Funk'tional Nutrition Academy, a school in mentorship for practitioners who want to do the same.
Erin Holt [00:00:45]:
This show is for you if you're looking for new ways of thinking about your health and you're ready to be an active participant in your own healing. You'll get things here that you won't get other places. Please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. I would love for you to follow the show, rate, review and share, because you never know whose life you might change and, of course, keep coming back for more. Now give me the mic so I can take it away. Hello there, friends. Today I'm going to talk about an article that was published in the Washington Post about a month ago. The title is The Food Industry Pays Influencer Dietitians to Shape Your Eating Habits.
Erin Holt [00:01:33]:
Subtitle is: registered dietitians are being paid to post videos that promote diet soda, sugar, and supplements on Instagram and TikTok. I've been thinking about this article a lot over the past few weeks. Really kind of agitated and bothered by it, but perhaps not in the ways that you would expect. And I've been thinking about I knew that I wanted to bring this up on the show. I just wasn't sure how. So rather than overthink it for more weeks, I just decided to go for it. Now, maybe you've heard about the article, maybe not.
Erin Holt [00:02:08]:
Maybe it's been in your zone of social media, maybe it hasn't. I definitely have some mixed feelings about it. The one thing that I think that they did a really good job doing is collecting data, but organizing it into a clear point of view, maybe not so much. As a reader, I was confused about what the point of the article was. Like, what was their intention? What was their desired outcome? What did they hope to achieve? I don't know if it was to say that, hey, there's an issue with dietitians promoting soda and candy, or maybe there was an issue with dietitians receiving endorsement deals from food and supplement companies. Maybe it was an issue with the lack of transparency with those deals. Maybe all of the above.
Erin Holt [00:02:53]:
I wasn't really sure. And for that reason I just kind of wondered, is this just designed to inflame? We know that the purpose and the intention of a lot of media is to do exactly that inflame. And it definitely was an inflammatory article. It shook consumers faith in the dietetics industry with the ideas, like, if nutrition professionals can be bought out, what does that mean for our health info? Which is completely understandable. It pissed off a lot of RDs because I'll use the term RDs and dietitians pretty interchangeably. RDs just stands for registered dietitian. But it pissed a lot off because their profession was being called into question. It made a lot of non RD wellness professionals kind of squawk up, saying that RDs as a whole are not to be trusted.
Erin Holt [00:03:44]:
And then, of course, there was clapback from the RDs. So it kind of activated all sides of the nutrition wars. The all foods fit, the anti diet culture, the whole foods nutrition. Like, everybody came out up in arms about this one, and it felt like everybody was big mad at everybody else. So my intent of this episode is really not to add gasoline to the fire, but more so to step back and say, hey, is there a way to engage in some of the different aspects of this article without being overly reactive? Can we breathe some space into the conversation? Can we take a pause before we react? Everybody is so available to be so emotionally hijacked all of the time, so easily distractable. This is part of the problem, I think, with these nutrition wars. When we are emotionally hijacked, when we are constantly triggered into our own wounding, that's when we lose our own inner compass, our own inner guidance system.
Erin Holt [00:04:44]:
We lose the ability to practice discernment. The more scattered we feel, the less available we are to tune into ourselves and our own needs. To be able to say, hey, this thing that I just heard on the internet doesn't apply to me, so I can walk away. I have the ability to walk away from this information that doesn't feel appropriate to me. We have to have the ability to do that. It is 2023. We are being sideswept by information and opinions everywhere. So we have to come back to baseline and self assess.
Erin Holt [00:05:22]:
Does this warrant a reaction from me? Is this something that I need to concern myself with? Is this something that I need to adopt? Is this information that's being presented doesn't even apply to me? When I was interviewed for the LA Times article a couple of months ago, one of the things that I said so they were asking about diet influencers and kind of where do we get our information from? Who can we trust? And I said, it's critical that we have some level of discernment about who we are taking health advice from. I stand by this. We have to build out that skill set. If we don't yet have it. So we're going to get into a little bit of that too. But first, let's talk about what the actual article was about. So in May of this year, 2023, the World Health Organization released new guidelines on non sugar sweeteners NSS. This would include things like aspartame, sucralose, saccharine, stevia, stevia derivatives.
