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Clean Eating v Organic
Replies
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ceoverturf wrote: »No one cares what any one of us chooses to eat or not to eat personally. Frankly, none of us are that interesting to the group as a whole.
People DO tend to care when people preach what other people MUST eat or (more commonly) MUST NOT eat.
Why this seems to constantly be a mystery to other long-time posters of this board baffles me.
Because it is not true. People jump all over terms like clean eating anytime it's mentioned. If someone asks what it means. If someone asks if there are others who eat clean and want to be their friend. If someone asks for kid friendly clean recipes. If someone ask for results and comments from those that eat clean.
Nobody cares unless someone is preaching it?? Dude! Be serious.0 -
Yeah, I'm aware of that little game the "natural" bacon gets to play with things. It honestly ties into the concepts of purity that people attach to eating. Somehow, the same chemical, having the same chemical properties, is still pure and ok when it gets taken out of nature, but is somehow impure when made in a lab somewhere, probably by guys in lab coats injecting weird color syringes into food.
jokerNotSureIfSerious.jpgtennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »accidentalpancake wrote: »Organic food is designated organic based on growing practices; if you see something labeled "organic" in the grocery store, it means that it has met certain standards to have that label (although you should check what the standards are for the label, your definition of "organic" could be different from what the actual law states as acceptable practices and limits).
Clean eating is not a designation, but an eating style. People's definitions of the term vary, however the most general definition would probably be "a diet with an emphasis of whole or minimally-processed foods, which minimizes or avoids heavily-processed or prepackaged convenience foods." That seems to be the most frequent explanation I've seen clean eaters have in common, and even that general definition is tweaked based on the individual. Each person seems to have their own comfort levels in regards to foods, levels of processing, and frequency of consumption. If someone asked for clean eating recipes, I would probably ask them to clarify the specifics of their diet, just like I would a vegetarian, simply because there seems to be a myriad of different styles within that umbrella term (much like there is with vegetarians).
If you're interested in learning more about clean eating, there's a pretty active group here on MFP, they would probably be a good resource to explain that way of eating and what different individuals include in their diet.
This.
Ignore the ridiculous statements about clean eating as a moral position. That has to do with the insecurity of the offended parties and nothing to do with food...
and this would be how "religious" level arguments get perpetuated. The dumbest thing about all these threads is that we end up agreeing that eating mostly nutritious food, with care for the overall nutrition in the diet is what matters most, and NOT "good or bad" in the individual foods that make up the diet.
But it's just personal vocabulary preference. "mostly nutritious food" implies that other food is not nutritious. Some people (including me) choose to call the not nutritious stuff bad or junk. So what?
If I want to say I need to clean up my diet and quit eating so much junk, that's my biz. It has nothing at all to do with you or religion or morality. It's just the way I choose to talk. It's a big world man. People don't all use the same phrases.
Exactly. That's the problem with using these bland phrases that don't have a defined meaning to everyone. People ask, over and over, what they mean, and everyone argues about it. Clean means one thing as a word by itself, but when you put it together with another word, it starts to define that other word in ways that become somehow undefineable. Healthy is another word that does that. Junk is another. If we just keep 'eating' and 'food' defined as they are, without throwing a bunch of kitschy bull in with them, we all know what we mean and just eat and leave the whole mess alone.
Or, we could just let people be who they are and talk as they like without trying to force them into a predefined mold.
Who doesn't know what "junk" is? Junk is something we all have but don't want too much of. Whether it's junk in your attic, your closet or your diet. We all have junk we just can't seem to let go of, but no one wants too much junk around. It's doesn't really matter if I think X is junk and you think X is not junk. One man's junk is another man's treasure.
Problem being when trying to help new people who are struggling, they are vilifying their own food, and that's not a healthy mindset. It leads to disordered thinking and possibly eating. If we can catch people right at the start, and help them understand that it's not the food that's the problem, it's how they think and eat, we've solved so much. Labeling is something to avoid. Food is just food and we can skip labeling it. Look at how many threads in this very forum devolve into arguments and the original point gets lost because of food labeling. That's a terrible thing.
for example, lets take something that most would agree is "junk". A white flour biscuit. As far as calories go, you have wheat and fat, and next to no micronutrition and almost no fiber.
Lets say the biscuit is a quite large at about 600 calories.
For someone who is only taking in about 1500 calories, that's a pretty high % of the diet that is now filled with "junk". Probably not the best choice for this person as it will now be harder to get adequate nutrition out of food that is palatable in 900 calories.
But, take a larger man doing lots of exercise in a day who may eat 3500-4000 calories to maintain their weight. Suddenly that biscuit could be seen as beneficial, because if the rest of the diet is whole food, you have 600 calories of easily accessible calories that doesn't overly bulk up the rest of the diet, as this person likely would eat plenty of healthy calories in the 3000ish left.
Suddenly what was "junk" put in context becomes beneficial.
That is the first time I have ever seen a white flour biscuit (homemade or otherwise) classified as "junk", and this is the perfect example of something @lemurcat12 is pointing out. You are saying we can all agree this is "junk". What about that would anyone ever think is junk, let alone the majority of people? A homemade biscuit? A delicious vehicle for butter, jam, honey, or gravy? Junk?
I will admit that things like a bag of doritos or something like that has a more universally accepted classification of junk, even though I don't classify them that way I understand when someone else labels doritos as junk. But a biscuit?
The term junk food is a great one - it saves me time having to list all the foods I am choosing to limit in my diet.
Biscuits, jam and honey are all junk food.
I don't avoid them, but they are limited and do not make up the main part of my diet.
It's all about being efficient - in this instance I am able to use two words instead of four!
Don't you think it's confusing to use a term that means entirely different things to different people? Someone will say they are limiting "junk food" and mean bacon, you will say that and mean homemade whole-grain bread.
I don't find the term junk food bothersome, but it is slightly annoying that there's not a better common definition. As WinoGelato said, I generally assume Doritos are included or a Twinkie, and often fast food (even if it has protein) or bacon (same), and I guess homemade sweets, but I wouldn't have assumed homemade starch courses, even when relatively low in nutrients. And someone just yesterday insisted that potatoes were in this category. If someone told me they didn't eat meat, I'd know not to have lamb when they come over for dinner, but if someone says they avoid "junk food," I would not know to leave out the roasted potatoes. (Which I consider nutritious, for the record.)
Who would classify 'bacon' as junk food??????
You know there are people who consider vegetarianism clean eating, right?
You do know most bacon has more nitrogen added than an underground street racing car?
the big question as it relates to "clean" hot dog weenies is whether the nitrogen added to bacon is worse than nitrogen that is added in the form of celery powder, which is added to the weenies to provide nitrogen and still be able to put "no added nitrogen" on the food label....0 -
tennisdude2004 wrote: »ceoverturf wrote: »No one cares what any one of us chooses to eat or not to eat personally. Frankly, none of us are that interesting to the group as a whole.
People DO tend to care when people preach what other people MUST eat or (more commonly) MUST NOT eat.
Why this seems to constantly be a mystery to other long-time posters of this board baffles me.
Yep I find it annoying when people preach that others MUST eat in moderation and MUST NOT limit carbs, especially when the OP has expressed an interest in eating a way that is not 'portion restricted'!
As do I.
Luckily I rarely see posts that make such absolutes from the moderation camp (by definition, "moderation" is the absence of absolutes), though admittedly, they do appear from time to time.0 -
Rice? Rice isn't the enemy. Look at Uncle Ben. He's not giving you junk.tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »accidentalpancake wrote: »Organic food is designated organic based on growing practices; if you see something labeled "organic" in the grocery store, it means that it has met certain standards to have that label (although you should check what the standards are for the label, your definition of "organic" could be different from what the actual law states as acceptable practices and limits).
Clean eating is not a designation, but an eating style. People's definitions of the term vary, however the most general definition would probably be "a diet with an emphasis of whole or minimally-processed foods, which minimizes or avoids heavily-processed or prepackaged convenience foods." That seems to be the most frequent explanation I've seen clean eaters have in common, and even that general definition is tweaked based on the individual. Each person seems to have their own comfort levels in regards to foods, levels of processing, and frequency of consumption. If someone asked for clean eating recipes, I would probably ask them to clarify the specifics of their diet, just like I would a vegetarian, simply because there seems to be a myriad of different styles within that umbrella term (much like there is with vegetarians).
If you're interested in learning more about clean eating, there's a pretty active group here on MFP, they would probably be a good resource to explain that way of eating and what different individuals include in their diet.
This.
Ignore the ridiculous statements about clean eating as a moral position. That has to do with the insecurity of the offended parties and nothing to do with food...
and this would be how "religious" level arguments get perpetuated. The dumbest thing about all these threads is that we end up agreeing that eating mostly nutritious food, with care for the overall nutrition in the diet is what matters most, and NOT "good or bad" in the individual foods that make up the diet.
But it's just personal vocabulary preference. "mostly nutritious food" implies that other food is not nutritious. Some people (including me) choose to call the not nutritious stuff bad or junk. So what?
If I want to say I need to clean up my diet and quit eating so much junk, that's my biz. It has nothing at all to do with you or religion or morality. It's just the way I choose to talk. It's a big world man. People don't all use the same phrases.
Exactly. That's the problem with using these bland phrases that don't have a defined meaning to everyone. People ask, over and over, what they mean, and everyone argues about it. Clean means one thing as a word by itself, but when you put it together with another word, it starts to define that other word in ways that become somehow undefineable. Healthy is another word that does that. Junk is another. If we just keep 'eating' and 'food' defined as they are, without throwing a bunch of kitschy bull in with them, we all know what we mean and just eat and leave the whole mess alone.
Or, we could just let people be who they are and talk as they like without trying to force them into a predefined mold.
Who doesn't know what "junk" is? Junk is something we all have but don't want too much of. Whether it's junk in your attic, your closet or your diet. We all have junk we just can't seem to let go of, but no one wants too much junk around. It's doesn't really matter if I think X is junk and you think X is not junk. One man's junk is another man's treasure.
Problem being when trying to help new people who are struggling, they are vilifying their own food, and that's not a healthy mindset. It leads to disordered thinking and possibly eating. If we can catch people right at the start, and help them understand that it's not the food that's the problem, it's how they think and eat, we've solved so much. Labeling is something to avoid. Food is just food and we can skip labeling it. Look at how many threads in this very forum devolve into arguments and the original point gets lost because of food labeling. That's a terrible thing.
for example, lets take something that most would agree is "junk". A white flour biscuit. As far as calories go, you have wheat and fat, and next to no micronutrition and almost no fiber.
Lets say the biscuit is a quite large at about 600 calories.
For someone who is only taking in about 1500 calories, that's a pretty high % of the diet that is now filled with "junk". Probably not the best choice for this person as it will now be harder to get adequate nutrition out of food that is palatable in 900 calories.
But, take a larger man doing lots of exercise in a day who may eat 3500-4000 calories to maintain their weight. Suddenly that biscuit could be seen as beneficial, because if the rest of the diet is whole food, you have 600 calories of easily accessible calories that doesn't overly bulk up the rest of the diet, as this person likely would eat plenty of healthy calories in the 3000ish left.
Suddenly what was "junk" put in context becomes beneficial.
That is the first time I have ever seen a white flour biscuit (homemade or otherwise) classified as "junk", and this is the perfect example of something @lemurcat12 is pointing out. You are saying we can all agree this is "junk". What about that would anyone ever think is junk, let alone the majority of people? A homemade biscuit? A delicious vehicle for butter, jam, honey, or gravy? Junk?
I will admit that things like a bag of doritos or something like that has a more universally accepted classification of junk, even though I don't classify them that way I understand when someone else labels doritos as junk. But a biscuit?
