Carrie Saum

This is by no means a comprehensive list of internalized toxic beliefs, but it’s a start. Keep fighting the good fight, friends.

What do you do when you're provided with a bunch of winter squash? You make soup. You make veggie bowls. You make coconut curry butternut squash mash!

I have a thing for a certain Asian-inspired restaurant chain. Their food isn’t Michelin-starred, and doesn’t often make it into my regular rotation for eating out because, well, we don’t eat out much, and I like only a few things on their menu.

My BFF has been trying to go easy on the grains lately.

By 13, I clearly understood: Thinness was next to Godliness, and I could never achieve either without extraordinary means. Jesus loves skinny people.

I soaked a few dates in some hot water, whizzed them around in my Nutribullet, strained out the chunks, and put it back in the Nutribullet with my coconut milk, plus a teeny-tiny pinch of pink Himalayan sea salt.The result? A genuinely delightful creamer that blew me away.

Corn is one of those things that people needlessly complicate. It's an ancient food that has been part of our food chain for hundreds (thousands) of years.

Something powerful shifted for me when I turned 30. I decided to stop caring about my weight as a means to measure my success, beauty and worth as a woman. I gave myself permission to care for my body, and to care for the woman inside that body first.

The shame was overwhelming. Why was my body broken? What had I done to my baby? I began to spiral into self-loathing. Gestational diabetes felt like a failure.

I say this: Stop fat-shaming my toddler son. Fat will not make him fat. Fat does not make him unhealthy.