[PREVIEW] A White Man Thought He was Fat and Quit His Job.
We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay and it’s time for your January Indulgence Gospel!
Today we are talking about former restaurant critic turned diet crusader Pete Wells—and why the New York Times always spends January turning into a women's magazine from hell.
CW for discussions of intentional weight loss and lazy fat jokes (from Pete), including some that are offensive to both humans and bassett hounds.
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Episode 229 Transcript
Corinne
Ugh. That's all I can muster.
Virginia
And it's not a new ugh. They do this every January, guys. We have to emotionally prepare ourselves—those of us who still have an admittedly increasingly problematic subscription to The New York Times—we have to emotionally prepare ourselves that every January they become like Cosmo from 2004, and do this ridiculous weight loss challenge bullshit. And it's so odd and misaligned with actual journalism.
OK, so dd you see the piece that came out like two days ago?
Corinne
“Our Former Restaurant Critic Changed His Eating Habits, You Can, Too?"
Virginia
The before and after journey of Pete Wells.
Corinne
I sure did see it. I mean, my first thought was... the food looks good.
Virginia
Food does look good.
Corinne
I might be making some of these recipes. And guess what? I'll still be fat.
Virginia
Virginia comes in hot and angry. Corinne...angry, but also willing to make a delicious chickpea dish?
Corinne
I'm definitely going to eat this. But don't get me wrong, also very angry.
Virginia
One of the listeners said in the chat today, Why does New York Times Cooking do this to me? They have good recipes and then they have to,take this weird turn. Like, just make good recipes. That's what you do. That's what we pay for. We just want the pretty food pictures and the useful recipes. We don't want this. We don't need this.
Corinne
Articles like this are literally putting people off the recipes.
Virginia
Before we talk about the current "Reset Your Appetite" challenge, and the way he's talking about his story now, we'll just quickly back up for people who blessedly missed this whole thing.
Pete Wells is a former restaurant critic for the New York Times. And last July he wrote a piece titled, "After 12 years of Reviewing Restaurants, I'm Leaving the Table." It was all about how the job had made him fat, and so he couldn't be a restaurant critic anymore because he felt bad about being fat.
Wells talked a lot about his own health issues, too. He said, “my cholesterol, blood sugar and hypertension were worse than I expected. The terms pre diabetes, fatty liver disease and metabolic syndrome were thrown around.”
And sure, that is all upsetting, and a lot to deal with. But he blamed it all on his weight and then made all these really lazy fat jokes. He wrote, “I've decided to bow out as gracefully as my state of technical obesity will allow.” Which just, why? Why do you need to frame it like that? Fat people are graceful. Fuck you.
There's no need for talking about bodies in such a gross way. Even though he's making a joke about himself, which I'm sure makes him think it's okay.
Corinne
I mean, I hate it. It makes me feel really weird.
Virginia
It is really weird. It's like we're watching one man's midlife crisis just unfold in our nation's supposedly most reputable newspaper.
Corinne
There is just something confusing about it, too. You wanted this job! Why can't you eat the way you want to eat? I don't know. He makes it sound like he's being force fed or something.
Virginia
I do think restaurant reviewing is a job where you often have to eat even if you're not hungry. Like you have to taste things, right? He talked about how he was eating an average of 125 multi-course restaurant meals a year. Which is not how most of us eat.
Corinne
That is like, twice a week? I bet a lot of people go to restaurants twice a week.
Virginia
But you don't necessarily get appetizers and cocktails and dessert every time, because you don't have to try the whole menu when you go. And let's see, 52 meals a year... it would be 104 if it was twice a week. So it's two to three times a week.
Corinne
Okay. It's a lot.
Virginia
So I agree there's an open question of: Did eating this way take a toll on his health? Possibly. Does he need to make it all about his weight and make lazy fat jokes? He doesn't. We don't need to do that. And do you need to tell America that the reason you're quitting your job is because of health reasons? I don't know that this was news. A lot of people quit jobs after 12 years. I don't care.
Corinne
And a lot of people quit job for jobs for health reasons, and then don't write weight loss stories.