The term junk food is a great one - it saves me time having to list all the foods I am choosing to limit in my diet.
Biscuits, jam and honey are all junk food.
I don't avoid them, but they are limited and do not make up the main part of my diet.
It's all about being efficient - in this instance I am able to use two words instead of four!
Don't you think it's confusing to use a term that means entirely different things to different people? Someone will say they are limiting "junk food" and mean bacon, you will say that and mean homemade whole-grain bread.
I don't find the term junk food bothersome, but it is slightly annoying that there's not a better common definition. As WinoGelato said, I generally assume Doritos are included or a Twinkie, and often fast food (even if it has protein) or bacon (same), and I guess homemade sweets, but I wouldn't have assumed homemade starch courses, even when relatively low in nutrients. And someone just yesterday insisted that potatoes were in this category. If someone told me they didn't eat meat, I'd know not to have lamb when they come over for dinner, but if someone says they avoid "junk food," I would not know to leave out the roasted potatoes. (Which I consider nutritious, for the record.)
Who would classify 'bacon' as junk food??????
The US government claims it's a major contributor of "empty calories." The same argument was used here to defend a claim that "pizza" is always junk food. Therefore, the USA.
Joking aside, I think it fits the definition as well as many things called "junk food."
Yep it probably does classify as that for many people. I would add to my list: Rice, Pasta, Bread, Mash Potato.
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This thread is a perfect example - not sure if the OP is coming back or not, but she has relatively few posts to her name and asks sort of a vague question - what's the difference b/w clean eating and organic. She may have heard from someone that Clean Eating is preferred, better, or maybe even required, for weight loss (maybe not, maybe she just had a natural curioisity). So for me, I'm not personally bothered by people's choices to eliminate whatever they consider "junk" but I am bothered when someone implies that something has to be done a certain way in order to achieve results and that people who are just starting out are confused by that or feel that they must do it that way.
Just yesterday we had a thread of very arbitrary, wholly unnecessary "rules" that were decreed upon the masses. That kind of nonsense just irks me, because I don't care what that poster, or anyone else chooses to do for themselves, but when you arbitrarily label something "rules" that implies that they are required. And these were definitely not requirements.0 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »accidentalpancake wrote: »Organic food is designated organic based on growing practices; if you see something labeled "organic" in the grocery store, it means that it has met certain standards to have that label (although you should check what the standards are for the label, your definition of "organic" could be different from what the actual law states as acceptable practices and limits).
Clean eating is not a designation, but an eating style. People's definitions of the term vary, however the most general definition would probably be "a diet with an emphasis of whole or minimally-processed foods, which minimizes or avoids heavily-processed or prepackaged convenience foods." That seems to be the most frequent explanation I've seen clean eaters have in common, and even that general definition is tweaked based on the individual. Each person seems to have their own comfort levels in regards to foods, levels of processing, and frequency of consumption. If someone asked for clean eating recipes, I would probably ask them to clarify the specifics of their diet, just like I would a vegetarian, simply because there seems to be a myriad of different styles within that umbrella term (much like there is with vegetarians).
If you're interested in learning more about clean eating, there's a pretty active group here on MFP, they would probably be a good resource to explain that way of eating and what different individuals include in their diet.
This.
Ignore the ridiculous statements about clean eating as a moral position. That has to do with the insecurity of the offended parties and nothing to do with food...
and this would be how "religious" level arguments get perpetuated. The dumbest thing about all these threads is that we end up agreeing that eating mostly nutritious food, with care for the overall nutrition in the diet is what matters most, and NOT "good or bad" in the individual foods that make up the diet.
But it's just personal vocabulary preference. "mostly nutritious food" implies that other food is not nutritious. Some people (including me) choose to call the not nutritious stuff bad or junk. So what?
I agree with you on the "junk" thing and I don't care much about the "bad" thing unless someone seems to be using it in a way that suggests she is beating herself up -- seeing herself as "bad" when she eats "bad food." I've seen this often enough that I worry about it and think it's best to focus on factual elements about food (the nutritional content, what it adds and what it does not) and not labels like "bad" and "good." But if you are someone who can happily eat food you consider "bad," I wouldn't think it was a harmful label for you or care all that much. It's guilt and shame attached to eating decisions that I find damaging.
(Junk is such a normalized term that I expect most of us could say we eat junk food occasionally -- however we define it -- without it seeming a slam on ourselves. I'm just never sure if something like homemade pie is or is not included in a particular person's definition of "junk" food. I suppose I'd include it if it's about micronutrient per calorie.)
My issue with "clean eating" isn't that some foods don't contribute more than others -- of course they do. It's the idea that being "processed" makes something "bad" or "junk" independent of its actual nutritional profile. Or that eating ANY processed food makes a diet less healthful (and is apparently akin to eating only Twinkies, from how these discussions usually go).
But why do you care so much that others think processed food is bad? I can understand not agreeing. I can't understand the need to try and stop others from thinking it. Why is it such a big deal?
I don't care unless they tell others that they shouldn't eat "processed foods" or that doing so is not healthy. When they make the latter claim it's a factual assertion that I think should be countered.
It's is true that if someone says that they don't eat processed food I assume they are lying or using a dishonest definition of "processed" and it affects my opinion of them, but I don't say anything unless they seem to be bragging or condemning others -- like an OP who starts a thread saying "I don't eat processed food--why don't the rest of you eat real food like me!" or "I'm disgusted by the fact that no one here cares about nutrition or cuts out processed foods."
I am not bothered at all by personal decisions to cut out foods, even ones I would never cut out barring an allergy or sensitivity (like legumes). If someone says they are paleo and asks for help I usually just steer them to some recipe sites or the like.
Sorry, I don't buy this. This thread being a perfect example.
I didn't jump on OP, and if I'd had an opportunity to respond to OP before the thread had become about other things I'd have said (nicely) that organic means what kgeyser said and that "clean eating" doesn't really seem to have a common definition and people use it differently but quite often it incorporates the two claims I mentioned above, which with I disagree. I'd probably also have said something positive about focusing on nutrition and whole foods and vegetables, since I favor that stuff.
What I found worth responding to in this thread was kgeyser's suggestion that "clean eating" is defined by, essentially, one form of the moderation position -- that we should eat a generally nutrient dense diet focusing on whole and minimally processed foods. Since that is how I like to eat, I certainly don't agree that's what "clean eating" is, when clean eaters are always telling me I don't care about nutrition since I don't cut out all processed foods or sugar.0 -
How about this inquiry:
"What clean foods do I need to eat to lose weight?"
or:
"Which exercises will help me lose weight in my belly and thighs?"
Blame marketing, blame the tabloids, but many people think there are special, exclusive foods and exercises that will get them to where they want to be. Not realizing that over-consumption of any food, no matter how lovely and nutritious, will make them gain weight.0 -
ceoverturf wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »ceoverturf wrote: »No one cares what any one of us chooses to eat or not to eat personally. Frankly, none of us are that interesting to the group as a whole.
People DO tend to care when people preach what other people MUST eat or (more commonly) MUST NOT eat.
Why this seems to constantly be a mystery to other long-time posters of this board baffles me.
Yep I find it annoying when people preach that others MUST eat in moderation and MUST NOT limit carbs, especially when the OP has expressed an interest in eating a way that is not 'portion restricted'!
As do I.
Luckily I rarely see posts that make such absolutes from the moderation camp (by definition, "moderation" is the absence of absolutes), though admittedly, they do appear from time to time.
We must be on different threads then, they appear in pretty much every - Keto, Low Carb, Paleo, Clean Eating thread.
I don't really see the reverse in IIFYM, Calorie Counting, Moderation threads.
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Rice? Rice isn't the enemy. Look at Uncle Ben. He's not giving you junk.tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »accidentalpancake wrote: »Organic food is designated organic based on growing practices; if you see something labeled "organic" in the grocery store, it means that it has met certain standards to have that label (although you should check what the standards are for the label, your definition of "organic" could be different from what the actual law states as acceptable practices and limits).
Clean eating is not a designation, but an eating style. People's definitions of the term vary, however the most general definition would probably be "a diet with an emphasis of whole or minimally-processed foods, which minimizes or avoids heavily-processed or prepackaged convenience foods." That seems to be the most frequent explanation I've seen clean eaters have in common, and even that general definition is tweaked based on the individual. Each person seems to have their own comfort levels in regards to foods, levels of processing, and frequency of consumption. If someone asked for clean eating recipes, I would probably ask them to clarify the specifics of their diet, just like I would a vegetarian, simply because there seems to be a myriad of different styles within that umbrella term (much like there is with vegetarians).
If you're interested in learning more about clean eating, there's a pretty active group here on MFP, they would probably be a good resource to explain that way of eating and what different individuals include in their diet.
This.
Ignore the ridiculous statements about clean eating as a moral position. That has to do with the insecurity of the offended parties and nothing to do with food...
and this would be how "religious" level arguments get perpetuated. The dumbest thing about all these threads is that we end up agreeing that eating mostly nutritious food, with care for the overall nutrition in the diet is what matters most, and NOT "good or bad" in the individual foods that make up the diet.
But it's just personal vocabulary preference. "mostly nutritious food" implies that other food is not nutritious. Some people (including me) choose to call the not nutritious stuff bad or junk. So what?
If I want to say I need to clean up my diet and quit eating so much junk, that's my biz. It has nothing at all to do with you or religion or morality. It's just the way I choose to talk. It's a big world man. People don't all use the same phrases.
Exactly. That's the problem with using these bland phrases that don't have a defined meaning to everyone. People ask, over and over, what they mean, and everyone argues about it. Clean means one thing as a word by itself, but when you put it together with another word, it starts to define that other word in ways that become somehow undefineable. Healthy is another word that does that. Junk is another. If we just keep 'eating' and 'food' defined as they are, without throwing a bunch of kitschy bull in with them, we all know what we mean and just eat and leave the whole mess alone.
Or, we could just let people be who they are and talk as they like without trying to force them into a predefined mold.
Who doesn't know what "junk" is? Junk is something we all have but don't want too much of. Whether it's junk in your attic, your closet or your diet. We all have junk we just can't seem to let go of, but no one wants too much junk around. It's doesn't really matter if I think X is junk and you think X is not junk. One man's junk is another man's treasure.
Problem being when trying to help new people who are struggling, they are vilifying their own food, and that's not a healthy mindset. It leads to disordered thinking and possibly eating. If we can catch people right at the start, and help them understand that it's not the food that's the problem, it's how they think and eat, we've solved so much. Labeling is something to avoid. Food is just food and we can skip labeling it. Look at how many threads in this very forum devolve into arguments and the original point gets lost because of food labeling. That's a terrible thing.
for example, lets take something that most would agree is "junk". A white flour biscuit. As far as calories go, you have wheat and fat, and next to no micronutrition and almost no fiber.
Lets say the biscuit is a quite large at about 600 calories.
For someone who is only taking in about 1500 calories, that's a pretty high % of the diet that is now filled with "junk". Probably not the best choice for this person as it will now be harder to get adequate nutrition out of food that is palatable in 900 calories.
But, take a larger man doing lots of exercise in a day who may eat 3500-4000 calories to maintain their weight. Suddenly that biscuit could be seen as beneficial, because if the rest of the diet is whole food, you have 600 calories of easily accessible calories that doesn't overly bulk up the rest of the diet, as this person likely would eat plenty of healthy calories in the 3000ish left.
Suddenly what was "junk" put in context becomes beneficial.
That is the first time I have ever seen a white flour biscuit (homemade or otherwise) classified as "junk", and this is the perfect example of something @lemurcat12 is pointing out. You are saying we can all agree this is "junk". What about that would anyone ever think is junk, let alone the majority of people? A homemade biscuit? A delicious vehicle for butter, jam, honey, or gravy? Junk?
