The Latina Anti-Diet: A Dietitian's Guide to Authentic Health that Celebrates Culture and Full-Flavor Living

by Dalina Soto

Break away from diet culture while still honoring your body and incorporating cultural foods in this fresh, expansive guide from the registered dietitian and creator of Your Latina Nutritionist.

Diet culture is facing a reckoning, and intuitive eating has been leading the charge. The movement has taken the internet by storm, encouraging us to stop dieting and make food choices that feel good for our bodies rather than follow influencers and their shakes.

But intuitive eating is missing a key culture. Like many movements, intuitive eating has become co-opted by a select few—placing the focus on “mainstream” food while discounting cultural cuisines. But how can we gain a healthy attitude towards food when our foods—our arroz, habichuelas, and plátanos—are left out of the conversation?

Dalina Soto is here to add them back to our plates.

As a registered dietitian, Soto understands the pros and cons of intuitive eating. As a first-generation Dominican American, she’s also seen firsthand how this movement has only catered to a certain demographic. With her easy-to-follow CHULA method, Soto teaches us how  

Challenge negative thoughtsHonor our bodies and healthUnderstand our needsListen to our hungerAcknowledge our emotions.
She gives us tools to confront diet culture and the whitewashing of food so we can go back to eating what we love while managing our health.

Engaging and incisive, The Latina Anti-Diet is for everyone who’s been told to lay off the tortillas and swap their white rice for brown. Soto shows us that food is so much more than calories; it’s about celebrating our culture and living a life full of flavor.

Genres: Nonfiction, Health, Latinx, Nutrition, Food, Audiobook

247 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 18, 2025

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wholesome, thoughtful, and well-written book about dismantling diet culture and adding more racial justice and racial awareness to intuitive eating. Dalina Soto does a nice job both addressing social determinants of health/food consumption and providing helpful tips about food selection and hunger/fullness on an individual level. While those who are familiar with intuitive eating and racial justice movements related to food may not find much mind-blowingly new about the content in this book, I feel like these reminders to honor our bodies and fight back against the cult of thinness are beneficial in a culture still so steeped in fatphobia and racism.

[Trisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a cookbook but it's not - it's amazing resource for unlearning some poor information we've been fed about health and relearning intuitive eating and to stop fearing food.

This was a great, quick read. I liked the stories between the information. It added a nice touch to the dense information. I found it an easy read and I love that it really does aim to make us less scared to eat and to lean more into understanding - it's a whole picture, not just one piece.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

[Destiny · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a Boricua, I was often told that the foods I knew and loved were bad, not healthy, to skip them all together. I internalized a lot of shame around eating as a result, and I have struggled with disordered eating and toxic relationships to exercise for the majority of my life. As I have restarted my wellness journey for 2025, I was trying to find a way to read and learn more about food in a way that wasn’t Eurocentric and had real truths about food and health. This book was everything I needed for that and more. The relief I feel at knowing that my food is and always will be a beautiful thing, that I can live a fulfilling life without restrictions in my foods and move my body the way I want, and have it be enough. I’m forever grateful to Dalina for her wisdom and for being a much needed voice in the health community. Everyone go read this book!!!

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

SO GOOD 10/10 recommend. Amazing book for anyone who’s been influenced by diet culture and/or anyone currently in or aspiring to enter the dietetics field.

[Sacha · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars

The title of this book made me feel, transparently, that maybe this book was not for me. I'm not Latine, and I'm not particularly interested in information about diets, though according to some, I have a pretty unusual one (vegan). It's that latter factor that ultimately compelled me to read and thoroughly enjoy this!

Soto apparently has a huge social media following, and I'm laughing as I type this, because she mentioned she only needed to say that for those folks with no social media accounts. Well? Thanks for the personal messaging! I came to this read with no information at all about this author, and since it sounds like most readers will have the opposite perspective and reality, I'm adding that info here. No background needed to understand and enjoy!

The book is not for an audience that is as limited as the title may suggest. Is this the target audience? Yes. Do the rest of us have a lot to learn? Absolutely. I really enjoyed the discussion of multiple styles of eating, common mistakes, cultural connections, and what seem like common sense tips about keeping ourselves nourished and healthy. This is informative and useful but never feels didactic, which is exactly the tone I want from a book on this subject.