Erin Holt [00:06:26]:
And they recommended against the use of them as a way to control body weight. They were also put in the category of potential carcinogen. Then on the heels of that, there was a coordinated campaign by American Beverage, which is an association. It's a lobbying group that represents the beverage industry in the US. So, Coca Cola Company, PepsiCo, Dr Pepper all of these would be part of American Beverage. And the group paid influencers, including RDs, to use their social media accounts to essentially quiet the World Health Organization claims that aspartame in particular is ineffective for weight loss and possibly carcinogenic. Okay, so then all of a sudden, there was these hashtags flying around safety of aspartame. So you can read more about it in the article if you're interested.
Erin Holt [00:07:26]:
But that's the long and the short about it. And of course people were upset. But there's something that I want to speak into. This isn't really anything new. When I was in dietetics school, the governing body of dietetics was called American Dietetic Association. It's now the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. I always call it American Dietetic Association because that's what's in my head. So I might do that today.
Erin Holt [00:07:51]:
But the point is, even back then, they received funding from food companies and groups like American Beverage. So it's not as though there's never been any type of affiliation between dietetics as a whole and these companies. And I just think that's an important thing to note here. It's not irrelevant. The president of the Academy did note that sponsors do not influence the Academy's positions. And I mean, if we're willing to take that at face value, okay then. But I will say that this is one of the reasons that I personally chose not to become a dietitian. This, to me, did feel like a conflict of interest.
Erin Holt [00:08:34]:
I mean, I've talked about this on the show before and even brought it up to my professors and counselors, and it just didn't seem to be a concern. And just to be clear, I am 100% not saying that all dietitians are promoting big beverage and sodas and diet sodas and candy. I'm not saying that dietetics as a whole is doing anything nefarious. I'm not even saying that I don't think people should become dietitians. So none of this is code for that. And maybe I should just back up a couple of clicks in case you're new to the show and you don't know my background. So I started dietetic school with a real passion for alternative health, like returning to the soil, returning to the land, regenerative, AG, healing through whole foods. So that was the lens that I was looking at everything in my education through, and a lot of what I was learning felt a little disjointed from how I wanted to help people.
Erin Holt [00:09:25]:
My goal was to return people to eating whole foods. And I very distinctly remember towards the end of school, talking to my advisor, explaining to her what I wanted to do, and her saying, that career doesn't exist. And I'm so grateful for that conversation because that really propelled me into my career. I remember thinking, oh, okay, then I guess I have to create it. And it was a lot of different things combined, that conversation, and just not really being super stoked about being associated with dietetics as a whole, that once I graduated with the degree in nutrition and dietetics, I decided not to do a dietetic internship. So that's what you have to do after you graduate. You have to go on to do a year long dietetic internship in order to sit for the RD exam and become a registered and licensed dietitian. And I decided to not do that.
Erin Holt [00:10:15]:
Instead, I furthered my education in a different, more alternative way. Totally not the point of the show to get into my education background, but I did want to give a little bit of context. If you are interested in it, we have it on the Funk'tional Nutrition Academy website just as a FYI, in case you're interested in learning more.
Erin Holt [00:12:34]:
But I guess if the question is, should nutrition professionals be promoting diet soda and candy? I think that's a really big question. And personally, for me, promoting the consumption of diet soda and candy was never going to be in alignment with what I teach. Telling people it's totally fine and grand to consume artificial sweeteners like aspartame, probably not something that I'm ever going to say. I've taken some pretty clear stances on processed foods as a whole, and honestly, years ago, I probably would have gone into reaction mode about this article and had more of an inflammatory response. But the more years that tick on by, the more that I do this work, the more that I talk to people, the more invested I am in this work, the more I see a need for the yes, and. So much individual nuance is required when it comes to food and nutrition and our bodies and health. And we might think of dietetics in terms of specialties that might be helpful for this conversation.
Erin Holt [00:13:54]:
Some dietitians and nutrition professionals are working with eating disorders, some are working with autoimmunity, some might be working with weight loss, some might be working with diabetes. And all of these different things, slightly different nuance. In the video, they shared a lot of actual posts that they were referencing, and this is one from a dietitian, and she wrote that sugar has been getting a bad rap for years. Thanks, diet culture. And before I go on, the point of this is not to tear apart this woman's post, but this one, I do want to say this is a very lazy statement. The whole thanks, diet culture. Look, that isn't why sugar has been getting a bad rap. It's not just because of diet culture. And I think that the reason that I say this is lazy is because we all at this point, 2023, can agree that diet culture ain't a vibe.