Virginia
That was the other layer to this piece last year that really bugged me. He talked to other former restaurant critics, including Adam Platt, who was at New York Magazine for a really long time. And Adam Platt called the job "the least healthy job in America." I'm sorry, sir. You are not an underwater welder. You are not working at coal mines.
Corinne
Professional athletes come to mind, too. Football players.
Virginia
The least healthy job in America? You get to eat in beautiful, comfortable places. You get to expense the cab ride home. You're not being underpaid. You're not being abused. You're not being forced to have sex against your will to stay employed. You're not being held captive in a workplace.
There are a lot of jobs that are less healthy than this, sir. And just the total lack of acknowledgement of that privilege made me insane. I find it just so exasperating.
Another great quote from Platt:
"Your body changes over time. You have this giant distended belly which wants to be filled. All those weird sensors in your brain that cry out for deliciousness are at DEF CON one all day, you become an addict."
It's just such a dramatic—and again, super anti-fat— way of talking about your experience with a career which brought you...a lot of success and financial privilege.
Corinne
It's troubling.
Virginia
So that is the back story.
Corinne
A successful white man thought he was fat and decided to quit his job.
Virginia
He felt bad about his body, so he quit his job. That was the tragedy that befell Pete Wells. And now he's back, Corinne! Because he lost 60 pounds in a year!
Corinne
"An entire basset hound." Doesn't he say that?
Virginia
Yes, I'm sorry. And trigger warning that we're using numbers. He's using numbers, we're just quoting. “Today, I'm about 55 pounds later than I was at my zenith, a loss roughly, roughly equivalent to dropping an entire male basset hound.”
Is there nobody at The New York Times—I am truly asking, as someone who has written for this newspaper, been interviewed for this newspaper—is there not one editor in any of your departments who can spot anti-fat bias? Is there not one person in the copy editing department, or maybe one senior editor reading a draft of this, who would say, "Wow, this is wildly offensive, dehumanizing language to use about people's bodies?"
Corinne
Or notice how ableist It is against people with diabetes. Because that's what struck me when I read this.
Virginia
Yes, to Pete Wells, diabetes is a death sentence and a moral failing. It is the nightmare scenario he's desperate to avoid.
And I'm not downplaying the stress of managing a chronic condition. But that is extremely offensive to the many millions of people who live functional, happy lives with diabetes.
Corinne
And who don't have a choice to focus all their energy on avoiding it and get a New York Times column to write about how they avoided it.
Virginia
Let's talk about after he describes his "basset hound" weight loss. He then says:
"...Slimming down was not my main purpose. I never counted a single calorie. Somehow that took care of itself because of the new ways I started shopping, cooking and eating back then, and it more or less stuck to since.”
Corinne
I mean, could it get any more diet-y? You're selling us a diet.
Virginia
It's absolutely about slimming down. All you're talking about is how unhappy you were that you got fat. Obviously, you care about slimming down. Yes, you were worried about your biomarkers. But if that was all you were worried about, you would shut up about the basset hound! You would not use that phrase. It's so egregious.
What's also egregious is that this is the first of four articles Pete Wells will be writing on this theme. We are recording this on January 7. You are hearing it on January 22 which means by the time you listen, there have been two more atrocities that we can't even get into because we haven't read them yet. But I can bet they're crap!
Corinne
I think it's also kind of interesting to think about this whole thing within the greater GLP-1 era. He doesn't really say whether he's taking a GLP-1 or not, although it feels like he's implying that he's not? And with that, there is some kind of moral judgment.
Virginia
That struck me as well. This first article is all about how to break up with sugar. That's literally a headline in here. Which, again, they stole from a women's magazine from 2005. Like I wrote that! "Break Up With Sugar" is classic women's magazine bullshit. But okay, Pete Wells. When a white man writes it, we get to pretend it's real journalism.
Corinne
Doesn't he also talk somewhere about how sugar makes you crazy?
Virginia
Yes, he writes: "And having raised two boys, I probably should have known that going through sugar overdrive many times a day was not producing the most rational behavior."
There have been multiple studies proving that sugar highs do not exist, that they do not cause hyperactivity. That is a myth. Restriction causes weird behavior. Deprivation causes weird behavior. Being told you can't have something you want to have causes kids to be cranky and irrational sometimes. But sugar itself doesn't do it. He's really light on actual scientific information.