This was an unexpected gem for me, and I'm so glad I had the chance to read it. I'll definitely be recommending it.

*Special thanks to NetGalley, Jordan Hill Forney, & Random House, Dial Press, & BBD for this widget, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

[Gema · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing informative read that at times had me in my feels. Thank you for writing this for our community Dalina.

[malenie areche · Rating 5 out of 5]

we love a queen who is holistic about health!!! ❤️❤️❤️ so many beautiful nuggets of wisdom in a society obsessed with shaming people for how we eat

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Latina Anti-Diet by Dalina Soto is an outstanding contribution to the field of intuitive eating, nutrition, and body acceptance from the Latine perspective. Most books on this topic are written by white dieticians with a lack of cultural sensitivity for Latine culture and customs. Dalina Soto is a registered dietician who started a popular instagram site on diet-free living. The first section of the book discusses how intuitive eating and dietetics in general can be extremely challenging for women in the Latine community. Ms. Soto empowers readers to embrace their bodies and cultural. While many dieticians make Latinas feel comfortable about cultural cuisine, Ms. Soto empowers readers to embrace foods that taste good and teaches approaches to make peace with food and exercise. The second section of the book covers the healthy living methodology that she has developed using several case studies.

I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn more about about intuitive eating. I especially recommend this book for Latina women and dieticians who work with the Latine community.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Madelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an early copy of this book!

The author, Dalina Soto, truly wrote an incredibly moving and engaging piece. Once I started, I could not put this book down.

When I read the description of this book, I knew I had to read it. As a plus size woman who grew up in a Hispanic family- food and weight have always been at the forefront of my mind. Soto most definitely did not disappoint. I found myself connecting to the women in the book, and Soto’s wisdom on nutrition opened up something that I wasn’t expecting. I learned a lot from this reading, and I’m so happy that it was my first read of the year.

[Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dalina is a Latina registered dietitian who specializes in dismantling misinformation that has been spread about cultural foods. Her explanations are well written and a lot is based on personal experience. It’s thoughtful, and makes your rethink a lot about what can be incorporated into your daily routine without feeling guilty or regretful. Her take on diet culture and how it is rooted in classism and colonialism is something I was very aware of but her framework for making you rethink makes so much sense.

[Kelci · Rating 3 out of 5]

A satisfactory take on diet culture, what I thought would be more of a recipe based book was statements of things I’ve taken as common knowledge. If you aren’t aware of intersectionality, this book can provide some great learning opportunities. Ultimately, it fell flat for me with lots of headline statements that feel better suited for a 60-second video than an informational book. I think this would’ve been great paired with some recipes that illustrated her points about latine meals being nutritious. Would’ve been fun to participate in that as well.

[Nikki Chaos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for a cooy of this in earc form in exchange for an honest review!

I am a proud Latina. Puerto Rican if you want to be exact. I was born and raised in New York City. This really hit home as I read this. As Latina, I witnessed so much about food and weight - because we have to eat but at the same time we can’t be “huge” as some of my family would call it. I am right now in 2025, the heaviest I’ve ever been. I am mid-size borderline plus size and I am looked sometimes down upon from family.

Soto, didn’t disappoint. I connected so easily and quickly with the ladies in the book.

I learned so much from this and happy to announce that I enjoyed every. Single. Moment. I had with this read.

Thank you.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone working in the field of eating disorders, I thought this read was very insightful and helpful! I think the breakdown of intuitive eating was helpful and the author did a good job calling out how individualism, classism, and racism impact the ways people nourish. I felt like part two of the story was repetitive and could’ve been shortened a little, but overall I liked this.

[Jax · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dalina Soto is a social media influencer. I point this out because most of us know how that system works, and I think (hope) this is at the root of what I didn’t enjoy about this book. I recently reviewed a book written by a scholarly social media influencer who has a large following and makes his living through his channel. His engagement strategy is bait-questioning that he knows will trigger committed responses against which he will argue. Baiting is such a successful tactic, it’s easy to fall into one of its many harmful patterns however worthy your intentions going in might be. After all, content creators are well aware that humans once watched tigers rip apart gladiators and considered it entertainment. Why do I think Soto baits? Because in this book and in interviews, she is quick to polemics and polemic statements are highly shareable. Here are a couple of examples—

“The thin ideal is rooted in white supremacy and eugenics, which have infiltrated the medical system in the use of BMI and increased the prevalence of weight stigma.”

