How Food Fear and Restrictions Are Holding Back Your Healing

Click Here to Listen to this Podcast!

By Jenny Peterson

Everywhere you look, you're being told that food is the enemy. That every bite you take could be a threat to your health and your healing. Food fear is a common struggle for those living with chronic conditions—whether it’s gluten, dairy, histamines, or carbs. But today, we’re going to break it all down and show you why this fear is actually holding you back from the healing you deserve.

In this blog, you're about to discover how ditching these food fears is the first step toward stepping into your true power as a healer. Let’s change the way you look at food, once and for all.

The Fear-Mongering Around Food

Food is often labeled as the enemy.

Everywhere you turn, you're told that certain foods—histamines, gluten, dairy, sugar, and carbs—are “poison” to your body. The truth is, when we buy into these myths, we start to shrink our world. We stop trusting our bodies and begin fearing everything we put into our mouths. What starts as a "healthy" choice ends up becoming a stress-induced cycle, and that’s the real problem.

If you’ve ever felt like your healing journey requires a laundry list of food restrictions, you're not alone. It’s no surprise that more and more people are developing food sensitivities, because food fear is being normalized in a world obsessed with “health” and “perfection.” This narrative makes us believe that food is a threat—when in fact, the real threat is the fear we’ve been taught to associate with food.

My Personal Experience

I’ll be the first to admit that I used to live by a laundry list of food restrictions.

The list of foods I couldn’t eat was long. The foods I could eat were even shorter. Some I had a sensitivity to, while others I believed I had to avoid in order to be “healthy.” But with all these restrictions, I was still the healthiest, sickest person I knew.

I was a walking contradiction—health-conscious on the outside, yet plagued by food fears on the inside. I ate all organic, avoided gluten, dairy, sugar—you name it. My grocery bill was insane. I thought if I followed all the “rules,” I would finally heal and be healthy. But instead, I only created more fear around food.

I started fearing every bite. And eating wasn’t a joy anymore. It was a stress-fest. I was trapped.

The more I clung to these beliefs, the smaller my world became. Food became a prison, not a source of nourishment. I was afraid to eat, afraid of what I couldn’t eat, and this created a vicious cycle of stress, anxiety, and digestive issues. I was stuck in this loop.

The truth is, the more I believed food was the problem, the more trapped I became. It wasn’t until I realized that food wasn’t the problem—I was the problem that things started to shift.

The Truth About Symptoms

If you’ve been following me for a while, or if you’ve listened to my podcast before, you know that symptoms don’t happen because of the food you eat. Symptoms are your body’s biological response to perceived stress.

That perceived stress could very well come from how you view food. For example, if you think that dairy isn’t digestible, then you probably won’t digest it well. By believing that, you’ve made a subconscious connection that dairy is a threat. And what happens? Your body reacts just like it would to anything else it perceives as unsafe.

What you believe is what your body responds to. Your biology is designed to respond to your perception of the world, including food.

When your body is in a state of fear—whether from a stressful experience or a stressful belief—it reacts as if it’s in danger, whether it’s imagined or real.

So when you're constantly fearing food, you're in a state of stress, and it can be a contributor to your chronic symptoms.  But there is good news. Once you understand this, you’ll realize that food isn’t your enemy. Your subconscious is sending the signals, and your body is just doing its job by responding to what it believes is a threat.

Food Sensitivities

Let’s address food sensitivities. If you’ve experienced something stressful while eating a certain food, your subconscious will associate that food with the stress. It’s like your body learns to see that food as a threat, when in reality it’s the association with the stressful event or the way that you were thinking about the food that’s causing the reaction.

Your brain doesn’t differentiate between food and the situation surrounding it. Your subconscious is constantly taking in everything around you—what you consciously see, your subconscious sees 10 times that amount. It takes in everything—your thoughts, feelings, and the environment around you. It doesn’t know how to separate the food from the experience. If you eat a food while experiencing something that feels like a threat to your brain, your brain tags that food as the threat.

The Story of Tania: From Severe Sensitivities to Freedom

Almost all of our clients come to us with food fears or sensitivities.

Take Tania, for example. Tania came to us only being able to eat three foods. She had severe food sensitivities and her world was shrinking fast. She was constantly anxious about food and what would happen if she ate the wrong thing. Hers started out with just a couple of sensitivities, and then it turned into almost everything.