I will admit that things like a bag of doritos or something like that has a more universally accepted classification of junk, even though I don't classify them that way I understand when someone else labels doritos as junk. But a biscuit?
The term junk food is a great one - it saves me time having to list all the foods I am choosing to limit in my diet.
Biscuits, jam and honey are all junk food.
I don't avoid them, but they are limited and do not make up the main part of my diet.
It's all about being efficient - in this instance I am able to use two words instead of four!
Don't you think it's confusing to use a term that means entirely different things to different people? Someone will say they are limiting "junk food" and mean bacon, you will say that and mean homemade whole-grain bread.
I don't find the term junk food bothersome, but it is slightly annoying that there's not a better common definition. As WinoGelato said, I generally assume Doritos are included or a Twinkie, and often fast food (even if it has protein) or bacon (same), and I guess homemade sweets, but I wouldn't have assumed homemade starch courses, even when relatively low in nutrients. And someone just yesterday insisted that potatoes were in this category. If someone told me they didn't eat meat, I'd know not to have lamb when they come over for dinner, but if someone says they avoid "junk food," I would not know to leave out the roasted potatoes. (Which I consider nutritious, for the record.)
Who would classify 'bacon' as junk food??????
The US government claims it's a major contributor of "empty calories." The same argument was used here to defend a claim that "pizza" is always junk food. Therefore, the USA.
Joking aside, I think it fits the definition as well as many things called "junk food."
Yep it probably does classify as that for many people. I would add to my list: Rice, Pasta, Bread, Mash Potato.
and just think if we allowed people to eat golden rice...0 -
Rice? Rice isn't the enemy. Look at Uncle Ben. He's not giving you junk.tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »accidentalpancake wrote: »Organic food is designated organic based on growing practices; if you see something labeled "organic" in the grocery store, it means that it has met certain standards to have that label (although you should check what the standards are for the label, your definition of "organic" could be different from what the actual law states as acceptable practices and limits).
Clean eating is not a designation, but an eating style. People's definitions of the term vary, however the most general definition would probably be "a diet with an emphasis of whole or minimally-processed foods, which minimizes or avoids heavily-processed or prepackaged convenience foods." That seems to be the most frequent explanation I've seen clean eaters have in common, and even that general definition is tweaked based on the individual. Each person seems to have their own comfort levels in regards to foods, levels of processing, and frequency of consumption. If someone asked for clean eating recipes, I would probably ask them to clarify the specifics of their diet, just like I would a vegetarian, simply because there seems to be a myriad of different styles within that umbrella term (much like there is with vegetarians).
If you're interested in learning more about clean eating, there's a pretty active group here on MFP, they would probably be a good resource to explain that way of eating and what different individuals include in their diet.
This.
Ignore the ridiculous statements about clean eating as a moral position. That has to do with the insecurity of the offended parties and nothing to do with food...
and this would be how "religious" level arguments get perpetuated. The dumbest thing about all these threads is that we end up agreeing that eating mostly nutritious food, with care for the overall nutrition in the diet is what matters most, and NOT "good or bad" in the individual foods that make up the diet.
But it's just personal vocabulary preference. "mostly nutritious food" implies that other food is not nutritious. Some people (including me) choose to call the not nutritious stuff bad or junk. So what?
If I want to say I need to clean up my diet and quit eating so much junk, that's my biz. It has nothing at all to do with you or religion or morality. It's just the way I choose to talk. It's a big world man. People don't all use the same phrases.
Exactly. That's the problem with using these bland phrases that don't have a defined meaning to everyone. People ask, over and over, what they mean, and everyone argues about it. Clean means one thing as a word by itself, but when you put it together with another word, it starts to define that other word in ways that become somehow undefineable. Healthy is another word that does that. Junk is another. If we just keep 'eating' and 'food' defined as they are, without throwing a bunch of kitschy bull in with them, we all know what we mean and just eat and leave the whole mess alone.
Or, we could just let people be who they are and talk as they like without trying to force them into a predefined mold.
Who doesn't know what "junk" is? Junk is something we all have but don't want too much of. Whether it's junk in your attic, your closet or your diet. We all have junk we just can't seem to let go of, but no one wants too much junk around. It's doesn't really matter if I think X is junk and you think X is not junk. One man's junk is another man's treasure.
Problem being when trying to help new people who are struggling, they are vilifying their own food, and that's not a healthy mindset. It leads to disordered thinking and possibly eating. If we can catch people right at the start, and help them understand that it's not the food that's the problem, it's how they think and eat, we've solved so much. Labeling is something to avoid. Food is just food and we can skip labeling it. Look at how many threads in this very forum devolve into arguments and the original point gets lost because of food labeling. That's a terrible thing.
for example, lets take something that most would agree is "junk". A white flour biscuit. As far as calories go, you have wheat and fat, and next to no micronutrition and almost no fiber.
Lets say the biscuit is a quite large at about 600 calories.
For someone who is only taking in about 1500 calories, that's a pretty high % of the diet that is now filled with "junk". Probably not the best choice for this person as it will now be harder to get adequate nutrition out of food that is palatable in 900 calories.
But, take a larger man doing lots of exercise in a day who may eat 3500-4000 calories to maintain their weight. Suddenly that biscuit could be seen as beneficial, because if the rest of the diet is whole food, you have 600 calories of easily accessible calories that doesn't overly bulk up the rest of the diet, as this person likely would eat plenty of healthy calories in the 3000ish left.
Suddenly what was "junk" put in context becomes beneficial.
That is the first time I have ever seen a white flour biscuit (homemade or otherwise) classified as "junk", and this is the perfect example of something @lemurcat12 is pointing out. You are saying we can all agree this is "junk". What about that would anyone ever think is junk, let alone the majority of people? A homemade biscuit? A delicious vehicle for butter, jam, honey, or gravy? Junk?
I will admit that things like a bag of doritos or something like that has a more universally accepted classification of junk, even though I don't classify them that way I understand when someone else labels doritos as junk. But a biscuit?
The term junk food is a great one - it saves me time having to list all the foods I am choosing to limit in my diet.
Biscuits, jam and honey are all junk food.
I don't avoid them, but they are limited and do not make up the main part of my diet.
It's all about being efficient - in this instance I am able to use two words instead of four!
Don't you think it's confusing to use a term that means entirely different things to different people? Someone will say they are limiting "junk food" and mean bacon, you will say that and mean homemade whole-grain bread.
I don't find the term junk food bothersome, but it is slightly annoying that there's not a better common definition. As WinoGelato said, I generally assume Doritos are included or a Twinkie, and often fast food (even if it has protein) or bacon (same), and I guess homemade sweets, but I wouldn't have assumed homemade starch courses, even when relatively low in nutrients. And someone just yesterday insisted that potatoes were in this category. If someone told me they didn't eat meat, I'd know not to have lamb when they come over for dinner, but if someone says they avoid "junk food," I would not know to leave out the roasted potatoes. (Which I consider nutritious, for the record.)
Who would classify 'bacon' as junk food??????
The US government claims it's a major contributor of "empty calories." The same argument was used here to defend a claim that "pizza" is always junk food. Therefore, the USA.
Joking aside, I think it fits the definition as well as many things called "junk food."
Yep it probably does classify as that for many people. I would add to my list: Rice, Pasta, Bread, Mash Potato.
I don't know, sometimes when he peers out at me from the bags of Ready Rice hiding in my pantry, I think he's got kind of shifty eyes. They seem to follow me saying, "microwave me, you dirty, dirty eater you".
0 -
tennisdude2004 wrote: »ceoverturf wrote: »No one cares what any one of us chooses to eat or not to eat personally. Frankly, none of us are that interesting to the group as a whole.
People DO tend to care when people preach what other people MUST eat or (more commonly) MUST NOT eat.
Why this seems to constantly be a mystery to other long-time posters of this board baffles me.
Yep I find it annoying when people preach that others MUST eat in moderation and MUST NOT limit carbs, especially when the OP has expressed an interest in eating a way that is not 'portion restricted'!
Has anyone here (as in involved with this thread) done that?
Personally, I have NEVER said that anyone else must eat in moderation or must not limit carbs. (In that I've limited carbs from time to time -- and still will turn them down to meet my protein or fat goals or my calorie goal -- and don't eat certain foods (although I generally don't want them either), that would be awfully hypocritical, and hypocrisy is one of the things I'm arguing against here. Specifically, the hypocrisy of someone who eats processed foods preaching to others about how all processed foods are bad.)0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »accidentalpancake wrote: »Organic food is designated organic based on growing practices; if you see something labeled "organic" in the grocery store, it means that it has met certain standards to have that label (although you should check what the standards are for the label, your definition of "organic" could be different from what the actual law states as acceptable practices and limits).
Clean eating is not a designation, but an eating style. People's definitions of the term vary, however the most general definition would probably be "a diet with an emphasis of whole or minimally-processed foods, which minimizes or avoids heavily-processed or prepackaged convenience foods." That seems to be the most frequent explanation I've seen clean eaters have in common, and even that general definition is tweaked based on the individual. Each person seems to have their own comfort levels in regards to foods, levels of processing, and frequency of consumption. If someone asked for clean eating recipes, I would probably ask them to clarify the specifics of their diet, just like I would a vegetarian, simply because there seems to be a myriad of different styles within that umbrella term (much like there is with vegetarians).
If you're interested in learning more about clean eating, there's a pretty active group here on MFP, they would probably be a good resource to explain that way of eating and what different individuals include in their diet.
This.
Ignore the ridiculous statements about clean eating as a moral position. That has to do with the insecurity of the offended parties and nothing to do with food...
and this would be how "religious" level arguments get perpetuated. The dumbest thing about all these threads is that we end up agreeing that eating mostly nutritious food, with care for the overall nutrition in the diet is what matters most, and NOT "good or bad" in the individual foods that make up the diet.
But it's just personal vocabulary preference. "mostly nutritious food" implies that other food is not nutritious. Some people (including me) choose to call the not nutritious stuff bad or junk. So what?
I agree with you on the "junk" thing and I don't care much about the "bad" thing unless someone seems to be using it in a way that suggests she is beating herself up -- seeing herself as "bad" when she eats "bad food." I've seen this often enough that I worry about it and think it's best to focus on factual elements about food (the nutritional content, what it adds and what it does not) and not labels like "bad" and "good." But if you are someone who can happily eat food you consider "bad," I wouldn't think it was a harmful label for you or care all that much. It's guilt and shame attached to eating decisions that I find damaging.
(Junk is such a normalized term that I expect most of us could say we eat junk food occasionally -- however we define it -- without it seeming a slam on ourselves. I'm just never sure if something like homemade pie is or is not included in a particular person's definition of "junk" food. I suppose I'd include it if it's about micronutrient per calorie.)
My issue with "clean eating" isn't that some foods don't contribute more than others -- of course they do. It's the idea that being "processed" makes something "bad" or "junk" independent of its actual nutritional profile. Or that eating ANY processed food makes a diet less healthful (and is apparently akin to eating only Twinkies, from how these discussions usually go).
But why do you care so much that others think processed food is bad? I can understand not agreeing. I can't understand the need to try and stop others from thinking it. Why is it such a big deal?
I don't care unless they tell others that they shouldn't eat "processed foods" or that doing so is not healthy. When they make the latter claim it's a factual assertion that I think should be countered.
It's is true that if someone says that they don't eat processed food I assume they are lying or using a dishonest definition of "processed" and it affects my opinion of them, but I don't say anything unless they seem to be bragging or condemning others -- like an OP who starts a thread saying "I don't eat processed food--why don't the rest of you eat real food like me!" or "I'm disgusted by the fact that no one here cares about nutrition or cuts out processed foods."