“The idea that Latino food is ‘unhealthy’ or ‘bad’ is deeply rooted in colonialism, racism, and diet culture,” Soto says. (Remezcla)

It’s important first to dismiss the notion that the thin ideal is a white American construct. Let’s take a peek at a study conducted in Mexico City, one of many scholarly research papers that counter Soto’s claim. It was published by the Journal of Health Psychology [Vol 19(9)] in 2014, two years before Soto’s platform TikTok was launched. The authors are Latina. Their small study focuses on body image and heavily cites other researchers. Mexico’s Ministry of Health, the authors say, “has included weight control as a main component of the national health strategy, and the acceptance of the thin ideal has been documented in urban and rural areas.” They further state that weight-related body dissatisfaction, or “BD, disordered eating, and the appreciation of the thin body ideal are present worldwide and among diverse social and cultural groups.” In clarifying the reason respondents thought losing weight was important, a majority cited health reasons. A slim body was also considered important for a professional image and to keep a romantic partner interested.

Referencing the above quotes, I want to point out that I interpret “white supremacy” in the context of the general white population and its forbearers who were alive during the BMI’s 175-year-old history, at the time eugenics was developed and later employed by the U.S. government, and when diet culture became a thing. Scratch that last one. Women have been dieting since the dawn of bipedalism.

That the BMI Index is fraught with controversy and affects a tapestry of populations is not breaking news. The WHO and AMA have only recently begun to address the problem, though feebly at best. But let us not doctor bash. They, more often than not, tend to save us from ourselves and have played a leading role in inching up our life spans and life quality. As to the emphasis Soto places on the population that has been harmed, let’s look at a CDC measurement: whites account for roughly 42% of obesity in America with men at nearly 44%. Hispanics account for almost 45%, with men .9% above the population. Other populations are both higher and lower. There is nothing good in these statistics, but the range is not sufficient to support Soto’s implications that Hispanics are measurably worse off. If anything, it proves that white folks have done an abysmal job fulfilling their alleged effort at being supreme, and I mean no shame here. We all struggle, buried as we are under an avalanche of food ads with barely enough time in our days to prepare it.

Eugenics is a different story. The very mention of this practice in the context with which Soto placed it frankly makes my eyeballs spin. But don’t worry. This topic is as bad as the review will get, and deservedly so. For those who don’t know, the eugenics movement in the US dates to the early twentieth century, was racially motivated, and targeted many populations who were deemed by whites, yes, as unfit. Though discredited in the 1930s and state sponsorship rejected by the Supreme Court in the early 1940s, the practice survived in some states, particularly the use of forced sterilizations. Black single mothers were a primary target, but Native Americans, immigrants from certain European nations, Latinos, poor whites, and persons with disabilities were all sterilized without their consent. Armed with this information, let’s revisit Soto’s quote: “The thin ideal is rooted in white supremacy and eugenics…” I find it shameful that Soto—let’s say “appropriated”—the suffering of so many marginalized people to support her thesis about food. I can’t say how completely she shut me down with that relationship of words. How can a rising star succeed with credibility intact when such egregious polemics pour out of her mouth without so much as a pause?

“Western nutrition frameworks have long demonized foods from non-white cultures while simultaneously celebrating them when they are rebranded by mainstream wellness culture.”

“Many Latinos grow up hearing that our food is ‘too greasy,” ‘too starchy,’ or ‘not balanced,’ often from health professionals who don’t understand our cuisine,” Soto tells Remezcla. “This stigma has been reinforced by marketing, the weight loss industry, and even public health campaigns that fail to acknowledge that Latino foods are naturally rich in fiber, protein, and heart-healthy fats.”

I’m going to do an exercise here and pretend I’m Soto drafting her book. Our food cultures get the same bad rap from those with healthy eating apps and X accounts, so this exercise should pass muster. You be the judge.