But once we worked with Tania to uncover the subconscious beliefs she had around food and the experiences that triggered those beliefs, she started to change her relationship with eating. We rewired those old fears, and Tania started eating more freely. Over time, her food sensitivities started to fade, and she began to enjoy food again.

Now, Tania is able to eat anything, and she can’t imagine ever having to limit her foods again.

If you want to learn more about Tania’s story, check out episode #10. It’s a good one!

This is the power of addressing subconscious patterns. When you rewire those beliefs and work through unresolved experiences, your body no longer reacts as if food is a threat.

The Snowball Effect of Food Fears

Food fears can grow and multiply.

When we start avoiding one or two foods, we can quickly begin to develop sensitivities to more. This happens because fear around food creates more fear, and our world keeps getting smaller and smaller. We add more restrictions, and worry about more foods—and before we know it, the list grows.

We’ve worked with clients who started with just one or two sensitivities and suddenly found themselves sensitive to everything—from common foods to chemicals in their environment. It’s a vicious cycle that keeps expanding as the fear continues to grow. The more we reduce that fear and rewire those beliefs, the less likely that snowball effect will continue.

Avoidance Isn’t the Solution

Some people might argue that avoiding certain foods solved their symptoms. But here's the catch: If you avoid foods and say that it has resolved your symptoms, you're not addressing the root issue.

By avoiding foods, you’re not solving the underlying subconscious patterns that were created. Avoidance might relieve the symptoms temporarily, but the fear and subconscious belief are still there. And if you don't want to experience those symptoms anymore, you need to avoid that food for the rest of your life—and that’s no way to live.

You Can Digest Anything

Your body is actually not as picky or as sensitive as you think. It can digest pretty much anything, with the exception of a LEGO.

Histamines, carbs, sugar, dairy—your body can digest it all. Even small levels of toxins, your body is capable of handling. It’s the large quantities of toxins that, if exposed to regularly, can build up and cause problems.

Nobody dies from eating a donut or a piece of bread. Your body will still heal if you eat those too. And you can also be perfectly healthy eating these so-called “bad foods.” I’m living proof of that. I eat anything I want now, and I don’t experience any symptoms. Food is nourishment—it’s that simple.

Here’s the truth: cleaning up your food will not solve chronic illness. If it did, myself, our coaches, and all of our clients would have healed when we were eating the purest, healthiest foods. But it didn’t fix anything.

Not saying eating healthy isn’t a good thing, but we can’t rely on it to “fix” health conditions that are rooted in our subconscious.

Debunking Your Food Beliefs

What would it feel like to eat anything you wanted? To not have to worry about whether something you ate caused a symptom? That freedom is possible.

To start, you need to debunk your food beliefs. Here’s how:

1. Make a list of all the food beliefs you currently have. Examples might be “I can’t eat gluten,” “Dairy makes me sick,” “Carbs are bad for me.”

2. Ask yourself where these beliefs came from. Did social media influencers teach them to you? Was it functional medicine doctors? Or maybe family members?

3. Evaluate the sources. How many of these people truly understand your body’s biology? Were their beliefs their own, or were they just repeating what they heard from others?

4. Think about the consequences of holding onto these beliefs. Will it continue to shrink your world? Will it affect your enjoyment of food and social experiences?

5. Adopt new, empowering beliefs such as "All food is nourishment" or "My body can digest anything."

Conclusion: You Are the Healer of Your Body

Food is not the problem. The problem is the fear you’ve been taught about food. When you understand your body’s biology and how it responds to perceptions, healing becomes simple.

You no longer need to focus on external restrictions and protocols, instead you can focus on the inner work that matters. 

---

Jenny Peterson is a Chronic Illness Expert and the Founder of MBR (Mind Body Rewire). She helps those struggling with multiple chronic symptoms reclaim their health and freedom—without diets, detoxes, or pills.

For 10 years, Jenny worked as a holistic practitioner, relying on supplements, diet, and detox protocols to support healing. But when she faced her own chronic health struggles, those methods failed her.

Determined to find a real solution, she turned to mind-body healing. Using the very techniques she now teaches, Jenny fully resolved Lyme disease, digestive issues, panic attacks, skin conditions, cystitis, and more. Her own transformation ignited a mission: to help others break free from chronic symptoms and take back control of their health.

Ready to say good-bye to symptoms and hello to freedom?  START HERE