You don’t see it coming in the grocery store. You are standing in front of a shelf with pasta, rice, bread, or something else normal in your hands, and you stop. Not because you don’t like it. Not because you don’t know how to make it. But a quiet voice in your head keeps asking, “Is this okay?”
That moment says a lot about what we know about eating.
At some point, food stopped being something we could figure out on our own and started acting like a test. There is a list of things to do that you can’t see above every plate. Too many carbs. Too much fat. Not enough protein. Color is wrong. Incorrect ratio. Not the right time. You are disciplined if you eat this way. You failed if you ate that way.
The thought of the “perfect plate” seems harmless, even encouraging. In practice, it puts pressure on people that most of them feel but don’t always say. It implies that there is a set goal. A final version of eating that you should reach and stay in forever.
That’s not how things work in real life.
The dream of perfect eating
The perfect plate assumes that the world is stable. Schedules that don’t change. Stable bodies. Stable needs. It thinks that what works now will work next year. Or next month. Or even the next day.
But bodies do change. Stress affects how hungry you are. Health diagnoses change what is most important. Children grow. Hormones change. Work schedules go wild. Traveling happens. Life gets in the way.
Food culture keeps making the same promise, though. You won’t have to think about anything else if you find the right system. If you follow these rules, everything will work out.
That promise is tempting because it’s hard to think. Decision fatigue indeed exists. A lot of people don’t want things to be perfect. They want to feel better.
The problem is that the perfect plate doesn’t help for very long. It just puts off the time when reality pushes back.
When food stops being easy to work with
Adaptability is one of the first things that goes wrong with perfect eating. Meals get stiff. Things become symbols. Bread is no longer bread. It is a sentence. Rice is a danger. Potatoes go away without a sound.
The plate gets smaller, not in how much is on it, but in how many things it can hold.
This is when many people start to feel they don’t care about food anymore. Dishes that brought back memories or made you feel better have been changed so much that they are unrecognizable. Control comes at the cost of flavor. Eating is less about getting food and more about following the rules.
People don’t often say how lonely this can be, especially in homes with more than one person. What one person wants is bad for everyone else. Meals that differ from each other start to appear. There are fights over food. The table doesn’t feel easy anymore.
People do care about health, but this isn’t why. This is because health has been framed as weak and in need of protection from change.
Food is not permanent. It changes.
One of the most straightforward but most essential ideas in The Balanced Plate is also one of the most basic. Food is not supposed to be fixed. It is meant to change.
Seasons change the food we eat. With needs. With other people. A dish that works today might not work tomorrow. That doesn’t mean it didn’t work. It means it answered.
Chef Monika Jensen’s way of cooking comes from living in that world. The fantasy of the perfect plate was impossible to maintain because I had to cook for family members with different health needs. Some meals needed options with fewer carbs. Some people did not. Some nights require being comfortable. Some for self-control.
Jensen didn’t force a single standard; instead, she made the meal itself flexible.
The Balanced Plate writes recipes as full meals first. Before making changes, taste and satisfaction come first. Keto alternatives show up as notes that are not corrections. You can use them if you need to. If you don’t, it’s not there.
This small change makes a big difference. It dispels the idea that there is only one right way to eat. It replaces perfection with flexibility.
Why the perfect plate makes you feel good (and why it doesn’t work)
The appeal of the perfect plate is in the mind. Straightforward rules make you feel safe. They make things less uncertain. They give you a sense of control in a world that often seems out of control.
But safety that is based on rigidity is weak. The system breaks down as soon as life changes. People usually blame themselves when something breaks instead of the structure that couldn’t bend.
Being flexible requires more from us emotionally. It takes focus. It needs to be changed without judgment. We have to trust ourselves to choose what works today.
Many food systems quietly break that trust.
The Balanced Plate is the opposite. It assumes that readers can make choices based on the situation. There is nutritional information, but it is not used as a weapon. The book does not put foods or versions in order. It doesn’t make moral judgments about ingredients.
That restraint is by design. And very comforting.
What readers are saying
One of the most common things readers say is not about macros or substitutions. It’s about being calm.
People say they feel less anxious when they cook from this book. Less stress to do it right. More freedom to change things without feeling bad. A lot of people say that the recipes work well in real kitchens, not perfect ones.
People often compare them to older family cookbooks. The kind that stayed important because they changed. The kind you can cook with more than once.
Perfection doesn’t make people trust you like that. It comes from being useful.
Letting go of the perfect plate
The myth of the perfect plate says that you can get healthy and then protect it. A state that doesn’t change and that you either keep or lose.
Real health is not that loud. It changes. It reacts. It gets bigger with you.
There is something else that happens when you stop looking for the perfect plate. You pay attention to your body. To the people you feed. To what really works instead of what looks good on paper.
Food is less of a show, more kind.
You cook to feed people, not to show off.
That’s the change that The Balanced Plate wants to happen. Not a new set of rules, but a new way of thinking about food. One that is based on being able to change instead of being afraid.
This book will help you stop comparing every meal to an imaginary standard, not by giving up on health, but by letting it breathe.
You can now buy Chef Monika Jensen’s book, “The Balanced Plate: Healthy Recipes With Keto Alternatives,” on Amazon. It’s not about finding the right plate. It’s about making one that can grow with you.