I was raised in Texas by a Louisiana-born mother and am married to a Louisiana-born sweetheart. Some of our heavenly childhood staples included biscuits, fried shrimp and chicken, roast beef, beef stew with homemade crust, buttered and creamed mashed potatoes (me) or rice and gravy (sweetheart), gumbo, crawfish étouffée, chipped beef in milk gravy on white toast, cobblers, pecan-anything, and ice cream. Fair warning #1: You will rip my butter knife from my cold, dead fingers before I’ll give it up the food repertoire I grew up with, but I won’t argue that eating some of these things doesn’t come with health risks, and adding an avocado won’t help, unfortunately.

The next task is to find fault. I’m tempted to go after the French because they won’t share their AOC/AOP butter with the U.S. (me actually, but you knew that right?). Insult on injury is that they seem to eat plenty of it and stay as svelte as the breeze. The problem with that plan is that the butter knife was used on a croissant before I died. To close the blame circle, the Texas propensity for beef reflects our history of cowboy culture that, coincidentally, is widespread from the United States to the tip of the South American continent. Imagine that. Shall I side eye the gauchos of Argentina when my cholesterol numbers spike after a stretch of satisfying weekly prime rib cravings at our local diner? (This is a true story, hand to heart.) I’m planning to enter “gaucho pico” in Google Translate. If “cowboy caviar” comes out on translation, I’ll faint.

Am I pushing it here or being far too transparent about how weary I am of all the fighting about who owns what and why, when a simple peek at how culture works might stop the carping? Was Phil Knight appropriating Greek culture by naming his company Nike, Inc. after the Nike of Samothrace? Don’t be ridiculous, you say, but we can’t appropriate the anti-appropriation trend when it suits us and scoff when it doesn’t. Recalibrating one’s understanding of cultural ownership is liberating. At the least—like taking a DNA test—it can awaken us to the interconnectivity of humans and help us imagine which of our own cultural practices might survive the millennia-long chain of cultural evolution. In fact, if I were Queen of School Curriculum, I would make Martin Puchner’s book Culture. The Story of Us, From Cave Art to K-Pop required reading because it’s time for us to stop clasping our foods, dress, and other wonderful inventions and become excited that persons from different areas of the country, world, background, upbringing, whatever, like something we came up with. Besides, aren’t the arguments about differentiating cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation a bit like chasing the same tail?

Why is my review about some of her quotes when the book is mostly about eating? Because she has cast that polemic engagement bait when her star could shine far brighter without it. Like pouring the last drizzle of white bashing into the water bottle, making the ball reachable and real, she redirects our attention from her message by picking the rotted fruit of white history and bobbing it in front of us. I am simply up to my eyebrows in having to politely duck my head when whites are under attack because people long dead and not remotely in our family lineages were colonialists who settled this country with people whose skin had little use for melanin in the land of cold and ice. They, as is unarguably the case with the Spanish south of us and the British and French to our north, carried with them cultural habits that persist to this day and about which they have every right to be proud of and cling to just as Soto is arguing on behalf of her Latino culture. Some were racists, yes. “Many” might be more accurate. I have no doubt that some still are. But did it occur to her that white and Hispanic unions lead intermarriages in the U.S., meaning many whites have Latino family members who would scoff at her views? Her inciting comments are nothing more than click bait because engagement pays the bills.

Excuse me for my frankness, but I’m older than Soto, and I understand frankness is permissible with persons of a certain age. My old-er-ish neighbor launches flame throwers when we young-er-ish say anything she disagrees with. Decades in the trenches, she argus, gives one a perspective that only comes with time, and it's best to speak up before our butter consumption gets the best of our valves. If my neighbor is wrong, I’ll send you her AOL email address and you can complain to her. Fair warning #2–it takes a long time for the smell of singed hair to get out of your clothes, so proceed with caution. She has excellent aim.

Culture is not chattel. Neither are learning and adapting appropriating, despite the trend of freeze-framing cultural ownership. This is simply how cultures evolve. It is most evident in integrative diasporic periods as a host culture learns and adapts aspects of its arriving members and vice versa. This evolution of seizing and adapting the best technologies and practices began in prehistory. Let us not forget the example set by the first cultural transmission—the stone tool.

There is good in Soto’s book, and it will help those who want it to. I simply couldn’t pluck the shrapnel from my hide.

Many thanks to Random House Publishing Group—Ballantine and NetGalley for providing this e-galley and best of luck to this beautiful and talented author whom I hope will flush the polemics down the toilet.