I am not bothered at all by personal decisions to cut out foods, even ones I would never cut out barring an allergy or sensitivity (like legumes). If someone says they are paleo and asks for help I usually just steer them to some recipe sites or the like.
Sorry, I don't buy this. This thread being a perfect example.
I didn't jump on OP, and if I'd had an opportunity to respond to OP before the thread had become about other things I'd have said (nicely) that organic means what kgeyser said and that "clean eating" doesn't really seem to have a common definition and people use it differently but quite often it incorporates the two claims I mentioned above, which with I disagree. I'd probably also have said something positive about focusing on nutrition and whole foods and vegetables, since I favor that stuff.
What I found worth responding to in this thread was kgeyser's suggestion that "clean eating" is defined by, essentially, one form of the moderation position -- that we should eat a generally nutrient dense diet focusing on whole and minimally processed foods. Since that is how I like to eat, I certainly don't agree that's what "clean eating" is, when clean eaters are always telling me I don't care about nutrition since I don't cut out all processed foods or sugar.
I think you just made my point.0 -
Rice? Rice isn't the enemy. Look at Uncle Ben. He's not giving you junk.tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »accidentalpancake wrote: »Organic food is designated organic based on growing practices; if you see something labeled "organic" in the grocery store, it means that it has met certain standards to have that label (although you should check what the standards are for the label, your definition of "organic" could be different from what the actual law states as acceptable practices and limits).
Clean eating is not a designation, but an eating style. People's definitions of the term vary, however the most general definition would probably be "a diet with an emphasis of whole or minimally-processed foods, which minimizes or avoids heavily-processed or prepackaged convenience foods." That seems to be the most frequent explanation I've seen clean eaters have in common, and even that general definition is tweaked based on the individual. Each person seems to have their own comfort levels in regards to foods, levels of processing, and frequency of consumption. If someone asked for clean eating recipes, I would probably ask them to clarify the specifics of their diet, just like I would a vegetarian, simply because there seems to be a myriad of different styles within that umbrella term (much like there is with vegetarians).
If you're interested in learning more about clean eating, there's a pretty active group here on MFP, they would probably be a good resource to explain that way of eating and what different individuals include in their diet.
This.
Ignore the ridiculous statements about clean eating as a moral position. That has to do with the insecurity of the offended parties and nothing to do with food...
and this would be how "religious" level arguments get perpetuated. The dumbest thing about all these threads is that we end up agreeing that eating mostly nutritious food, with care for the overall nutrition in the diet is what matters most, and NOT "good or bad" in the individual foods that make up the diet.
But it's just personal vocabulary preference. "mostly nutritious food" implies that other food is not nutritious. Some people (including me) choose to call the not nutritious stuff bad or junk. So what?
If I want to say I need to clean up my diet and quit eating so much junk, that's my biz. It has nothing at all to do with you or religion or morality. It's just the way I choose to talk. It's a big world man. People don't all use the same phrases.
Exactly. That's the problem with using these bland phrases that don't have a defined meaning to everyone. People ask, over and over, what they mean, and everyone argues about it. Clean means one thing as a word by itself, but when you put it together with another word, it starts to define that other word in ways that become somehow undefineable. Healthy is another word that does that. Junk is another. If we just keep 'eating' and 'food' defined as they are, without throwing a bunch of kitschy bull in with them, we all know what we mean and just eat and leave the whole mess alone.
Or, we could just let people be who they are and talk as they like without trying to force them into a predefined mold.
Who doesn't know what "junk" is? Junk is something we all have but don't want too much of. Whether it's junk in your attic, your closet or your diet. We all have junk we just can't seem to let go of, but no one wants too much junk around. It's doesn't really matter if I think X is junk and you think X is not junk. One man's junk is another man's treasure.
Problem being when trying to help new people who are struggling, they are vilifying their own food, and that's not a healthy mindset. It leads to disordered thinking and possibly eating. If we can catch people right at the start, and help them understand that it's not the food that's the problem, it's how they think and eat, we've solved so much. Labeling is something to avoid. Food is just food and we can skip labeling it. Look at how many threads in this very forum devolve into arguments and the original point gets lost because of food labeling. That's a terrible thing.
for example, lets take something that most would agree is "junk". A white flour biscuit. As far as calories go, you have wheat and fat, and next to no micronutrition and almost no fiber.
Lets say the biscuit is a quite large at about 600 calories.
For someone who is only taking in about 1500 calories, that's a pretty high % of the diet that is now filled with "junk". Probably not the best choice for this person as it will now be harder to get adequate nutrition out of food that is palatable in 900 calories.
But, take a larger man doing lots of exercise in a day who may eat 3500-4000 calories to maintain their weight. Suddenly that biscuit could be seen as beneficial, because if the rest of the diet is whole food, you have 600 calories of easily accessible calories that doesn't overly bulk up the rest of the diet, as this person likely would eat plenty of healthy calories in the 3000ish left.
Suddenly what was "junk" put in context becomes beneficial.
That is the first time I have ever seen a white flour biscuit (homemade or otherwise) classified as "junk", and this is the perfect example of something @lemurcat12 is pointing out. You are saying we can all agree this is "junk". What about that would anyone ever think is junk, let alone the majority of people? A homemade biscuit? A delicious vehicle for butter, jam, honey, or gravy? Junk?
I will admit that things like a bag of doritos or something like that has a more universally accepted classification of junk, even though I don't classify them that way I understand when someone else labels doritos as junk. But a biscuit?
The term junk food is a great one - it saves me time having to list all the foods I am choosing to limit in my diet.
Biscuits, jam and honey are all junk food.
I don't avoid them, but they are limited and do not make up the main part of my diet.
It's all about being efficient - in this instance I am able to use two words instead of four!
Don't you think it's confusing to use a term that means entirely different things to different people? Someone will say they are limiting "junk food" and mean bacon, you will say that and mean homemade whole-grain bread.
I don't find the term junk food bothersome, but it is slightly annoying that there's not a better common definition. As WinoGelato said, I generally assume Doritos are included or a Twinkie, and often fast food (even if it has protein) or bacon (same), and I guess homemade sweets, but I wouldn't have assumed homemade starch courses, even when relatively low in nutrients. And someone just yesterday insisted that potatoes were in this category. If someone told me they didn't eat meat, I'd know not to have lamb when they come over for dinner, but if someone says they avoid "junk food," I would not know to leave out the roasted potatoes. (Which I consider nutritious, for the record.)
Who would classify 'bacon' as junk food??????
The US government claims it's a major contributor of "empty calories." The same argument was used here to defend a claim that "pizza" is always junk food. Therefore, the USA.
Joking aside, I think it fits the definition as well as many things called "junk food."
Yep it probably does classify as that for many people. I would add to my list: Rice, Pasta, Bread, Mash Potato.
Rice isn't the enemy - no-one is saying it is.
Possibly that's the problem! Just because I don't rate somethings as being beneficial to my diet I don't immediately think of it as destructive.
I don't watch 'The Voice' on TV, but I don't hate the program.
It's okay for things to be thought of a neutral.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »ceoverturf wrote: »No one cares what any one of us chooses to eat or not to eat personally. Frankly, none of us are that interesting to the group as a whole.
People DO tend to care when people preach what other people MUST eat or (more commonly) MUST NOT eat.
Why this seems to constantly be a mystery to other long-time posters of this board baffles me.
Yep I find it annoying when people preach that others MUST eat in moderation and MUST NOT limit carbs, especially when the OP has expressed an interest in eating a way that is not 'portion restricted'!
Has anyone here (as in involved with this thread) done that?
Personally, I have NEVER said that anyone else must eat in moderation or must not limit carbs. (In that I've limited carbs from time to time -- and still will turn them down to meet my protein or fat goals or my calorie goal -- and don't eat certain foods (although I generally don't want them either), that would be awfully hypocritical, and hypocrisy is one of the things I'm arguing against here. Specifically, the hypocrisy of someone who eats processed foods preaching to others about how all processed foods are bad.)
Actually most of the threads I've read are where the OP explains how bad they believe processed food to be and that is why 'THEY' are limiting or avoiding them.
That's a big difference from them telling others not to eat them.
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tennisdude2004 wrote: »
Rice? Rice isn't the enemy. Look at Uncle Ben. He's not giving you junk.tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »accidentalpancake wrote: »Organic food is designated organic based on growing practices; if you see something labeled "organic" in the grocery store, it means that it has met certain standards to have that label (although you should check what the standards are for the label, your definition of "organic" could be different from what the actual law states as acceptable practices and limits).
Clean eating is not a designation, but an eating style. People's definitions of the term vary, however the most general definition would probably be "a diet with an emphasis of whole or minimally-processed foods, which minimizes or avoids heavily-processed or prepackaged convenience foods." That seems to be the most frequent explanation I've seen clean eaters have in common, and even that general definition is tweaked based on the individual. Each person seems to have their own comfort levels in regards to foods, levels of processing, and frequency of consumption. If someone asked for clean eating recipes, I would probably ask them to clarify the specifics of their diet, just like I would a vegetarian, simply because there seems to be a myriad of different styles within that umbrella term (much like there is with vegetarians).
If you're interested in learning more about clean eating, there's a pretty active group here on MFP, they would probably be a good resource to explain that way of eating and what different individuals include in their diet.
This.
Ignore the ridiculous statements about clean eating as a moral position. That has to do with the insecurity of the offended parties and nothing to do with food...
and this would be how "religious" level arguments get perpetuated. The dumbest thing about all these threads is that we end up agreeing that eating mostly nutritious food, with care for the overall nutrition in the diet is what matters most, and NOT "good or bad" in the individual foods that make up the diet.
But it's just personal vocabulary preference. "mostly nutritious food" implies that other food is not nutritious. Some people (including me) choose to call the not nutritious stuff bad or junk. So what?
If I want to say I need to clean up my diet and quit eating so much junk, that's my biz. It has nothing at all to do with you or religion or morality. It's just the way I choose to talk. It's a big world man. People don't all use the same phrases.
Exactly. That's the problem with using these bland phrases that don't have a defined meaning to everyone. People ask, over and over, what they mean, and everyone argues about it. Clean means one thing as a word by itself, but when you put it together with another word, it starts to define that other word in ways that become somehow undefineable. Healthy is another word that does that. Junk is another. If we just keep 'eating' and 'food' defined as they are, without throwing a bunch of kitschy bull in with them, we all know what we mean and just eat and leave the whole mess alone.
Or, we could just let people be who they are and talk as they like without trying to force them into a predefined mold.
Who doesn't know what "junk" is? Junk is something we all have but don't want too much of. Whether it's junk in your attic, your closet or your diet. We all have junk we just can't seem to let go of, but no one wants too much junk around. It's doesn't really matter if I think X is junk and you think X is not junk. One man's junk is another man's treasure.
Problem being when trying to help new people who are struggling, they are vilifying their own food, and that's not a healthy mindset. It leads to disordered thinking and possibly eating. If we can catch people right at the start, and help them understand that it's not the food that's the problem, it's how they think and eat, we've solved so much. Labeling is something to avoid. Food is just food and we can skip labeling it. Look at how many threads in this very forum devolve into arguments and the original point gets lost because of food labeling. That's a terrible thing.
for example, lets take something that most would agree is "junk". A white flour biscuit. As far as calories go, you have wheat and fat, and next to no micronutrition and almost no fiber.
Lets say the biscuit is a quite large at about 600 calories.
For someone who is only taking in about 1500 calories, that's a pretty high % of the diet that is now filled with "junk". Probably not the best choice for this person as it will now be harder to get adequate nutrition out of food that is palatable in 900 calories.