I also have to note the hypocrisy of being so proud he never counted a single calorie, and then he says, "Figure out whether you're getting more than 10% of your total calories from added sugar, which should be the maximum intake."
So you have to count some calories to figure out that number. It's all just the classic diet industry playbook. "It's not a diet. You don't have to count calories...Fine Print: Actually, you're gonna have to do a lot of math and be really stringent about your intake." It is a diet, completely.
Corinne
it feels like an old guy who's realizing that his time on the planet is limited and he doesn't want to deal with the fact that he's not going to be around forever.He doesn't like his body and then tries to adjust what he's eating without counting anything. And then loses weight and then writes a column about it.
Virginia
It's very like... I was about to say big dick energy, and I think I'm going to stand by that?
It's the hubris of "This thing worked for me. I effortlessly lost weight. So now all of America, you should do that, too."
Because I'm assuming, as a restaurant critic, Pete Wells is pretty handy in the kitchen. He has a nice, generous grocery shopping budget. Since he stepped down from a very time-consuming job, he might have more leisure time with which to make Millet with Corn and Mango and Shrimp, which is one of the recipes.
But this is all very much in the tradition of how white guys at The New York Times talk about food. It's very Michael Pollan. It's very Mark Bittman. They all want cooking and eating to be this luxurious aesthetic experience that also makes them effortlessly thin and healthy.
And they never really want or need to think about how the labor of making food and feeding people fits into actual lives.
Corinne
Well, and it's supposed to be so effortless, but—he literally had to quit his job in order to do it.
Virginia
And devote himself to this whole new way of eating and living in order to have these amazing changes that he's now touting as so doable and easy for anyone to try. If only we all just want to make Roasted Broccoli and Chickpeas with Mole Verde Sauce...which Corinne maybe does.
Corinne
I mean, as I said, the recipes do look good to me. But they don't look like something I'd be throwing together for lunch.
Virginia
I'm looking into it...the roasted broccoli and chickpeas dish says total time is 50 minutes. That's a lot to pull off on a weeknight. I don't have that much time to cook dinner on a weeknight.
Corinne
What's he eating for lunch? Because I just opened my fridge and ate a plastic wrapped piece of cheese.
Virginia
Listeners don't need the full back story, but we had some extreme technical difficulties today, and before continuing this conversation, I stood in my kitchen and ate a spoonful of Nestle cookie dough straight out of the fridge.
Corinne
That was me with plastic wrapped cheese.
Virginia
I was like, Enough of this day. This is what this needs. There was probably more than 10% added sugar in the cookie dough. I'm going to guess. And that might be the difference between me and Pete Wells. But I am going to cook dinner tonight, and I am going to cook something with vegetables. It's just not going to take me an hour to cook it.
We can have both, is my point. He's like, "Either you're a glutton who's eating uncontrollably, or you're living this life of Sheet Pan Coconut Curry with Squash and tofu." There's no in between.
Corinne
There's no world in which I follow Pete Wells's diet and end up weighing the same as Pete Wells.
Virginia
Great point.
Corinne
It's just not going to happen. Yeah, the recipes look great. And that's not how my body works.
Virginia
You are two different humans with different experiences of being in bodies.
Corinne
I'm also a lot fatter than Pete Wells, and I don't eat four teaspoons of sugar in my coffee, you know?
Virginia
Yes, there's a one-to-one-ness. He describes what he considers to be an extreme eating habit—putting four teaspoons of sugar in your coffee—and then he's like, "That explains why I couldn't get out of my car." But it's not a one-to-one. Lots of people are fatter than you and don't eat that way. Lots of people are thinner than you, and eat more sugar. And again, can we not need to lean so far into the ableism and the fatphobia with your descriptions of your experience in your body?
Corinne
The blood sugar stuff really riles me up. He writes, "Sweet potatoes are called sweet for a reason, but I don't think twice about eating one for dinner, because they're fairly gentle on blood sugar.” Did you test your blood sugar before and after? Like, how do you know that? You're just parroting something you saw on Tiktok?
Virginia
He's like, this Tiktok gym bro seems fine with sweet potatoes, so I guess they're good for me.