[Hollie · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’re starting your journey to heal your relationship with food this is a great introduction. I’ve been following Dalina on social media for a while and have always loved her way of being upfront, realistic, and encouraging. This book is her gift to her community. There is so much factual information in this book and it could have easily been overwhelming but Dalina presented it in a straightforward and simple way. Her personality and passion shines in this book.

[Evelyn Rios · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an amazing book! I loved all the inspiring and motivational stories. I loved how it was real and based on facts, I loved how it took our culture and its history and shed light on a lot of the negative stereotypes that we’ve been led to believe. I laughed out loud at times and felt inspired to continue my journey on getting healthy my way and with my Mexican recipes.

[Tresh~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Im such a fan of hers. I loved this book. ❤️

[Carmen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an early copy of this book.

Quick disclaimer: I follow Dalia Soto on Instagram. Hopefully, I was able to give an impartial review.

The writing style is easy and conversational which made me think that I want to read a food history book by Soto. There's an emphasis on using fat in a neutral way which I love while also using "obesity" in quotation marks (like I did here).

I will say that some of the stuff requires the reader to have some knowledge of Soto's platform. This doesn't take away from the book or what it's saying, but I noticed it.

Part 1 lays the groundwork of nutrition and why a cultural perspective is needed. As Soto writes (and this may be different in the published copy), "people will eat and care about nutrition when the food is something they know and understand." Part 2 introduces her CHULA method which is a different approach to thinking about nutrition. Each chapter in this part breaks down the CHULA acronym.

The book puts a lot of effort into citing sources with chapters providing notes and a bibliography. At the end of each chapter, there is a TLDR of the chapter, a "Chula Practice", and endnotes.

In all, this book really proves that we have to listen to professionals and not influencers. I really enjoyed it and think it should be on reading lists for nutritionists.

[Jamie Cha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a free ebook from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review of this book. I am not a Latina. I don't really have a weight issue. I did have an eating issue when I was in my teens. I didn't really know what this book would be about. I highly recommend it!!

All of have been taught that thin is beautiful. It's horrible but even if we aren't on a diet, everyone around us is. We have not been taught to love our bodies. It creates so much havoc.

The book is about trying to teach us how to eat in a healthy and non judgemental way. It's not a book about rules. It's about acceptance.

It's a book about self care and being kind to ourselves. It dismantles many myths we have been taught. It's a book that can be reread.

I read this book in only a few days. It is an easy to read book. The chapters are fairly short. The book is so interesting. It gives examples, teaches facts, gives history, and teaches self love.

I am so happy that I got the opportunity to read this book. I highly encourage others to read this book. I would love to meet the author at a book signing.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up because I strongly believe people need to hear what Dalina Soto is saying.

I tore through this book and know I'll read it several more times. I was fortunate enough to receive an ARC for this book and have already recommended it to multiple colleagues and friends. If you're considering this book heavily enough to be reading reviews, then I'm telling you, just jump in!!

The author succeeds at:
✔ Highlighting the importance of social determinants of health
✔ Heavily educating me on the racist roots of modern diet culture
✔ Giving me a deeper understanding of Latine culture and how much more Latines deserve from our society and healthcare systems.

This is a difficult review to write. I’m pouring some rawness in here because the topic demands it and this book deserves it. If nothing else, take away that I *adore* this book, and it’s had a bigger impact on me than any book since my first intro to Intuitive Eating, which literally changed my life.

I read a *lot* about anti-diet culture, intuitive eating, and nutrition. I’ve spent years learning, absorbing, and reshaping my understanding of food, health, and weight. And yet... AND YET, this book still taught me so, so much—despite what I thought I knew.

Soto doesn’t just call out diet culture. She rips it apart, lays out its racist roots, and demands we do better (without ever feeling demanding). The way she ties modern diet trends back to eugenics was something I’d never seen laid out so clearly before. It was a bittersweet reminder that diet culture, rooted in patriarchy, racism, and white supremacy, has hurt everyone. I don't want to center “my hurt," because this book also made me acutely aware of my privilege as a *white*, fat person. It reinforced that everyone has a stake in dismantling these oppressive systems, and everyone should care.