But, take a larger man doing lots of exercise in a day who may eat 3500-4000 calories to maintain their weight. Suddenly that biscuit could be seen as beneficial, because if the rest of the diet is whole food, you have 600 calories of easily accessible calories that doesn't overly bulk up the rest of the diet, as this person likely would eat plenty of healthy calories in the 3000ish left.
Suddenly what was "junk" put in context becomes beneficial.
That is the first time I have ever seen a white flour biscuit (homemade or otherwise) classified as "junk", and this is the perfect example of something @lemurcat12 is pointing out. You are saying we can all agree this is "junk". What about that would anyone ever think is junk, let alone the majority of people? A homemade biscuit? A delicious vehicle for butter, jam, honey, or gravy? Junk?
I will admit that things like a bag of doritos or something like that has a more universally accepted classification of junk, even though I don't classify them that way I understand when someone else labels doritos as junk. But a biscuit?
The term junk food is a great one - it saves me time having to list all the foods I am choosing to limit in my diet.
Biscuits, jam and honey are all junk food.
I don't avoid them, but they are limited and do not make up the main part of my diet.
It's all about being efficient - in this instance I am able to use two words instead of four!
Don't you think it's confusing to use a term that means entirely different things to different people? Someone will say they are limiting "junk food" and mean bacon, you will say that and mean homemade whole-grain bread.
I don't find the term junk food bothersome, but it is slightly annoying that there's not a better common definition. As WinoGelato said, I generally assume Doritos are included or a Twinkie, and often fast food (even if it has protein) or bacon (same), and I guess homemade sweets, but I wouldn't have assumed homemade starch courses, even when relatively low in nutrients. And someone just yesterday insisted that potatoes were in this category. If someone told me they didn't eat meat, I'd know not to have lamb when they come over for dinner, but if someone says they avoid "junk food," I would not know to leave out the roasted potatoes. (Which I consider nutritious, for the record.)
Who would classify 'bacon' as junk food??????
The US government claims it's a major contributor of "empty calories." The same argument was used here to defend a claim that "pizza" is always junk food. Therefore, the USA.
Joking aside, I think it fits the definition as well as many things called "junk food."
Yep it probably does classify as that for many people. I would add to my list: Rice, Pasta, Bread, Mash Potato.
Rice isn't the enemy - no-one is saying it is.
Possibly that's the problem! Just because I don't rate somethings as being beneficial to my diet I don't immediately think of it as destructive.
I don't watch 'The Voice' on TV, but I don't hate the program.
It's okay for things to be thought of a neutral.
Why isn't it okay for things to be thought of as bad? Bad doesn't make something the enemy. I think Doritos are delicious but I still think of them as a bad food. That doesn't make them an enemy. It makes them a food I don't eat often. I don't like a lot of bad in my life. I like to eat mostly good food.0 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »accidentalpancake wrote: »Organic food is designated organic based on growing practices; if you see something labeled "organic" in the grocery store, it means that it has met certain standards to have that label (although you should check what the standards are for the label, your definition of "organic" could be different from what the actual law states as acceptable practices and limits).
Clean eating is not a designation, but an eating style. People's definitions of the term vary, however the most general definition would probably be "a diet with an emphasis of whole or minimally-processed foods, which minimizes or avoids heavily-processed or prepackaged convenience foods." That seems to be the most frequent explanation I've seen clean eaters have in common, and even that general definition is tweaked based on the individual. Each person seems to have their own comfort levels in regards to foods, levels of processing, and frequency of consumption. If someone asked for clean eating recipes, I would probably ask them to clarify the specifics of their diet, just like I would a vegetarian, simply because there seems to be a myriad of different styles within that umbrella term (much like there is with vegetarians).
If you're interested in learning more about clean eating, there's a pretty active group here on MFP, they would probably be a good resource to explain that way of eating and what different individuals include in their diet.
This.
Ignore the ridiculous statements about clean eating as a moral position. That has to do with the insecurity of the offended parties and nothing to do with food...
and this would be how "religious" level arguments get perpetuated. The dumbest thing about all these threads is that we end up agreeing that eating mostly nutritious food, with care for the overall nutrition in the diet is what matters most, and NOT "good or bad" in the individual foods that make up the diet.
But it's just personal vocabulary preference. "mostly nutritious food" implies that other food is not nutritious. Some people (including me) choose to call the not nutritious stuff bad or junk. So what?
I agree with you on the "junk" thing and I don't care much about the "bad" thing unless someone seems to be using it in a way that suggests she is beating herself up -- seeing herself as "bad" when she eats "bad food." I've seen this often enough that I worry about it and think it's best to focus on factual elements about food (the nutritional content, what it adds and what it does not) and not labels like "bad" and "good." But if you are someone who can happily eat food you consider "bad," I wouldn't think it was a harmful label for you or care all that much. It's guilt and shame attached to eating decisions that I find damaging.
(Junk is such a normalized term that I expect most of us could say we eat junk food occasionally -- however we define it -- without it seeming a slam on ourselves. I'm just never sure if something like homemade pie is or is not included in a particular person's definition of "junk" food. I suppose I'd include it if it's about micronutrient per calorie.)
My issue with "clean eating" isn't that some foods don't contribute more than others -- of course they do. It's the idea that being "processed" makes something "bad" or "junk" independent of its actual nutritional profile. Or that eating ANY processed food makes a diet less healthful (and is apparently akin to eating only Twinkies, from how these discussions usually go).
But why do you care so much that others think processed food is bad? I can understand not agreeing. I can't understand the need to try and stop others from thinking it. Why is it such a big deal?
I don't care unless they tell others that they shouldn't eat "processed foods" or that doing so is not healthy. When they make the latter claim it's a factual assertion that I think should be countered.
It's is true that if someone says that they don't eat processed food I assume they are lying or using a dishonest definition of "processed" and it affects my opinion of them, but I don't say anything unless they seem to be bragging or condemning others -- like an OP who starts a thread saying "I don't eat processed food--why don't the rest of you eat real food like me!" or "I'm disgusted by the fact that no one here cares about nutrition or cuts out processed foods."
I am not bothered at all by personal decisions to cut out foods, even ones I would never cut out barring an allergy or sensitivity (like legumes). If someone says they are paleo and asks for help I usually just steer them to some recipe sites or the like.
Sorry, I don't buy this. This thread being a perfect example.
I didn't jump on OP, and if I'd had an opportunity to respond to OP before the thread had become about other things I'd have said (nicely) that organic means what kgeyser said and that "clean eating" doesn't really seem to have a common definition and people use it differently but quite often it incorporates the two claims I mentioned above, which with I disagree. I'd probably also have said something positive about focusing on nutrition and whole foods and vegetables, since I favor that stuff.
What I found worth responding to in this thread was kgeyser's suggestion that "clean eating" is defined by, essentially, one form of the moderation position -- that we should eat a generally nutrient dense diet focusing on whole and minimally processed foods. Since that is how I like to eat, I certainly don't agree that's what "clean eating" is, when clean eaters are always telling me I don't care about nutrition since I don't cut out all processed foods or sugar.
I think you just made my point.
How so? Do you find my hypothetical "what I would have said to OP" to be somehow offensive?
I find that quite puzzling, and perhaps it explains the disconnect in the discussion.
My perception from the OP is that she genuinely was curious what "clean eating" means, and since the answer it it really depends pointing that out seems quite relevant.
With respect to the assertions that "clean eating" is nutritionally superior (the two claims I mentioned above), it's likely enough that she would have heard that it was that I think it's worth letting her know that not everyone disagrees and opening a conversation about nutrition in case she's interested. I wouldn't perceive that negatively at all, were I the OP.
Now, perhaps you are assuming that OP identified herself as a "clean eater," but of course she did not. Had she'd said "I am looking for clean recipes" I also would not have jumped on her, but would have said -- as I have many times -- that I don't know what she means by "clean" as people use the term differently, but if she merely means based on whole foods I think that most cookbooks are based on such recipes. Then I would have recommended the Bittman starter book, his Fish book, another book on Roasting, and a book on cooking vegetables, plus a couple of websites, likely epicurious and 101cookbooks. I've done this many times, and I find it kind of annoying that this is now supposed to be nasty or something rather than helpful.
I may or may not have also added -- nicely -- that because the term "clean" is confusing and seems to imply that other foods are "not clean" I don't care for it, but that I also like to focus on whole foods and cooking from scratch and nutrition.0 -
tennisdude2004 wrote: »
Rice? Rice isn't the enemy. Look at Uncle Ben. He's not giving you junk.tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »accidentalpancake wrote: »Organic food is designated organic based on growing practices; if you see something labeled "organic" in the grocery store, it means that it has met certain standards to have that label (although you should check what the standards are for the label, your definition of "organic" could be different from what the actual law states as acceptable practices and limits).
Clean eating is not a designation, but an eating style. People's definitions of the term vary, however the most general definition would probably be "a diet with an emphasis of whole or minimally-processed foods, which minimizes or avoids heavily-processed or prepackaged convenience foods." That seems to be the most frequent explanation I've seen clean eaters have in common, and even that general definition is tweaked based on the individual. Each person seems to have their own comfort levels in regards to foods, levels of processing, and frequency of consumption. If someone asked for clean eating recipes, I would probably ask them to clarify the specifics of their diet, just like I would a vegetarian, simply because there seems to be a myriad of different styles within that umbrella term (much like there is with vegetarians).
If you're interested in learning more about clean eating, there's a pretty active group here on MFP, they would probably be a good resource to explain that way of eating and what different individuals include in their diet.
This.
Ignore the ridiculous statements about clean eating as a moral position. That has to do with the insecurity of the offended parties and nothing to do with food...
and this would be how "religious" level arguments get perpetuated. The dumbest thing about all these threads is that we end up agreeing that eating mostly nutritious food, with care for the overall nutrition in the diet is what matters most, and NOT "good or bad" in the individual foods that make up the diet.
But it's just personal vocabulary preference. "mostly nutritious food" implies that other food is not nutritious. Some people (including me) choose to call the not nutritious stuff bad or junk. So what?
If I want to say I need to clean up my diet and quit eating so much junk, that's my biz. It has nothing at all to do with you or religion or morality. It's just the way I choose to talk. It's a big world man. People don't all use the same phrases.
Exactly. That's the problem with using these bland phrases that don't have a defined meaning to everyone. People ask, over and over, what they mean, and everyone argues about it. Clean means one thing as a word by itself, but when you put it together with another word, it starts to define that other word in ways that become somehow undefineable. Healthy is another word that does that. Junk is another. If we just keep 'eating' and 'food' defined as they are, without throwing a bunch of kitschy bull in with them, we all know what we mean and just eat and leave the whole mess alone.
Or, we could just let people be who they are and talk as they like without trying to force them into a predefined mold.
Who doesn't know what "junk" is? Junk is something we all have but don't want too much of. Whether it's junk in your attic, your closet or your diet. We all have junk we just can't seem to let go of, but no one wants too much junk around. It's doesn't really matter if I think X is junk and you think X is not junk. One man's junk is another man's treasure.
Problem being when trying to help new people who are struggling, they are vilifying their own food, and that's not a healthy mindset. It leads to disordered thinking and possibly eating. If we can catch people right at the start, and help them understand that it's not the food that's the problem, it's how they think and eat, we've solved so much. Labeling is something to avoid. Food is just food and we can skip labeling it. Look at how many threads in this very forum devolve into arguments and the original point gets lost because of food labeling. That's a terrible thing.
for example, lets take something that most would agree is "junk". A white flour biscuit. As far as calories go, you have wheat and fat, and next to no micronutrition and almost no fiber.
Lets say the biscuit is a quite large at about 600 calories.