Let's also note he was only ever pre-diabetic, which is a term that's murky at best. A lot of folks get fear-mongered about pre-diabetes who are not actually on the cusp of diabetes. We don't know, that's Pete's business. His body, his choice. It's just the need to mansplain to the rest of us and develop an entire month-long eating plan series. That's what we're balking against.
If he was unhappy with his experience as a restaurant critic, I'm glad he's made some changes that make him feel happier in his life. But he does not need to lay it out in this way, to use this incredibly offensive language to talk about bodies while he works through his own personal demons there. We don't need it. I hate it a lot.
What do you think is going to be in the next few weeks since we're recording this right at the start?
Corinne
I am So curious. I have no idea.
Virginia
I feel like I have some ideas.
Corinne
Okay, tell me.
Virginia
Protein.
Corinne
Okay, yep, yeah. Sorry, my bad. Protein. Obviously protein.
Virginia
He's got to do a protein week. If this was the breakup with sugar week. I think there is going to be a get married to protein week.
Okay, what else do I think? Oh, ultra processed foods. He's going to do a week on getting rid of ultra processed foods. And how would we like to round it out? Let's see, what else do we have on our diet industry bingo card? It's just food, so he's probably not going to get into weightlifting.
Corinne
Well, I think fiber, but that's kind of in this one, right?
Virginia
Yeah, fiber could round it out.
Corinne
I'm feeling fiber is having a moment?
Virginia
Well, I think that'll be fun to see as these columns continue to come out over the months.
[Post-recording note: Our predictions were off! Pete went more retro with this piece on shopping the perimeter of your grocery store, and this one on mindful eating, again mining mid-2000s women's mags for cutting edge advice.]
Corinne
We should do like a little Pete Wells bingo.
Virginia
Every time he says something fatphobic—oh, wait, your whole card is full. Everyone has bingo.
Well, I'm glad we got to rant about this. I hope this is cathartic for folks, because, this is a real piece of garbage journalism in a newspaper that is increasingly going downhill, but really likes to reach new lows every time it can.
I want to hear what folks think. And you know, if this was a whole new to you topic, don't go read it. I will gift link the article, but it's fine. You don't have to give them clicks if you don't want to is what I would say.
Corinne
Good advice.
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Butter
Virginia
All right, let's bring it up with a Butter.
Corinne
All right, I'm going to Butter a book that I just finished reading. It's called The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny.
I started listening to it on my drive up to Oregon and finished it on the drive back. It's pretty long and kind of slow at times. But in the end, I really loved it. It's a romance, intergenerational story of their lives, kind of thing that takes place between India and the United States and some other places. There is kind of like a mystical element, but it's very beautiful, and I would definitely recommend it if people are looking for a long read.
Virginia
Okay, your book recs are always good.
Corinne
Yeah, might be good for your book club.
Virginia
I'm going to do a book Butter, too! I think you would really like this one. It's called The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett.
This is why I feel very confident with this recommendation: Kate Baer told me to read this book so it's a Butter for me and Kate Baer so, you know, that's two solid votes. She recommended it to my book club.
It's about this man PJ, in his 60s. He is estranged from his wife and his daughter. This is not a spoiler alert, but it is a trigger warning: One of his children has died, and he's still processing the grief of that loss. But I don't usually read books where kids die, and I could handle this book. So that's your context.
He's also a like, raging alcoholic and a lottery winner, and through a variety of circumstances, he ends up acquiring these two orphaned children, and then they all go on a road trip together across America with a cat named Pancakes.
And it's just, like, incredibly heartwarming and beautiful and funny and sad and all of the things. It's a very specific style and I really, really loved it. I couldn't put it down. I finished it, like, two weeks ago, and I still keep thinking about the characters.
Corinne
Well, I'll definitely be reading that.
Virginia
I think you would really like it.
So everybody read some good books, and don't worry about Pete Wells. And I think that's how we get through the rest of January.
Corinne
Don't go on the Pete Wells Diet.
Virginia
Truly, don't. I mean, or make the chickpea thing if it sounds good to you, but like, live your life. Don't get caught up in his nonsense.
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The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.
The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.
Our theme music is by Farideh.
Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.
Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!
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