This book mattered to me because my relationship with food and body image was *complicated* growing up. I was white in a place where European diets were not the standard, and white bodies were not the ideal (so, the opposite, in some ways, to what Soto describes). I was surrounded by cultural foods, cultural practices, and different body norms. I was allowed access to them, but they were not for me. I didn't have alternatives, so no matter they were a part of me no matter what. I felt like an outsider. I struggled with a lack of belonging, a weak sense of identity. A lot of that centered around food. I was wrong for being different, wrong if I tried to embrace what was around me. It was a unique, and challenging way to grow up. I still haven’t untangled that from the privileges I enjoy as a white adult in the USA. And so reading this book required a lot of time with these complicated feelings and how the subconscious biases they formed still impact me.

So reading Soto’s experience—and the deep, emotional truths about body and food struggles in the Latine community—was hard. Hard because her experience is not mine. Hard because some of my struggles were directly about being white. Hard because so much of what she describes—shame, pressure, impossible expectations—is something I deeply relate to, just from a completely different angle. And hard because while I’ve been invited to benefit from this book, I am completely aware it is not *for* me.
(Note: I'm aware this review is very me me me. For better or worse, it's the only way I know how to review something that struck me so deeply.)

The challenge is exactly why this book hit me so hard. The best books about anti-diet culture, food justice, systemic oppression, and any combination of these topics aren’t just about affirming what we already know. That would just be a little printed echo chamber. We read books like this because they challenge us to step outside of our own experience. In some ways, this book crushed my ego a little bit and I always appreciate that.

Soto reminds us that food is about so much more than nutrients or calories. She gently hammers this home over and over: food is community, identity, history, connection. She makes it impossible to separate food from culture, and honestly, that's a message that needs to be spread as far as we possibly can. Because when nutrition is reduced to macros and portion sizes, it erases entire histories that are already too easy to ignore.

I felt there were parts that could have been more clear and more consistent with the message of the whole book, which is why I gave it a 4.5. The Intuitive Eating chapter, for example, critiques how IE has been co-opted and misinterpreted, but at times, it wasn’t clear if Soto was questioning the framework itself or just how people have applied it. One moment she draws the line at eating a sleeve of Oreos, saying that’s “not learning balance,” which… didn’t land right with me, personally. Sometimes, when you’re unlearning diet culture, *it is* a sleeve of Oreos. Sometimes, it isn’t. And both are fine. Seriously. Really. That’s part of the process. Drawing that line for someone else felt like a contradiction to the overall message of food freedom. So there were some little things like that.

But what stands out far more than these moments is how thoughtful and deeply human this book is. Soto brings so much warmth and cultural pride to these pages. The personal stories she shares about her family, her community, and the deep, generational ties to food are some of the strongest parts of the book.

This book is powerful. It’s direct. It’s unapologetic. If you care about food, culture, and dismantling harmful systems, it’s absolutely worth your time. And if you don't care about those things... Well, you read this far, so it's time to reconsider. This is the right place to start.

[Carolina Familia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a must read for any Latino or Caribbean people who are looking to make a change in their unhealthy eating habits and don’t know how. The author encourages you to choose and eat the ethnic foods that you grew up eating. To ignore the mainstream advice that your cultural foods are bad for you. The writing is funny and playful, but the author is passionate about getting you to lose weight in an authentic way.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really appreciated the intro to intuitive eating and the connections made to my lived experiences. I felt like it was a friend talking to me as I read and as a result, I just wanted to keep reading. She makes a few book and account recommendations throughout the book- all have been fantastic.

I’m currently on a health journey myself and reading the book now helped me rethink how I want to approach my own relationship with food moving forward.

[Richard Derus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Break away from diet culture while still honoring your body and incorporating cultural foods in this fresh, expansive guide from the registered dietitian and creator of Your Latina Nutritionist.

Diet culture is facing a reckoning, and intuitive eating has been leading the charge. The movement has taken the internet by storm, encouraging us to stop dieting and make food choices that feel good for our bodies rather than follow influencers and their shakes.

But intuitive eating is missing a key ingredient: culture. Like many movements, intuitive eating has become co-opted by a select few—placing the focus on “mainstream” food while discounting cultural cuisines. But how can we gain a healthy attitude towards food when our foods—our arroz, habichuelas, and plátanos—are left out of the conversation?

Dalina Soto is here to add them back to our plates.