For someone who is only taking in about 1500 calories, that's a pretty high % of the diet that is now filled with "junk". Probably not the best choice for this person as it will now be harder to get adequate nutrition out of food that is palatable in 900 calories.
But, take a larger man doing lots of exercise in a day who may eat 3500-4000 calories to maintain their weight. Suddenly that biscuit could be seen as beneficial, because if the rest of the diet is whole food, you have 600 calories of easily accessible calories that doesn't overly bulk up the rest of the diet, as this person likely would eat plenty of healthy calories in the 3000ish left.
Suddenly what was "junk" put in context becomes beneficial.
That is the first time I have ever seen a white flour biscuit (homemade or otherwise) classified as "junk", and this is the perfect example of something @lemurcat12 is pointing out. You are saying we can all agree this is "junk". What about that would anyone ever think is junk, let alone the majority of people? A homemade biscuit? A delicious vehicle for butter, jam, honey, or gravy? Junk?
I will admit that things like a bag of doritos or something like that has a more universally accepted classification of junk, even though I don't classify them that way I understand when someone else labels doritos as junk. But a biscuit?
The term junk food is a great one - it saves me time having to list all the foods I am choosing to limit in my diet.
Biscuits, jam and honey are all junk food.
I don't avoid them, but they are limited and do not make up the main part of my diet.
It's all about being efficient - in this instance I am able to use two words instead of four!
Don't you think it's confusing to use a term that means entirely different things to different people? Someone will say they are limiting "junk food" and mean bacon, you will say that and mean homemade whole-grain bread.
I don't find the term junk food bothersome, but it is slightly annoying that there's not a better common definition. As WinoGelato said, I generally assume Doritos are included or a Twinkie, and often fast food (even if it has protein) or bacon (same), and I guess homemade sweets, but I wouldn't have assumed homemade starch courses, even when relatively low in nutrients. And someone just yesterday insisted that potatoes were in this category. If someone told me they didn't eat meat, I'd know not to have lamb when they come over for dinner, but if someone says they avoid "junk food," I would not know to leave out the roasted potatoes. (Which I consider nutritious, for the record.)
Who would classify 'bacon' as junk food??????
The US government claims it's a major contributor of "empty calories." The same argument was used here to defend a claim that "pizza" is always junk food. Therefore, the USA.
Joking aside, I think it fits the definition as well as many things called "junk food."
Yep it probably does classify as that for many people. I would add to my list: Rice, Pasta, Bread, Mash Potato.
Rice isn't the enemy - no-one is saying it is.
Possibly that's the problem! Just because I don't rate somethings as being beneficial to my diet I don't immediately think of it as destructive.
I don't watch 'The Voice' on TV, but I don't hate the program.
It's okay for things to be thought of a neutral.
Most people don't use "junk" to mean "neutral." They use "junk" to mean "bad for you."
Now, if a food is nothing but neutral, is it bad in excess? Sure, but since we need diverse diets everything is bad in excess. It's just more likely that the average person will eat pizza or cookies in excess than broccoli.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »
Rice? Rice isn't the enemy. Look at Uncle Ben. He's not giving you junk.tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »accidentalpancake wrote: »Organic food is designated organic based on growing practices; if you see something labeled "organic" in the grocery store, it means that it has met certain standards to have that label (although you should check what the standards are for the label, your definition of "organic" could be different from what the actual law states as acceptable practices and limits).
Clean eating is not a designation, but an eating style. People's definitions of the term vary, however the most general definition would probably be "a diet with an emphasis of whole or minimally-processed foods, which minimizes or avoids heavily-processed or prepackaged convenience foods." That seems to be the most frequent explanation I've seen clean eaters have in common, and even that general definition is tweaked based on the individual. Each person seems to have their own comfort levels in regards to foods, levels of processing, and frequency of consumption. If someone asked for clean eating recipes, I would probably ask them to clarify the specifics of their diet, just like I would a vegetarian, simply because there seems to be a myriad of different styles within that umbrella term (much like there is with vegetarians).
If you're interested in learning more about clean eating, there's a pretty active group here on MFP, they would probably be a good resource to explain that way of eating and what different individuals include in their diet.
This.
Ignore the ridiculous statements about clean eating as a moral position. That has to do with the insecurity of the offended parties and nothing to do with food...
and this would be how "religious" level arguments get perpetuated. The dumbest thing about all these threads is that we end up agreeing that eating mostly nutritious food, with care for the overall nutrition in the diet is what matters most, and NOT "good or bad" in the individual foods that make up the diet.
But it's just personal vocabulary preference. "mostly nutritious food" implies that other food is not nutritious. Some people (including me) choose to call the not nutritious stuff bad or junk. So what?
If I want to say I need to clean up my diet and quit eating so much junk, that's my biz. It has nothing at all to do with you or religion or morality. It's just the way I choose to talk. It's a big world man. People don't all use the same phrases.
Exactly. That's the problem with using these bland phrases that don't have a defined meaning to everyone. People ask, over and over, what they mean, and everyone argues about it. Clean means one thing as a word by itself, but when you put it together with another word, it starts to define that other word in ways that become somehow undefineable. Healthy is another word that does that. Junk is another. If we just keep 'eating' and 'food' defined as they are, without throwing a bunch of kitschy bull in with them, we all know what we mean and just eat and leave the whole mess alone.
Or, we could just let people be who they are and talk as they like without trying to force them into a predefined mold.
Who doesn't know what "junk" is? Junk is something we all have but don't want too much of. Whether it's junk in your attic, your closet or your diet. We all have junk we just can't seem to let go of, but no one wants too much junk around. It's doesn't really matter if I think X is junk and you think X is not junk. One man's junk is another man's treasure.
Problem being when trying to help new people who are struggling, they are vilifying their own food, and that's not a healthy mindset. It leads to disordered thinking and possibly eating. If we can catch people right at the start, and help them understand that it's not the food that's the problem, it's how they think and eat, we've solved so much. Labeling is something to avoid. Food is just food and we can skip labeling it. Look at how many threads in this very forum devolve into arguments and the original point gets lost because of food labeling. That's a terrible thing.
for example, lets take something that most would agree is "junk". A white flour biscuit. As far as calories go, you have wheat and fat, and next to no micronutrition and almost no fiber.
Lets say the biscuit is a quite large at about 600 calories.
For someone who is only taking in about 1500 calories, that's a pretty high % of the diet that is now filled with "junk". Probably not the best choice for this person as it will now be harder to get adequate nutrition out of food that is palatable in 900 calories.
But, take a larger man doing lots of exercise in a day who may eat 3500-4000 calories to maintain their weight. Suddenly that biscuit could be seen as beneficial, because if the rest of the diet is whole food, you have 600 calories of easily accessible calories that doesn't overly bulk up the rest of the diet, as this person likely would eat plenty of healthy calories in the 3000ish left.
Suddenly what was "junk" put in context becomes beneficial.
That is the first time I have ever seen a white flour biscuit (homemade or otherwise) classified as "junk", and this is the perfect example of something @lemurcat12 is pointing out. You are saying we can all agree this is "junk". What about that would anyone ever think is junk, let alone the majority of people? A homemade biscuit? A delicious vehicle for butter, jam, honey, or gravy? Junk?
I will admit that things like a bag of doritos or something like that has a more universally accepted classification of junk, even though I don't classify them that way I understand when someone else labels doritos as junk. But a biscuit?
The term junk food is a great one - it saves me time having to list all the foods I am choosing to limit in my diet.
Biscuits, jam and honey are all junk food.
I don't avoid them, but they are limited and do not make up the main part of my diet.
It's all about being efficient - in this instance I am able to use two words instead of four!
Don't you think it's confusing to use a term that means entirely different things to different people? Someone will say they are limiting "junk food" and mean bacon, you will say that and mean homemade whole-grain bread.
I don't find the term junk food bothersome, but it is slightly annoying that there's not a better common definition. As WinoGelato said, I generally assume Doritos are included or a Twinkie, and often fast food (even if it has protein) or bacon (same), and I guess homemade sweets, but I wouldn't have assumed homemade starch courses, even when relatively low in nutrients. And someone just yesterday insisted that potatoes were in this category. If someone told me they didn't eat meat, I'd know not to have lamb when they come over for dinner, but if someone says they avoid "junk food," I would not know to leave out the roasted potatoes. (Which I consider nutritious, for the record.)
Who would classify 'bacon' as junk food??????
The US government claims it's a major contributor of "empty calories." The same argument was used here to defend a claim that "pizza" is always junk food. Therefore, the USA.
Joking aside, I think it fits the definition as well as many things called "junk food."
Yep it probably does classify as that for many people. I would add to my list: Rice, Pasta, Bread, Mash Potato.
Rice isn't the enemy - no-one is saying it is.
Possibly that's the problem! Just because I don't rate somethings as being beneficial to my diet I don't immediately think of it as destructive.
I don't watch 'The Voice' on TV, but I don't hate the program.
It's okay for things to be thought of a neutral.
Most people don't use "junk" to mean "neutral." They use "junk" to mean "bad for you."
Now, if a food is nothing but neutral, is it bad in excess? Sure, but since we need diverse diets everything is bad in excess. It's just more likely that the average person will eat pizza or cookies in excess than broccoli.
Thanks, and now I'm reminded that in the US, news agencies don't care for our health; anytime I'm watching BBC and the segment contains flash photography they issue a warning for people with epilepsy...0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »accidentalpancake wrote: »Organic food is designated organic based on growing practices; if you see something labeled "organic" in the grocery store, it means that it has met certain standards to have that label (although you should check what the standards are for the label, your definition of "organic" could be different from what the actual law states as acceptable practices and limits).
Clean eating is not a designation, but an eating style. People's definitions of the term vary, however the most general definition would probably be "a diet with an emphasis of whole or minimally-processed foods, which minimizes or avoids heavily-processed or prepackaged convenience foods." That seems to be the most frequent explanation I've seen clean eaters have in common, and even that general definition is tweaked based on the individual. Each person seems to have their own comfort levels in regards to foods, levels of processing, and frequency of consumption. If someone asked for clean eating recipes, I would probably ask them to clarify the specifics of their diet, just like I would a vegetarian, simply because there seems to be a myriad of different styles within that umbrella term (much like there is with vegetarians).
If you're interested in learning more about clean eating, there's a pretty active group here on MFP, they would probably be a good resource to explain that way of eating and what different individuals include in their diet.
This.
Ignore the ridiculous statements about clean eating as a moral position. That has to do with the insecurity of the offended parties and nothing to do with food...
and this would be how "religious" level arguments get perpetuated. The dumbest thing about all these threads is that we end up agreeing that eating mostly nutritious food, with care for the overall nutrition in the diet is what matters most, and NOT "good or bad" in the individual foods that make up the diet.
But it's just personal vocabulary preference. "mostly nutritious food" implies that other food is not nutritious. Some people (including me) choose to call the not nutritious stuff bad or junk. So what?
I agree with you on the "junk" thing and I don't care much about the "bad" thing unless someone seems to be using it in a way that suggests she is beating herself up -- seeing herself as "bad" when she eats "bad food." I've seen this often enough that I worry about it and think it's best to focus on factual elements about food (the nutritional content, what it adds and what it does not) and not labels like "bad" and "good." But if you are someone who can happily eat food you consider "bad," I wouldn't think it was a harmful label for you or care all that much. It's guilt and shame attached to eating decisions that I find damaging.
(Junk is such a normalized term that I expect most of us could say we eat junk food occasionally -- however we define it -- without it seeming a slam on ourselves. I'm just never sure if something like homemade pie is or is not included in a particular person's definition of "junk" food. I suppose I'd include it if it's about micronutrient per calorie.)
