Food choice defensive

[Susan]

OK, so I'm just going to put this out there as something for folks to think about.... (Keep in mind that I follow a pretty restrictive diet too, so I understand how hard it is when someone questions your/my choices)... but hasn't anyone but me noticed that the word "garbage" has come up several times already in this thread?

"What I find is that people try to force me to eat garbage...."
"I'm very frustrated about people trying to force garbage down my throat..."

So, it seems to me that on one hand people are complaining that they don't like that people are being judgmental about their restrictive food choices, but at the same time are being quite judgmental about the food choice of other people.

You may not be *using* words like "garbage" when talking to other people about your/their food choices, but we speak with more than words.

I see the truth in those words, but don't really know how to react appropriately so that people don't get offended by my food-choices and still stay true to my own beliefs.
I don't follow a special diet (nothing that has a name) I just try to eat as healthy as possible to the best of my knowledge (most of the time). I don't "preach" to other people about my eating habits if they don't ask about it.
Unfortunately there are a lot of foodchoices out there that are unhealthy for all that I know, and I don't want to eat them if I can avoid them. If you for instance just try to avoid artificial colour and flavourings, most processed foods are not a choice anymore.

I started out as very unhealthy, very overweight person. There may be people who aren't as affected by unhealthy choices, so they don't have to deal with those problems, but my body obviously can't get away with it. If I eat unhealthy and too much on two days a week (family weekends), I struggle to stay at a normal weight. My whole family is overweight and diabetic (type II), so obviously they can't get away with it either. I'm not sure if this is judgmental, maybe it's just true that a lot of the things we are sold by the food industry IS garbage and makes us sick, or at least some of us who have to choose if they want to be healthy or loved by their families