As a registered dietitian, Soto understands the pros and cons of intuitive eating. As a first-generation Dominican American, she’s also seen firsthand how this movement has only catered to a certain demographic. With her easy-to-follow CHULA method, Soto teaches us how to:

Challenge negative thoughts
Honor our bodies and health
Understand our needs
Listen to our hunger
Acknowledge our emotions

She gives us tools to confront diet culture and the whitewashing of food so we can go back to eating what we love while managing our health.

Engaging and incisive, The Latina Anti-Diet is for everyone who’s been told to lay off the tortillas and swap their white rice for brown. Soto shows us that food is so much more than calories; it’s about celebrating our culture and living a life full of flavor.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Food, fat, and flavor start with the same letter for a reason. I'm deeply anti-diet. This book crystalizes my objections to the diet industry's be-afraid-of-your-food message, its relentless focus on women and the concomitant relentless bombardment of negativity about appearance, or more stealthily but with the same objective, relentless "health" messaging that is anything but healthy.

The author is a social-media Force. She's got followers in droves...legions...and she's been giving this very practical method to get yourself into a healthy, sustainable pattern of eating the food you enjoy for a while now. I hadn't heard of her because I'm not all that interested in diets except to belittle and insult the anti-food goblins that perpetrate and perpetuate the anti-food messaging that damages so many people.

What else can I say? If you think you need a diet book, you really need this book. Skip the "one weird trick" fads, spend your time and your treasure here. Author Soto is Cicero to the Br'er Rabbits that abound in this space. She spends a deal of her page-count telling stories about those who've used her method...CHULA, explained above...to mend their fractured relationship to food. There's a lot of informative and explanatory text, so it's not just a paper version of an infomercial; the aim was to recreate her social-media presence's warm, approachable presentation of self. I found it effective, and agreeable, where I expected to feel it was kinda cringe.

*I*, a certifiable curmudgeon with a long-standing hatred of the dietmongers, am rating this book 5 stars and recommending it to people who think they need to diet. Push a pin in that idea until you've read this book.

[denice ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪ · Rating 5 out of 5]

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

As a fellow Dominican (born and raised in the US), this book was one of the balms my heart needed. I unfortunately come from a family riddled with disordered eating, yo-yo diets, conforming to white culture and foods, and oh so many bigotted and hurtful comments about everyone and anyone’s body and how that ties to one’s love life, money, or happiness to someone not being skinny enough. Mind you when summer time comes, and I look pura Afro-Latina - so there’s no whitening or skinnifying myself to the point where I’ll ever be able to blend in. Back in undergrad I began my health journey and explored veganism - and with that, understanding so much we were taught that is wrong and especially for marginalized communities. Unfortunately social determinants of health, one’s socioeconomic status, geographic location, mental health, body’s distribution of fat, and even stress have not been acknowledged throughout time. I’m so grateful Dalina wrote this book as it is so validating to not only my feelings and mindset- but all the research I have done independently despite family ridiculing me. As I learned when transitioning from computer science to sociology, having the words, terminology, and evidence to explain yourself to validating across so many fronts. It makes you feel seen and as though you can truly express yourself. Thank you so much for doing so for me alongside weaving throughout this book gentle reminders, acknowledgment of the role of HEALING so many wounds caused as we grew up, and effective ways we can incorporate our cultural foods to diagrams created without acknowledging us.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Latina Anti-Diet: A Dietician’s Guide to Authentic Health that Celebrates Culture and Full-Flavor Living” is the absolute best title for this body of work. The cover artwork gives a little bit more cookbook than guide, but it's beautiful. It grabbed me instantly and I am so happy that I was able to get an arc of this book!

You are getting so much more than just another self-help book here. Dalina’s life experiences and featured stories are all personal, relatable, and touch on so many topics that are embedded in our community. The health and wellness spaces are often very unkind to “others” - aka anyone who is not already thin, CIS, and/or white. This book is a guiding hand on how to dispel the myths and blanket advice that doctors and diet culture so often push and shows how BIPOC people can adapt cultural foods or how we eat to be healthier. The flow of the book was one of the best parts as each section begins with a story, is packed full of information and practical guidance, and ends with a TLDR section that sums it all up perfectly. It was a quick read and one that I am sure I will return to again.