My issue with "clean eating" isn't that some foods don't contribute more than others -- of course they do. It's the idea that being "processed" makes something "bad" or "junk" independent of its actual nutritional profile. Or that eating ANY processed food makes a diet less healthful (and is apparently akin to eating only Twinkies, from how these discussions usually go).
But why do you care so much that others think processed food is bad? I can understand not agreeing. I can't understand the need to try and stop others from thinking it. Why is it such a big deal?
I don't care unless they tell others that they shouldn't eat "processed foods" or that doing so is not healthy. When they make the latter claim it's a factual assertion that I think should be countered.
It's is true that if someone says that they don't eat processed food I assume they are lying or using a dishonest definition of "processed" and it affects my opinion of them, but I don't say anything unless they seem to be bragging or condemning others -- like an OP who starts a thread saying "I don't eat processed food--why don't the rest of you eat real food like me!" or "I'm disgusted by the fact that no one here cares about nutrition or cuts out processed foods."
I am not bothered at all by personal decisions to cut out foods, even ones I would never cut out barring an allergy or sensitivity (like legumes). If someone says they are paleo and asks for help I usually just steer them to some recipe sites or the like.
Sorry, I don't buy this. This thread being a perfect example.
I didn't jump on OP, and if I'd had an opportunity to respond to OP before the thread had become about other things I'd have said (nicely) that organic means what kgeyser said and that "clean eating" doesn't really seem to have a common definition and people use it differently but quite often it incorporates the two claims I mentioned above, which with I disagree. I'd probably also have said something positive about focusing on nutrition and whole foods and vegetables, since I favor that stuff.
What I found worth responding to in this thread was kgeyser's suggestion that "clean eating" is defined by, essentially, one form of the moderation position -- that we should eat a generally nutrient dense diet focusing on whole and minimally processed foods. Since that is how I like to eat, I certainly don't agree that's what "clean eating" is, when clean eaters are always telling me I don't care about nutrition since I don't cut out all processed foods or sugar.
I think you just made my point.
How so? Do you find my hypothetical "what I would have said to OP" to be somehow offensive?
No, nor would that have anything to do with my point. You said you don't care what others think about food. Yet you felt you had no opportunity to repond to the OP because of an overwhelming need to respond to a reply, yet that reply did not preach anything. That suggests you do care, even when it's not preached.0 -
tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »ceoverturf wrote: »No one cares what any one of us chooses to eat or not to eat personally. Frankly, none of us are that interesting to the group as a whole.
People DO tend to care when people preach what other people MUST eat or (more commonly) MUST NOT eat.
Why this seems to constantly be a mystery to other long-time posters of this board baffles me.
Yep I find it annoying when people preach that others MUST eat in moderation and MUST NOT limit carbs, especially when the OP has expressed an interest in eating a way that is not 'portion restricted'!
Has anyone here (as in involved with this thread) done that?
Personally, I have NEVER said that anyone else must eat in moderation or must not limit carbs. (In that I've limited carbs from time to time -- and still will turn them down to meet my protein or fat goals or my calorie goal -- and don't eat certain foods (although I generally don't want them either), that would be awfully hypocritical, and hypocrisy is one of the things I'm arguing against here. Specifically, the hypocrisy of someone who eats processed foods preaching to others about how all processed foods are bad.)
Actually most of the threads I've read are where the OP explains how bad they believe processed food to be and that is why 'THEY' are limiting or avoiding them.
We must be reading different threads, as almost all either have an OP giving general rules that say WE ALL should limit processed foods or complaining that others here aren't as focused on nutrition since they eat BAD foods.
Sometimes OP seems worried about how to cut out foods and there I think it's worth seeing if she really wants to or has just read that one must to lose weight. Quite often these OP's are happy to learn they don't have to, and others have been successful without.
And more often than not the OP asks an innocuous question and gets helpful responses and then someone swoops in and tells her that she MUST cut out sugar or fruit or carbs or processed foods. Those are the ones that I seem to end up in most often lately.0 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »
Rice? Rice isn't the enemy. Look at Uncle Ben. He's not giving you junk.tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »accidentalpancake wrote: »Organic food is designated organic based on growing practices; if you see something labeled "organic" in the grocery store, it means that it has met certain standards to have that label (although you should check what the standards are for the label, your definition of "organic" could be different from what the actual law states as acceptable practices and limits).
Clean eating is not a designation, but an eating style. People's definitions of the term vary, however the most general definition would probably be "a diet with an emphasis of whole or minimally-processed foods, which minimizes or avoids heavily-processed or prepackaged convenience foods." That seems to be the most frequent explanation I've seen clean eaters have in common, and even that general definition is tweaked based on the individual. Each person seems to have their own comfort levels in regards to foods, levels of processing, and frequency of consumption. If someone asked for clean eating recipes, I would probably ask them to clarify the specifics of their diet, just like I would a vegetarian, simply because there seems to be a myriad of different styles within that umbrella term (much like there is with vegetarians).
If you're interested in learning more about clean eating, there's a pretty active group here on MFP, they would probably be a good resource to explain that way of eating and what different individuals include in their diet.
This.
Ignore the ridiculous statements about clean eating as a moral position. That has to do with the insecurity of the offended parties and nothing to do with food...
and this would be how "religious" level arguments get perpetuated. The dumbest thing about all these threads is that we end up agreeing that eating mostly nutritious food, with care for the overall nutrition in the diet is what matters most, and NOT "good or bad" in the individual foods that make up the diet.
But it's just personal vocabulary preference. "mostly nutritious food" implies that other food is not nutritious. Some people (including me) choose to call the not nutritious stuff bad or junk. So what?
If I want to say I need to clean up my diet and quit eating so much junk, that's my biz. It has nothing at all to do with you or religion or morality. It's just the way I choose to talk. It's a big world man. People don't all use the same phrases.
Exactly. That's the problem with using these bland phrases that don't have a defined meaning to everyone. People ask, over and over, what they mean, and everyone argues about it. Clean means one thing as a word by itself, but when you put it together with another word, it starts to define that other word in ways that become somehow undefineable. Healthy is another word that does that. Junk is another. If we just keep 'eating' and 'food' defined as they are, without throwing a bunch of kitschy bull in with them, we all know what we mean and just eat and leave the whole mess alone.
Or, we could just let people be who they are and talk as they like without trying to force them into a predefined mold.
Who doesn't know what "junk" is? Junk is something we all have but don't want too much of. Whether it's junk in your attic, your closet or your diet. We all have junk we just can't seem to let go of, but no one wants too much junk around. It's doesn't really matter if I think X is junk and you think X is not junk. One man's junk is another man's treasure.
Problem being when trying to help new people who are struggling, they are vilifying their own food, and that's not a healthy mindset. It leads to disordered thinking and possibly eating. If we can catch people right at the start, and help them understand that it's not the food that's the problem, it's how they think and eat, we've solved so much. Labeling is something to avoid. Food is just food and we can skip labeling it. Look at how many threads in this very forum devolve into arguments and the original point gets lost because of food labeling. That's a terrible thing.
for example, lets take something that most would agree is "junk". A white flour biscuit. As far as calories go, you have wheat and fat, and next to no micronutrition and almost no fiber.
Lets say the biscuit is a quite large at about 600 calories.
For someone who is only taking in about 1500 calories, that's a pretty high % of the diet that is now filled with "junk". Probably not the best choice for this person as it will now be harder to get adequate nutrition out of food that is palatable in 900 calories.
But, take a larger man doing lots of exercise in a day who may eat 3500-4000 calories to maintain their weight. Suddenly that biscuit could be seen as beneficial, because if the rest of the diet is whole food, you have 600 calories of easily accessible calories that doesn't overly bulk up the rest of the diet, as this person likely would eat plenty of healthy calories in the 3000ish left.
Suddenly what was "junk" put in context becomes beneficial.
That is the first time I have ever seen a white flour biscuit (homemade or otherwise) classified as "junk", and this is the perfect example of something @lemurcat12 is pointing out. You are saying we can all agree this is "junk". What about that would anyone ever think is junk, let alone the majority of people? A homemade biscuit? A delicious vehicle for butter, jam, honey, or gravy? Junk?
I will admit that things like a bag of doritos or something like that has a more universally accepted classification of junk, even though I don't classify them that way I understand when someone else labels doritos as junk. But a biscuit?
The term junk food is a great one - it saves me time having to list all the foods I am choosing to limit in my diet.
Biscuits, jam and honey are all junk food.
I don't avoid them, but they are limited and do not make up the main part of my diet.
It's all about being efficient - in this instance I am able to use two words instead of four!
Don't you think it's confusing to use a term that means entirely different things to different people? Someone will say they are limiting "junk food" and mean bacon, you will say that and mean homemade whole-grain bread.
I don't find the term junk food bothersome, but it is slightly annoying that there's not a better common definition. As WinoGelato said, I generally assume Doritos are included or a Twinkie, and often fast food (even if it has protein) or bacon (same), and I guess homemade sweets, but I wouldn't have assumed homemade starch courses, even when relatively low in nutrients. And someone just yesterday insisted that potatoes were in this category. If someone told me they didn't eat meat, I'd know not to have lamb when they come over for dinner, but if someone says they avoid "junk food," I would not know to leave out the roasted potatoes. (Which I consider nutritious, for the record.)
Who would classify 'bacon' as junk food??????
The US government claims it's a major contributor of "empty calories." The same argument was used here to defend a claim that "pizza" is always junk food. Therefore, the USA.
Joking aside, I think it fits the definition as well as many things called "junk food."
Yep it probably does classify as that for many people. I would add to my list: Rice, Pasta, Bread, Mash Potato.
Rice isn't the enemy - no-one is saying it is.
Possibly that's the problem! Just because I don't rate somethings as being beneficial to my diet I don't immediately think of it as destructive.
I don't watch 'The Voice' on TV, but I don't hate the program.
It's okay for things to be thought of a neutral.
Why isn't it okay for things to be thought of as bad? Bad doesn't make something the enemy. I think Doritos are delicious but I still think of them as a bad food. That doesn't make them an enemy. It makes them a food I don't eat often. I don't like a lot of bad in my life. I like to eat mostly good food.
I personally don't generally think of things as good or bad - maybe beneficial or less beneficial or healthy and less healthy.
Personally, if people want to categories foods as good and bad or clean and dirty to help them make better decisions, then I'm all for that.
As an actual food eaten infrequently or in reasonable portion size (if eaten frequently) they are fine.
They are not unhealthy. But if a way of limiting your consumption of them is to think of them as bad - then that's all gravy.
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I think you're missing a bit of the tone of the reply as it was joking.tennisdude2004 wrote: »
Rice? Rice isn't the enemy. Look at Uncle Ben. He's not giving you junk.tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »accidentalpancake wrote: »Organic food is designated organic based on growing practices; if you see something labeled "organic" in the grocery store, it means that it has met certain standards to have that label (although you should check what the standards are for the label, your definition of "organic" could be different from what the actual law states as acceptable practices and limits).
Clean eating is not a designation, but an eating style. People's definitions of the term vary, however the most general definition would probably be "a diet with an emphasis of whole or minimally-processed foods, which minimizes or avoids heavily-processed or prepackaged convenience foods." That seems to be the most frequent explanation I've seen clean eaters have in common, and even that general definition is tweaked based on the individual. Each person seems to have their own comfort levels in regards to foods, levels of processing, and frequency of consumption. If someone asked for clean eating recipes, I would probably ask them to clarify the specifics of their diet, just like I would a vegetarian, simply because there seems to be a myriad of different styles within that umbrella term (much like there is with vegetarians).
If you're interested in learning more about clean eating, there's a pretty active group here on MFP, they would probably be a good resource to explain that way of eating and what different individuals include in their diet.
