Today I listened to the How To Fail episode with Ella Mills (founder of Deliciously Ella) and it's been playing on my mind ever since and I wanted to share some thoughts

First of all, I think Elizabeth Day is a great host & interviewer and it's demonstrated in how her interviewees respond to her. HTF is a podcast I enjoy and I think the uncritical line of conversation Day uses makes for a really nice listen

However, in this ep, it means that Mills talks uncriticised about how the backlash against 'clean eating' meant she was portrayed as "literally the devil" in the tabloids. I don't deny that this period sounds like it was personally awful to experience

But I was struck so hard by how little reflection there was throughout. Mills doesn't reflect on any reasons for the backlash on the clean eating, or elaborate on any of the wider context of the food industry at the time

(ie, that it had at best completely overblown claims to 'curing' ailments and at worst downright dangerous partnerships - the link between the GAPs diet at the Hemsleys - thankful to @rubytandoh for the research and writing on this https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jan/23/bad-fad-ruby-tandoh-on-how-clean-eating-turned-toxic)

And instead Mills chooses to focus on how male chefs and food writers were at the time writing books focused on weight loss and weren't getting any backlash for it, while her work never mentioned weight loss and yet she was demonized regardless

She talked about how a healthy approach to food requires 'balance' but then talked at length about how as a nation we're hugely unhealthy without mentioning even in passing the social, political and economic reasons behind this (ie how austerity has fucked whole social classes)

She made this weird analogy where she talked about hypothetically asking kids if 'chips' or 'chickpeas' were cool and lamented that they would all pick chips, and also complained that she was the only person banging on about how great lentils are

This whole thing reminds me of the A Roman thing - this is such a white perspective and completely erases cultures and cuisines centred around pulses and traditionally vegan foods (where I'm sure Mills gets 'inspiration' from) - not to mention completely ignoring food poverty

There was zero acknowledgment of her own privilege and likewise no acknowledgment of a wider context around her own work - it felt like she has always essentially operated in a bubble divorced from social and political time and meaning (a huge privilege in itself)

Sorry for the huge essay but it just made me think even harder about the mess that UK food media is, and how people are allowed to have huge platforms without any sort of self-reflection or acknowledgement of anything other than their own profit

Her approach is so depoliticised that when she criticised a female journalist for comparing her to Donald Trump, she paused to apologise to "anyone who likes Donald Trump" in case they were offended. Wait, maybe depoliticised is generous here

Anyway, remember that at this time and any other time food is HUGELY political and donate to Minnesota protestors' bail funds if you can https://minnesotafreedomfund.org/donate