DISCLAIMER #1: I, for the love of God, do not fucking use AI.

DISCLAIMER #2: Please do not make any webcomic requests or commissions. Thank you.

Toriel wasn't exactly what you'd call a paragon of wellness. She already knew so much about her diet. She was a goat, not a health guru. And even she, with her admittely catastrophic life choices, could see that Eat This, Not That's "100 Unhealthiest Foods on the Planet" list was a spectacular dumpster fire of oversimplification and fear-mongering. It wasn't just wrong; it was intellectually lazy, and frankly, it pissed her off.

"Look, I get it. You need the clicks that my child doesn't."

"Eat This, Not That", a media franchise created by David Zinczenko, created a neat binary world where food was either a righetous angel or a mustache-twirling villain, and everyone got to play the hero. But life, and especially nutrition, wasn't a goddamn cartoon. It was a messy, complicated spectrum of grays, and their list painted over it with two obnoxiously bright, useless colors.

Her first and biggest criticism was their blatant disregard for context and quantity. They had demonized entire categories of food based on their potential for abuse, not their inherent properties. Take, for example, your predictable inclusion of "Processed Meats" like salami and bacon. Eating a full pound of bacon for breakfast every single day was obviously a one-way ticket to cardiovascular hell. But a slice of salami on a cracker at a party wasn't going to unravel the very fabric of someone's health. Eat This, Not That had created a list that effectively told people any food with a higher saturated fat or sodium content was a ticking time bomb, ignoring the fundamental principle of toxicology: the dose made the poison.

Is eating a full pound of bacon for breakfast every single day a one-way ticket to cardiovascular hell? Obviously. But is a slice of salami on a cracker at a party going to unravel the very fabric of your health? Don’t be absurd. You’ve created a list that effectively tells people that any food with a higher saturated fat or sodium content is a ticking time bomb, ignoring the fundamental principle of toxicology: the dose makes the poison. A little bit of something “unhealthy” within an otherwise balanced diet is not just fine; it’s human. It’s sustainable. Your absolutist approach, however, just sets people up for failure, guilt, and a really shitty relationship with food.

Which brings me to my next point: your list is a masterpiece of privilege and ignorance. You slam “Fried Chicken” and “Takeout Pizza” as if everyone has the time, money, energy, and access to whip up a quinoa salad with grilled free-range chicken and organic heirloom tomatoes. Newsflash: they don’t. For a single parent working two jobs, a large, cheap pizza might be the only way to feed their family that night. For someone living in a food desert, that “unhealthy” pre-packaged snack might be one of the only available options. Your list doesn’t empower these people; it just shame-bludgeons them for circumstances often beyond their control. It’s a form of nutritional elitism that reeks of a cushy, upper-middle-class bubble where the biggest daily dilemma is choosing between almond milk and oat milk in your artisan latte.

Furthermore, the sheer hypocrisy of some of their picks was enough to make the motherly goat's fur rise. They'd include a "Strawberry Milkshake" from a specific fast-food chain, meticulously detailing its sugar and calorie count as if it was a shocking revelation. Who in the actual hell went to a fast-food joint and ordered a milkshake under the impression was a health food? No one. Absolutely no one. It wasn't a public service announcement; it was content farming. They were stating the blatantly obvious to fill a word count, preying on the anxieties of people who might already be vulnerable. It was like publishing a list of "The 100 Most Dangerous Ways to Fall Down" and including "Falling Off a Skyscraper".

"Yeah. Thanks for that. My child wouldn't tolerate that kind of stuff."

The language wasn't educational; it was apocalyptic. Foods were described as being "stuffed with", "loaded with" or "packed with" evil-sounding ingredients. They "sabotaged your goals", "wrecked your body", and were "a nightmare for your waistline". That wasn't science communication; it was a horror movie script. They weren't teaching people about nutrition; they were teaching them to be afraid of food. They were fostering orthorexia—an unhealthy obsession with eating only "clean" or "correct" foods—and creating a culture where enjoying a slice of birthday cake came with a side of self-loathing.

What was truly missing from their fear-mongering list was any sense of joy, community or culture. Food was fuel, sure. It could either be good fuel or bad fuel. There were "unhealthy" foods, like fried dough at the state fair that represented the taste of childhood summers, that fostered memory and connection... and those that didn't. A "glycemic nightmare" of a piece of pie was Toriel's love, baked into a crust. By reducing these human experiences to a list of chemical compounds deemed "bad", they were stripping away a fundamental part of what it meant to be alive. They were creating a world where every social gathering was a minefield of anxiety and every holiday meal was a moral test to be passed or failed.

What was Toriel's alternative? Sure as hell not a list of her own. It was a plea for nuance.

Instead of "100 Unhealthiest Foods", how about "How to Incorporate All Foods Into a Balanced Diet"? Instead of demonizing ingredients, she thought they should explain how they worked in the body and what reasonable consumption looked like. That would promote empowerment rather than fear. They could talk about access and socioeconomic barriers to healthy eating. That would actually be a public service.

Toriel came to the conclusion that the entire list was a cop-out. It was the nutritional equivalent of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. It generated clicks by generating panic, and it helps no one build a healthier, happier or more sustainable relationship with food. And that, ultimately, was the unhealthiest thing of all.

Toriel went off to enjoy her "nutritional nightmare" of a coffee with too much sugar. She liked it. And sometimes, that was enough.