P.S. Any book that suggests seeking therapy to go beyond what the author has been able to give you in just a few short lessons will always be A++ in my book!

Thank you to #NetGalley for a review copy of #TheLatinaAntiDiet. All feedback is my unbiased opinion, not paid, and simply for the love of books.

[Cristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a Latina and plus-size woman, The Latina Anti-Diet: A Dietitian's Guide to Authentic Health that Celebrates Culture and Full-Flavor Living by Dalina Soto felt like a long-awaited breath of fresh air. Growing up in a Hispanic family, food and weight have always been central to my life, often in ways that felt restrictive or disconnected from my culture. Soto's approach to health and nutrition is truly empowering. It’s not about restricting, but rather about celebrating food and honoring our heritage while taking care of our bodies.

What I loved most about this book was how Soto made me feel seen. She shared wisdom that resonated deeply with my own experiences, and her words created a sense of liberation rather than shame. She does an excellent job of blending culturally relevant meals with a realistic approach to nourishing yourself without guilt. Her focus on flavor, joy, and balance makes it clear that food doesn't have to be the enemy.

This book is not just a guide to health, it’s a reminder to embrace who we are our culture, our flavors, and our bodies without the burden of diet culture.

[Kassie Rankin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first want to mention that I am not of Latinx heritage.
I have always enjoyed anti-diet (industry) rhetoric and I picked up this book to hear about someone else's take on anti-diet culture with their heritage as a lens.

I do want to mention that this book IS NOT a cookbook. It is a guidebook for taking care of your body through food, while holding a place for your family foods and foods from your culture.
This book felt like a warm hug. Like a parent telling you that things will be okay, and it is okay to eat what you like and what you want.
The book helps to teach you balance with eating and breaks down the specifics of food health into digestible bits.
I really enjoyed the stories throughout the book. They made the book feel more relatable and usable for me and everyone. But they also helped to break up some of the more technical parts of the book.

I highly suggest this book if you are interested in anti-diet conversations and want to hear it with a Latinx focus.

Thank you to Ballantine Books, Random House, and NetGalley for the eARC of this book!

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

*Powerful, informative, and deeply affirming!*

I loved The Latina Anti-Diet. This book is so much more than just a guide to eating — it’s a thoughtful exploration of the history and systems that have shaped our relationships with food, especially in Latinx communities. The historical context the author provides is so informative and helped me understand how much of what we believe about food and bodies is rooted in colonialism, racism, and diet culture.

I appreciate how Soto balances all that depth with humor and personal stories. Her writing is funny, relatable, and warm, while still delivering powerful truths. She offers real tools for creating a healthier, more liberated relationship with food — one that doesn’t sacrifice our goals, but instead reframes them in a way that honors our bodies and cultures.

Highly recommend this book to anyone looking to break free from harmful diet culture and embrace a more compassionate and informed approach to wellness!

[Stacey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dalina Soto has written an approachable book on eating sensibly with individual needs at the heart. Initially, I thought this was going to be a cookbook and, in a way, it does go into detail about nutrition, but without recipes. It takes into account individuals with Integrated Eating lifestyle approach. A special emphasis on healthy eating without compromising culture.

The book is spliced with Chula stories. Each one with different life circumstances and how they are resolved. My favorite was Mi Mami. I felt like I was a guest at a family table in the Dominican Republic with all the warm feelings of being fed a delicious meal.

Dalina's voice is authentic, and she doesn't mince words. She tells it like it is. It's refreshing with additional reading ideas throughout. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for early access.

[Edmond · Rating 3 out of 5]

The gist of the book was great, eat what you want to eat, as for example, eat white rice instead of the mantra, don't eat white rice, only eat brown rice. You want to eat pan dulce, go for it. I loved that part, leading to the intuitive eating. The thing I didn't like about the book, is that in the dieting culture, we need to be told what to eat, when to eat and how to eat. All the keto, mediterranean, carnivore, intermittent fasting and the diet conglomerates make money based on the strict regimens. This book tries to get away from them, but at the end of the day, I didn't understand how I can modify my lifestyle. When there are donuts in the office, I will eat them according to the book, what if I want to eat two or three. The book gives me free reign, so not to that ultimate strictness sure, but where's the limit. I wish she had spent more time going through the limits.