Does Eating Like the Kardashians Tell Us How Sexy, Sophisticated, or Rich You Are?

Are you a salad-and-white-wine person or a pizza-and-beer person?

Photo by Elevate on Unsplash

What does your choice of food say about you? I don’t follow celebrities much but I saw this article and was amazed that a TikTok user is popular thanks to making celebrities’ favorite salads. That same article also mentions Kourtney Kardashian’s salad. When I googled it, I learned that salad is a frequent meal for the Kardashian-Jenner ladies.

I acknowledge there are plenty of people who love salads. However, I’m not one of them. I rarely eat salads but I do recall ordering it once at a French bistro. After a week of French restaurant meals while on vacation in Montreal, I ordered a simple Niçoise salad. I was craving something a little lighter after having enjoyed so much duck confit, foie gras, steak frites, and other rich meat-heavy dishes. Yet salad is never my first choice under normal conditions.

To me, ordering salad signals that I am avoiding the more decadent options on the other side of the menu: a ribeye steak, roasted leg of lamb, a slab of baby back ribs, or fish and chips. These are foods that stick to your ribs and leave you feeling full and satisfied. Yet these foods are sometimes seen as too heavy and not feminine enough.

For my women readers: were you advised to pick daintier foods when on a first date? Did family or friends tell you to order a light salad or a chicken dish instead? Does eating salad signal that you’re health-conscious, elegant, and upper-class, like the ladies who lunch?

I’m raising my girls to enjoy their food and not worry about what others think of their choices. Yet I realize we live in a world where your food choices signal something about you. As a feminist, I want my daughters to have the same choices boys have and not feel constrained or held back by gender expectations. Yet I know we’re not quite there yet.

A few days ago, I took my two teen daughters to lunch to celebrate the end of finals. As we walked to our table on their outdoor patio, I noticed it was crowded for a random weekday before Christmas. We got the last outdoor table. We sat next to a pair of middle-aged women enjoying white wine and leafy…