Erin Holt [00:14:46]:
The culture that tells us our worth and our value and our salvation is in how we look and will have us stop at nothing to achieve leanness and will encourage us to destroy our health to get there. I think we can all collectively agree now that that's not good. So there's a collective buy in, right? There's like a domino belief. And so you can say one thing that we all buy into and then we buy into the entire statement as a whole truth. So yes, diet culture sucks, and no, diet culture is not the reason why sugar has gotten a quote unquote bad rap. That's a little bit of an aside, but I did want to bring it up because pay attention to that on social media, that definitely people see whether they're conscious of it or not. They'll leverage that sort of methodology where they say one thing that they know, people are going to kind of latch onto emotionally and agree with them and then it's like everything they say after that, people are just going to buy into it as though it's categorically true. Anyway, so she says, sugar has been getting a bad rap for years, but villainizing sugar is the most surefire way to make you even more obsessed.
Erin Holt [00:16:02]:
We want what we can't have, right? I don't think I'm really co signing on that statement, but where I do think she has a point, she says, despite what we've been led to believe, sugar is not toxic and doesn't need to be avoided at all costs. What's actually worse than eating sugar is the guilt and stress we place upon ourselves when we do eat it. Not only does this have negative mental and emotional effects, but it can have significant physical impacts too. I do agree with her there. There truly is room for all foods in a nourishing diet and allowing yourself to include them is the best thing you can do to stop obsessing. So this kind of sounds like an all foods fit mentality. And listen, maybe this is appropriate advice for some people.
Erin Holt [00:16:45]:
I'd argue that it might be. Maybe somebody reading this and hearing this who has been on a been looking at things through a very restrictive lens and has been on a very restrictive path with their approach to food. Reading and hearing this might feel like, oh, this feels good to me, this feels supportive to me, this feels expansive to me. So it could be appropriate advice for one person and really not appropriate advice for others. Y'all know, I run the CCP, the Carb Compatibility Project. We cut out a lot of sugar in that program. That is by design, that is designed to regulate your blood sugar, to bring down inflammation, to support overall microbiome balance, legitimate reasons to reduce your sugar intake. Many of which have nothing to do with diet culture, by the way. So the issue with this is that it's an ad, so she's getting paid to say this, but many of the dietitians that were interviewed in this article were saying, I would say this anyway, I say this anyway.
Erin Holt [00:17:42]:
I don't need to receive compensation in order to say this. This is my beliefs, this is how I view this. And I think that's the rub. I think that perhaps the problem isn't that there is conflicting advice. I think that perhaps the problem is that we're not okay with conflicting advice. And maybe what we really need is a perspective shift. Instead of looking for the one right way, searching the Instagram and searching the TikTok and searching the social media for the one person that's telling us the one exact right way, we have to recognize that there are multiple right ways in the world of nutrition and health, we have to, we can and we must. We have to make space for multiple truths to coexist.
Erin Holt [00:18:23]:
So I don't like to make a blanket statement about anything in health these days, everything is contextual and nuanced. And I actually think that being so convicted in our beliefs can sometimes and oftentimes limit our growth and our own healing. It limits our capacity for seeing things in a new, bigger, more expansive way. And it can even limit and cut off your access to compassion. Because if you are so convicted in your beliefs, you're not able to see, like, your reality doesn't even entertain the idea that there's another way to look at this. There's another approach that could work for somebody else that might be different than your own current beliefs. And as practitioners, as nutritionists, as dietitians, this is a big deal. If we are so convicted in our own beliefs that we cannot see anything another way, it's going to be really, really hard to be compassionate practitioners.
Erin Holt [00:19:24]:
I recently said this to somebody on Instagram. I said, please don't invalidate my lived experience because it doesn't fit into your perception of what's right. I've got my own experience over here. You've got your reality, I've got mine. Just because my reality doesn't sync up what you've deemed an appropriate way to heal does not make it incorrect. And it does not make it invalid. I remember a few years ago, I was working with a client who told me, she was like, I really think that I'm reacting to eggs, dairy and gluten. And I was like, cool, let's just take those out of your diet.
