03/31/2026
I’m sharing this after recently having a traditional home-prepped Ethiopian meal.
The spread was full of foods I typically have issues with — onions, garlic, legumes. High FODMAP, by the book. And I had zero stomach drama. None.
When I told my mom about it, she wasn’t surprised. She spent time living in Ethiopia when she was younger. She said she never had digestive issues there — eating exactly what the locals ate. Her stomach problems only started back in the States.
That conversation sent me down a rabbit hole.
Because the food wasn’t different. The ingredients weren’t special. What was different was the preparation — hours of slow cooking, specific methods, nothing rushed.
And that made me think about how much of what we call a “food intolerance” might sometimes be more of a preparation problem.
We’ve been told for decades that raw equals healthy. But a lot of American “health food” culture has moral roots — plain food, purity culture, self-control… dressed up as science. Did you know that?
Preparation changes the food. Cornell found heating tomatoes increased trans-lycopene by up to 164%. Blue Zones are clear: beans are the cornerstone of every longevity diet in the world.
A lot of “I can’t do onions/garlic/beans” is method. Time. Rinsing. Low + slow.
To be clear: I’m not anti-salad. I’m anti-assumption.
The assumption that raw is automatically better. That cooking destroys food. That your gut issues are just your gut.
The nutrition is sometimes in the preparation. And that’s been true a lot longer than the wellness industry has existed.
We just got marketed something else.
