I Got Invited To A GLP-1 Thanksgiving. Here’s What’s On The Menu.
Are "anti-bloat snacks" a microaggression & what would you do if someone you loved asked for this menu on November 27?
Welcome to the 12th monthly installment of my Substack vertical, VOLUMINATI. Paid subscribers can access full essays. Listen to this month’s edition by scrolling down to the bottom and hitting play.
👉🏾 PART 1: THE SETUP
Historically in diet culture, Thanksgiving has functioned as a ritualized break and a much-anticipated day off from dieting / food restriction.
For decades — right up until the massive, unrelenting GLP-1 marketing blitz started in January 2024 — even chronic dieters were granted this one day where they could eat foods they otherwise denied themselves year-round.
OK, in all honesty this wasn’t a truly guilt-free day (that’s why it’s called a “cheat” day), but it was at least an eagerly anticipated moment of reprieve, where the cultural script temporarily loosened.
While everyday life affirmed to the dieter that the dinner table and food were sites of danger, anxiety and compliance, “cheat days,” (like Thanksgiving) signaled to the dieter that the dinner table and food could also be sites of transgression, pleasure, and comfort.
With GLP-1s, the once-external structures and strictures of diet culture have become internal. Where once diet culture largely acted on the mind, GLP-s are injected into the body — act on the mind/brain, mouth, throat, belly, viscera, and colon, squeezing out the appetite, slowing digestion to a painful crawl, bubbling up bile, and generating the vomitous sensation of aversion.
👉🏾 PART 2: THE MENU
A few days ago, I opened my inbox and found an email with the subject line: “Virgie, you are invited to a GLP-1-friendly Thanksgiving party.”
I was like:
It continued:
“This Thanksgiving, the traditional feast is being reengineered for the Ozempic era… Interest in GLP-1-friendly foods and drinks at social gatherings has surged +144% year-over-year while focus on metabolic wellness is up +33%.”
Reader, I was then offered — nay suggested — a menu that would have had a 1987 Weight Watchers Cookbook editor clutching her pearls, as it bore exactly zero resemblance to the traditional Thanksgiving meal.
Without further delay, here's what's on the 5 “Thanksgiving must-haves” menu: