Bivo and orthorexia
Bivo and Orthorexia nervosa: can Italian complete food help with orthorexia?
In this article we address a sensitive issue: orthorexia.
Even if those who follow us probably already know the concept of “complete food”, we say for those who still do not know that complete foods are that category of food that contains all the macronutrients (carbohydrates, lipids, proteins and fibers) and all the micronutrients (such as vitamins and mineral salts) that help the human body to avoid nutritional deficiencies or states of avitaminosis or other deficiencies (ie osteoporosis due to calcium deficiencies). A well thought out complete food should in our opinion also guarantee a low glycemic index, proteins derived from plant based ingredients and a complete amino acid profile (containing all the essential amino acids!). Simply put, a great complete food is a food that allows you to feed yourself in a balanced and balanced way, potentially forever, even if you are only feeding yourself with the complete food itself. However, although we have this potential, we have never recommended an exclusive use of it, precisely because food also has important convivial and social reasons that transcend purely nutritional aspects. If complete food is a clear concept to many, perhaps the theme of orthorexia could be more obscure for those who do not work as psychologists or nutritionists.
In fact, orthorexia nervosa is an eating disorder caused by a growing pathological obsession with eating healthy and natural foods. It is an example of a positive concept (who would like to eat unhealthy foods, very artifacts or with a lot of added “chemistry”?) which – if led to exasperation – loses its beneficial value and becomes a real disease. In this regard, it is however appropriate to specify that orthorexia has not yet been included in DSM 5, the most widely used nosographic manual for categorizing mental disorders.
The etymology of the term is Greek (Orthos and Orexis, taste and appetite) and those suffering from orthorexia begin to think obsessively about the quality of the food they ingest. It is a disorder first described by Steve Bratman at the end of the last century (1997) and the curious thing is that this dietician made a self-diagnosis to define the criteria with which to diagnose orthoressia. In fact, he defines himself as an ex-ortoressico and has written the homonymous test (Bratman’s test) which helps to understand if a subject has orthorexic tendencies. In practice, if a person thinks very often about food (> 3 hours a day), he is afraid of contaminating his body with the wrong foods, and the quality of the food he eats becomes more important than anything else, he runs the risk of being considered superior to those who make less considered food choices with heavy consequences in terms of social and emotional relationships.
Obviously the care of an orthorhexis is a matter that involves both psychologists and nutritionists, with on the one hand a psychotherapeutic work of becoming aware of which are the emotions fueling the obsession and on the other with the indications that the nutritionist can give to the sick on the foods to be taken to fill the nutritional deficiencies that may have already manifested.
But to get to the point of the initial question, in this whole scenario, what help can come from a complete and natural food like Bivo?
We believe that in the path that leads to healing to be able to have a food that, also for its visual characteristic (it is presented in the form of powder, therefore with an “aseptic” connotation, and besides being produced with vegetable and natural ingredients it is devoid of allergens) is a futuristic food (we remind you that we are in the “foodtech” sphere). Bivo is not only a good and natural food but natively recalls the idea of pure and uncontaminated food, a concept that is so interesting to orthorexics, even during its course of overcoming its form of obsessive / compulsive disorder.