Erin Holt [00:19:59]:
But she didn't trust herself. She wanted to do food sensitivities to back up. And I wanted her to just understand, like, hey, your body's communicating this to you. You're getting these reactions from these foods. We don't need to spend the money on a food sensitivity test. Why don't you just trust yourself? I was really hoping to bridge the connection between her and her body. Like, open up that dialogue, that line of communication, and that line of trust. And she advocated for doing the food sensitivity test.
Erin Holt [00:20:27]:
We did it, and, hey, guess what? It came back with eggs, gluten and dairy, the things that she thought she was reacting to. And so we use that as a way to say, like, hey, look, you knew your body. You could really trust yourself. Now, if I had been so convicted in my own beliefs that food sensitivity testing is, we don't need to do it, it's inappropriate. We don't need to leverage that tool. I would have blocked her access to her intuition if I was too busy shouting, you just need to trust yourself, then I would have blocked her ability to trust herself. So this is what I mean by as practitioners. We have to be willing to kind of bend and see things a different way rather than to dig our heels in further to what we think.
Erin Holt [00:21:09]:
Another example of a client I worked with a couple of years ago who was really, really indoctrinated with the all foods fit mentality and she was actually fitting a food that her immune system was having a big reaction to. So we had the data from a food sensitivity testing. She had an autoimmune condition and was eating this food that was constantly stimulating her immune system. But to remove that food to her, it felt as though she had to go against her beliefs because her belief said all foods fit. So it was a big internal struggle for her. And that was a situation where her beliefs, being so convicted in her beliefs were actually potentially blocking her ability to heal her body. So back to the question should nutrition professionals be promoting diet soda and candy? That doesn't align with my beliefs. And also after 13 years in this field and interfacing with thousands of clients over the years, I also see the downside of being so convicted in my beliefs that I can only see one way.
Erin Holt [00:22:25]:
Now I share this and my intention of this episode is not to tell you what to think or how to feel about all of this. It's really just to say here are some things to think about and you can arrive at your own decisions. That is actually the intention. Now I want to pivot into a different topic, which is influencing, because the article really tucked into that to the point where I'm like, are people just big mad about influencing? I always read the comments of articles like this. I really want to see what's the average person thinking in reaction to this. But even using quote words when they said influencer, they use little quotes around it. It seemed undermining and condescending to me and I'm like, it's 2023. Influencing is a job.
Erin Holt [00:23:14]:
Like you can get big mad about it, but it doesn't really change the fact that it's happening. I don't like new rap music, but here we are, it's still happening. And I have been myself called an influencer. Personally, I reject that label, not because I think influencing is inherently wrong, but I just don't want my body of work to be reduced to influencing and content creating. I was listening to Africa Brooke recently talk and she said the musings and works that you see me sharing here on social media or anywhere else online are less than 1% of my daily work. Although I share my ideas on several public platforms, I am not a content creator. My work is not content. And so I thought that really helped me think about things in a different light.
Erin Holt [00:24:00]:
What you see online is an extension of my work, but it's not the whole body of my work. And I think that's an important distinction to make. But with all that said, I recognize that by an extension of my work, I am a person who has influence and of course, I do create some content and we partner with companies who sponsor this podcast. So I can perhaps give another perspective into this if you feel a little bit weird, wonky flaky and shaky about the fact that health professionals are influencing. I am and have always been very transparent about sponsorships or sponsors that we work with here on the show. And we only engage in long term partnerships. So there's no like wham, bam, thank you, ma'am.
Erin Holt [00:24:49]:
That's why you don't hear me talking about one product one week, another product, another week, another product, another week. There is more money to be made potentially, doing it that way, and also the trust of my audience is the most important thing to me. I ran this podcast for years without collecting a dime for it, and I recommended a lot of products without receiving compensation for it. So that is something that I do not take lightly. And so in order for you to be a sponsor of the show, I have to believe in what you're doing. I have to really love your company and I have to actively be using your products. And you have to be really willing to partner with us.
