Speaker 1: You would not believe the stuff people were encouraged to
Speaker 1: eat during the flu pandemic of nineteen eighteen. For example,
Speaker 1: sugar lumps soaked in kerosene. People thought that helped treat
Speaker 1: the Spanish flu and to prevent it. Americans were told
Speaker 1: to eat an ungodly amount of onions in nineteen eighteen
Speaker 1: in home. Refrigerators hadn't been invented yet, so restaurants stayed
Speaker 1: open throughout the pandemic. The flu did change them, though.
Speaker 1: Before they had sawdust floors and waiters wore black. After
Speaker 1: the flu, marble countertops and white tiled walls and floors
Speaker 1: became the norm. Waiters started wearing white. These changes were
Speaker 1: about making patrons feel like they were eating somewhere sanitary.
Speaker 1: You can still see that in restaurants and coffee shops today.
Speaker 1: This is just one tiny example of how history doesn't
Speaker 1: stay in the past. It leaves a trace. That's something
Speaker 1: I've been thinking a lot about this year since COVID
Speaker 1: has kept us all at home. I'm Virgie Tovar, fat positive, feminist,
Speaker 1: patriarchy smasher, corn dog enthusiast, and the host of Rebel
Speaker 1: Eaters Club. When this pandemic started, I had to face
Speaker 1: some of my own history with food. My past with
Speaker 1: disordered eating came up in ways that we're startling and
Speaker 1: honestly scary. It felt like an old, rusty machine, a
Speaker 1: machine I hadn't seen since my twenties. Grinding back to life.
Speaker 1: I started projecting my COVID anxieties onto food. I was
Speaker 1: convinced that anything I ate could contaminate me. It made food,
Speaker 1: which is usually such a source of joy, feel like
Speaker 1: a chore, a risk, a monster. The fear of contamination
Speaker 1: can lean to an obsession with only wanting so called
Speaker 1: clean food. That's called orthorexia, and about ten years ago
Speaker 1: it consumed me. My recovery began when I learned about
Speaker 1: fat liberation and made a promise to myself that I
Speaker 1: would never try to lose weight again. So I thought
Speaker 1: that chapter of my life was over. I thought I
Speaker 1: was done with my past, but it wasn't done with me.
Speaker 1: I know lots of people at the start of COVID
Speaker 1: were experiencing relapses or other scary changes. Maybe you're one
Speaker 1: of them. I want to tell you you are absolutely
Speaker 1: not alone. Friend. The silver lining of my story is
Speaker 1: that during the last decade, I have learned a bunch
Speaker 1: of tools for how not to be scared of food.
Speaker 1: So this spring I put them to work. I sat
Speaker 1: at my kitchen table and coached myself through every bite,
Speaker 1: repeating the same script, food is good, I will be okay.
Speaker 1: This meal will help my brain and body get through
Speaker 1: this stressful experience. As a way to try and make
Speaker 1: food feel like a friend again, I did what I
Speaker 1: do whenever I'm scared. I researched the shit out of it.
Speaker 1: I spent literal hours reading up on food customs, traditions,
Speaker 1: production recipes from as far back as the sixteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: Here's what I learned. What we eat, how we eat,
Speaker 1: Why we eat is a rich archive full of both
Speaker 1: our individual memories and the ghosts we've inherited America's past.
Speaker 1: This season, I'll continue talking with amazing, shiny humans about
Speaker 1: their relationships to food. If anything is going to survive
Speaker 1: the end of the world, it's going to be stand
Speaker 1: and walk you through some important chapters in our culture's
Speaker 1: social history. And what does it mean for us to
Speaker 1: not know shame and not no guilt, but only to
Speaker 1: no pleasure. What are we going to do here together? Well?
Speaker 1: I think on the surface, we're going to make some
Speaker 1: instant ramen, but I think the reality of what we're
Speaker 1: going to do is that our souls are going to touch.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Season two of A Rebel Eaters Club