Erin Holt [00:25:33]:
This is a long term commitment for the both of us. So, for example, Organifi. So I was just saying recently, I'm trying to cut back on my caffeine and because I just don't want my nervous system to snap in half. And I've been very caffeine sensitive. So what I've been doing in the afternoon when I'm craving a cup of coffee or even a matcha, I make a hot chocolate with Organifi's chocolate gold powder. It has lemon balm, it has reishi, it has turkey tail. So it's really supportive of the immune system in the nervous system and it tastes really good. So I mix that in with some almond or coconut milk and I sip that instead.
Erin Holt [00:26:13]:
So this is something that I'm actively using. This is a company that I've been using for what, like three, four years now, and they're a sponsor of the podcast. I would be talking about them anyway because I love their products anyway, but because they're awesome, they pay me to talk about them on the podcast. It's a win win for everybody. By the way, head to organifi.com/funk to save 20% off of anything. See, there we go. There was an ad. I'm doing the influencing.
Erin Holt [00:26:43]:
It's not a big deal. My integrity is not for sale. That's the most important thing. My integrity is not for sale. These are things that I would be doing anyway. So I don't think influencing or receiving compensation for ads is inherently problematic. What I do think is problematic is the belief that women being compensated for their labor is a bad thing. I do think that that belief is problematic.
Erin Holt [00:27:08]:
And we see that show up so much especially in the healing spaces or the service space. Women being compensated for their work is a trigger for a lot of people. And I want to be really clear. Creating the content that you consume is work. It takes time, it takes thought, it takes planning, it takes effort. One educational Instagram post can take me three to four hours to create. We went through a period where we were hiring a content creator because we were going to have people, somebody else produce the stuff that you see on Instagram.
Erin Holt [00:27:43]:
It didn't work out, but when we were going through the hiring process, somebody sent us a really great post as part of a test project. And I would obviously never use somebody else's work without paying them. And I think we ended up paying for one post, one Instagram post. I think it was like $300. So yeah, this stuff is work. The content you consume takes work to produce and listen. We're all coming to social media for information, for education, for entertainment, whatever it might be. We come to consume something.
Erin Holt [00:28:15]:
We are consumers, but we hold very little thought, very little care or respect or reverence for the time, effort, energy it takes to produce the thing that we are consuming. I talk about this often. I refer to it as consume-her culture. Not my term, but it's a good one. There's this expectation that women should serve and they should do it happily and they should do it for free. I've been online on an online platform for a lot of years and there's never been a shortage of people in the comments, in the DMs, or even in our email inbox asking for food or supplement recommendations. So it's like collectively we are okay with practitioners spending their time answering questions for free, but the second that they receive compensation for it, not even from you, mind you, but from the company that they're recommending, there's a problem with it. It's like where's the line? Who sets the rule for where the line exists and where is that line? Because I would love to know.
Erin Holt [00:29:10]:
I always thought it was super weird where you respect me enough to ask for my advice, but you don't respect me enough to be compensated for it. That's weird to me. So anyway, I don't think selling or influencing is inherently bad. Influencing can be a job. There is one RD that they referenced in this article and they said that she was doing endorsement deals with numerous food and dietary supplement companies like it was a bad thing. But she just might be using her education to influence instead of work one on one in a clinical setting. And there's absolutely potential for a huge conflict of interest and it doesn't always mean that there is one. So I think we have to this is where I think consumers might need to take some responsibility for what they're consuming and take some ownership over
Erin Holt [00:29:58]:
how they're being influenced and by whom. Do the people that you follow have integrity? How are they modeling that? How do you know that their advice is, in fact, trustworthy? We do have to have some level of discernment about who we're taking health advice from.
Erin Holt [00:32:04]:
You know, I know a lot of folks are kind of like, well, who should I listen to? What is the discernment criteria? I'll share some of mine with you. I think these are helpful to kind of run through your own filters. If you're taking health advice from someone, understand how much experience they have. Do they have plenty, or are they basing their recommendations off of an n=1 experiment? Nothing wrong with an n=1 experiment, but a lot of people are basing their health advice to their audience off of what has worked for them. I did this for myself, therefore I can show you how to do it. To me, that really speaks to their lack of experience working with human bodies. As someone who has worked with a lot of people over the past 13 years, I can tell you with conviction that just because something worked once for one person does not mean it's going to work, or even that it's appropriate for everyone.
Erin Holt [00:33:12]:
There is a massive difference between what works in theory and what works in actual practice. Also, I personally where I take my health advice from is practitioners and clinicians who are actually in the trenches working with people. People who can assess trends. And I don't mean like on trend, but like themes and patterns based on what they're seeing, working with a lot of people. People who can take the research and combine it with lived experience and clinical experience. People who embody their own teachers. So for me, it's not just the credentials, it's the experience. It's thought leadership.
Erin Holt [00:33:50]:
Are they regurgitating the same information I'm hearing other places or are they putting their own unique spin on it based on what they see play out with many bodies that they're working with? Another thing to consider from the people that you're following, are they primarily posting and saying things just for clickbait? Really like wildly inflammatory stuff that always kind of is a little bit of a red flag to me. And then there are two things that I would actually stay away from anyone that's promoting a quick fix. Look, people are looking for sound bite nutrition. They are looking for the quick fix. There will always be an eager audience for those two things and that means there will always be someone promoting the easy answer and the quick fix. But I think there should be some level of suspicion around this because health, food, nutrition and even weight loss is so nuanced, so contextual and the quick fix easy answer rarely exists. The other thing to probably avoid is following people just based on their aesthetic. One, you have no idea what extremes people are going to to get the aesthetic they have.
Erin Holt [00:34:55]:
And two, there's no guarantee that if you do exactly what they do, you will look exactly how they look anyway. So that is some criteria that you can think about in terms of who to follow, who to take advice from. I don't think that just because somebody is influencing, they're giving piss poor advice. I think that that's sort of a lazy assumption. I don't think all influencers are bad. I think there's many people who are super smart and have a lot to offer that are in the influencer space. It's a way for them to make a living off of sharing their information. And I also think that we have to be discerning about where we're getting our information.
Erin Holt [00:35:42]:
At the same time, some of that is in fact our responsibility too. So hone that ability to practice discernment. You do not need to accept every piece of nutrition advice as truth. You don't have to. You also do not need to fight against everything that you perceive as not true. I just feel like everyone has been so busy fighting the science wars and the nutrition wars that we've lost common sense. Africa Brooks says we've overcorrected to the point of insanity if we spend more time honing our inner guidance system and we spend less time being emotionally hijacked and sideswept and distracted by everything we see on social media. I think that puts us in a pretty good place.
Erin Holt [00:36:27]:
And I think a good goal for us is to get to the point where we are self sourcing more answers than we are outsourcing. And I got to tell you, just on a personal note, as somebody who is like a fighter, who's kind of scrappy, who will clap back, who will call out, I'm just kind of not interested in fighting in the nutrition wars anymore. I don't feel like I need to fight to convince anyone that I'm right. I don't think that I need to arm wrestle anyone to pretend that my point of view is the only point of view. There are many points of views. There's many ways to eat well. There are many ways to get this healing thing right. I am choosing instead to put my energy into creation, into creating a new way.
Erin Holt [00:37:09]:
If I'm looking around and I'm like, this feels chaotic, and I don't think this is the path forward. I'm not going to put my energy into fighting that. I'm going to put my energy into creating a way forward, putting my energy into serving in a way that I think people can benefit from. I know I've got a lot of practitioners that listen to the show and 13 years in, that's kind of where I'm netting out right now. I think as nutrition professionals, we do need to be transparent. I think that's very important. I think we have to hold ourselves to a high standard. I think part of that high standard includes being compassionate and recognizing that not everybody's beliefs are going to align with our beliefs, and that's okay, we don't have to make somebody else wrong in order to make ourselves right.
Erin Holt [00:37:57]:
So I know that this was one of those episodes that was, like, a little bit all over the place, but these are thoughts that have been in my head for quite a lot of weeks, and I wanted to put them down on paper and get them out into the mic. And I don't know, I guess I just hope that this episode made you think a little bit. I think thinking for ourselves is a really, really good thing. Arriving at our own answers, it's a great thing. Anyway, I'll see you Thursday. Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Funk'tional Nutrition Podcast. If you got something from today's show, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and keep coming back for more. Take care of you.