This.
Ignore the ridiculous statements about clean eating as a moral position. That has to do with the insecurity of the offended parties and nothing to do with food...
and this would be how "religious" level arguments get perpetuated. The dumbest thing about all these threads is that we end up agreeing that eating mostly nutritious food, with care for the overall nutrition in the diet is what matters most, and NOT "good or bad" in the individual foods that make up the diet.
But it's just personal vocabulary preference. "mostly nutritious food" implies that other food is not nutritious. Some people (including me) choose to call the not nutritious stuff bad or junk. So what?
If I want to say I need to clean up my diet and quit eating so much junk, that's my biz. It has nothing at all to do with you or religion or morality. It's just the way I choose to talk. It's a big world man. People don't all use the same phrases.
Exactly. That's the problem with using these bland phrases that don't have a defined meaning to everyone. People ask, over and over, what they mean, and everyone argues about it. Clean means one thing as a word by itself, but when you put it together with another word, it starts to define that other word in ways that become somehow undefineable. Healthy is another word that does that. Junk is another. If we just keep 'eating' and 'food' defined as they are, without throwing a bunch of kitschy bull in with them, we all know what we mean and just eat and leave the whole mess alone.
Or, we could just let people be who they are and talk as they like without trying to force them into a predefined mold.
Who doesn't know what "junk" is? Junk is something we all have but don't want too much of. Whether it's junk in your attic, your closet or your diet. We all have junk we just can't seem to let go of, but no one wants too much junk around. It's doesn't really matter if I think X is junk and you think X is not junk. One man's junk is another man's treasure.
Problem being when trying to help new people who are struggling, they are vilifying their own food, and that's not a healthy mindset. It leads to disordered thinking and possibly eating. If we can catch people right at the start, and help them understand that it's not the food that's the problem, it's how they think and eat, we've solved so much. Labeling is something to avoid. Food is just food and we can skip labeling it. Look at how many threads in this very forum devolve into arguments and the original point gets lost because of food labeling. That's a terrible thing.
for example, lets take something that most would agree is "junk". A white flour biscuit. As far as calories go, you have wheat and fat, and next to no micronutrition and almost no fiber.
Lets say the biscuit is a quite large at about 600 calories.
For someone who is only taking in about 1500 calories, that's a pretty high % of the diet that is now filled with "junk". Probably not the best choice for this person as it will now be harder to get adequate nutrition out of food that is palatable in 900 calories.
But, take a larger man doing lots of exercise in a day who may eat 3500-4000 calories to maintain their weight. Suddenly that biscuit could be seen as beneficial, because if the rest of the diet is whole food, you have 600 calories of easily accessible calories that doesn't overly bulk up the rest of the diet, as this person likely would eat plenty of healthy calories in the 3000ish left.
Suddenly what was "junk" put in context becomes beneficial.
That is the first time I have ever seen a white flour biscuit (homemade or otherwise) classified as "junk", and this is the perfect example of something @lemurcat12 is pointing out. You are saying we can all agree this is "junk". What about that would anyone ever think is junk, let alone the majority of people? A homemade biscuit? A delicious vehicle for butter, jam, honey, or gravy? Junk?
I will admit that things like a bag of doritos or something like that has a more universally accepted classification of junk, even though I don't classify them that way I understand when someone else labels doritos as junk. But a biscuit?
The term junk food is a great one - it saves me time having to list all the foods I am choosing to limit in my diet.
Biscuits, jam and honey are all junk food.
I don't avoid them, but they are limited and do not make up the main part of my diet.
It's all about being efficient - in this instance I am able to use two words instead of four!
Don't you think it's confusing to use a term that means entirely different things to different people? Someone will say they are limiting "junk food" and mean bacon, you will say that and mean homemade whole-grain bread.
I don't find the term junk food bothersome, but it is slightly annoying that there's not a better common definition. As WinoGelato said, I generally assume Doritos are included or a Twinkie, and often fast food (even if it has protein) or bacon (same), and I guess homemade sweets, but I wouldn't have assumed homemade starch courses, even when relatively low in nutrients. And someone just yesterday insisted that potatoes were in this category. If someone told me they didn't eat meat, I'd know not to have lamb when they come over for dinner, but if someone says they avoid "junk food," I would not know to leave out the roasted potatoes. (Which I consider nutritious, for the record.)
Who would classify 'bacon' as junk food??????
The US government claims it's a major contributor of "empty calories." The same argument was used here to defend a claim that "pizza" is always junk food. Therefore, the USA.
Joking aside, I think it fits the definition as well as many things called "junk food."
Yep it probably does classify as that for many people. I would add to my list: Rice, Pasta, Bread, Mash Potato.
Rice isn't the enemy - no-one is saying it is.
Possibly that's the problem! Just because I don't rate somethings as being beneficial to my diet I don't immediately think of it as destructive.
I don't watch 'The Voice' on TV, but I don't hate the program.
It's okay for things to be thought of a neutral.
Though I've seen posters and people link to things that claim X is the enemy and the cause of all current human (dietary though sometimes all period) misery. Taubes says it is all carbs. Lustig says it is sugar, particularly fructose. Paleo people claim it is all foods newer than 10,000 years (even though that really covers all food if you get technical).
0 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »
Rice? Rice isn't the enemy. Look at Uncle Ben. He's not giving you junk.tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »accidentalpancake wrote: »Organic food is designated organic based on growing practices; if you see something labeled "organic" in the grocery store, it means that it has met certain standards to have that label (although you should check what the standards are for the label, your definition of "organic" could be different from what the actual law states as acceptable practices and limits).
Clean eating is not a designation, but an eating style. People's definitions of the term vary, however the most general definition would probably be "a diet with an emphasis of whole or minimally-processed foods, which minimizes or avoids heavily-processed or prepackaged convenience foods." That seems to be the most frequent explanation I've seen clean eaters have in common, and even that general definition is tweaked based on the individual. Each person seems to have their own comfort levels in regards to foods, levels of processing, and frequency of consumption. If someone asked for clean eating recipes, I would probably ask them to clarify the specifics of their diet, just like I would a vegetarian, simply because there seems to be a myriad of different styles within that umbrella term (much like there is with vegetarians).
If you're interested in learning more about clean eating, there's a pretty active group here on MFP, they would probably be a good resource to explain that way of eating and what different individuals include in their diet.
This.
Ignore the ridiculous statements about clean eating as a moral position. That has to do with the insecurity of the offended parties and nothing to do with food...
and this would be how "religious" level arguments get perpetuated. The dumbest thing about all these threads is that we end up agreeing that eating mostly nutritious food, with care for the overall nutrition in the diet is what matters most, and NOT "good or bad" in the individual foods that make up the diet.
But it's just personal vocabulary preference. "mostly nutritious food" implies that other food is not nutritious. Some people (including me) choose to call the not nutritious stuff bad or junk. So what?
If I want to say I need to clean up my diet and quit eating so much junk, that's my biz. It has nothing at all to do with you or religion or morality. It's just the way I choose to talk. It's a big world man. People don't all use the same phrases.
Exactly. That's the problem with using these bland phrases that don't have a defined meaning to everyone. People ask, over and over, what they mean, and everyone argues about it. Clean means one thing as a word by itself, but when you put it together with another word, it starts to define that other word in ways that become somehow undefineable. Healthy is another word that does that. Junk is another. If we just keep 'eating' and 'food' defined as they are, without throwing a bunch of kitschy bull in with them, we all know what we mean and just eat and leave the whole mess alone.
Or, we could just let people be who they are and talk as they like without trying to force them into a predefined mold.
Who doesn't know what "junk" is? Junk is something we all have but don't want too much of. Whether it's junk in your attic, your closet or your diet. We all have junk we just can't seem to let go of, but no one wants too much junk around. It's doesn't really matter if I think X is junk and you think X is not junk. One man's junk is another man's treasure.
Problem being when trying to help new people who are struggling, they are vilifying their own food, and that's not a healthy mindset. It leads to disordered thinking and possibly eating. If we can catch people right at the start, and help them understand that it's not the food that's the problem, it's how they think and eat, we've solved so much. Labeling is something to avoid. Food is just food and we can skip labeling it. Look at how many threads in this very forum devolve into arguments and the original point gets lost because of food labeling. That's a terrible thing.
for example, lets take something that most would agree is "junk". A white flour biscuit. As far as calories go, you have wheat and fat, and next to no micronutrition and almost no fiber.
Lets say the biscuit is a quite large at about 600 calories.
For someone who is only taking in about 1500 calories, that's a pretty high % of the diet that is now filled with "junk". Probably not the best choice for this person as it will now be harder to get adequate nutrition out of food that is palatable in 900 calories.
But, take a larger man doing lots of exercise in a day who may eat 3500-4000 calories to maintain their weight. Suddenly that biscuit could be seen as beneficial, because if the rest of the diet is whole food, you have 600 calories of easily accessible calories that doesn't overly bulk up the rest of the diet, as this person likely would eat plenty of healthy calories in the 3000ish left.
Suddenly what was "junk" put in context becomes beneficial.
That is the first time I have ever seen a white flour biscuit (homemade or otherwise) classified as "junk", and this is the perfect example of something @lemurcat12 is pointing out. You are saying we can all agree this is "junk". What about that would anyone ever think is junk, let alone the majority of people? A homemade biscuit? A delicious vehicle for butter, jam, honey, or gravy? Junk?
I will admit that things like a bag of doritos or something like that has a more universally accepted classification of junk, even though I don't classify them that way I understand when someone else labels doritos as junk. But a biscuit?
The term junk food is a great one - it saves me time having to list all the foods I am choosing to limit in my diet.
Biscuits, jam and honey are all junk food.
I don't avoid them, but they are limited and do not make up the main part of my diet.
It's all about being efficient - in this instance I am able to use two words instead of four!
Don't you think it's confusing to use a term that means entirely different things to different people? Someone will say they are limiting "junk food" and mean bacon, you will say that and mean homemade whole-grain bread.
I don't find the term junk food bothersome, but it is slightly annoying that there's not a better common definition. As WinoGelato said, I generally assume Doritos are included or a Twinkie, and often fast food (even if it has protein) or bacon (same), and I guess homemade sweets, but I wouldn't have assumed homemade starch courses, even when relatively low in nutrients. And someone just yesterday insisted that potatoes were in this category. If someone told me they didn't eat meat, I'd know not to have lamb when they come over for dinner, but if someone says they avoid "junk food," I would not know to leave out the roasted potatoes. (Which I consider nutritious, for the record.)
Who would classify 'bacon' as junk food??????
The US government claims it's a major contributor of "empty calories." The same argument was used here to defend a claim that "pizza" is always junk food. Therefore, the USA.
Joking aside, I think it fits the definition as well as many things called "junk food."
Yep it probably does classify as that for many people. I would add to my list: Rice, Pasta, Bread, Mash Potato.
Rice isn't the enemy - no-one is saying it is.
Possibly that's the problem! Just because I don't rate somethings as being beneficial to my diet I don't immediately think of it as destructive.
I don't watch 'The Voice' on TV, but I don't hate the program.
It's okay for things to be thought of a neutral.
Why isn't it okay for things to be thought of as bad? Bad doesn't make something the enemy. I think Doritos are delicious but I still think of them as a bad food. That doesn't make them an enemy. It makes them a food I don't eat often. I don't like a lot of bad in my life. I like to eat mostly good food.
That's my issue. There is no reason to think of them as bad so what's the point of labeling them that? How about a starving child in a random country who hasn't had food in 3 days. Are those Doritos bad for him when compared to starvation? That's an extreme obviously, but it makes my point on why it's ridiculous to arbitrarily label something "bad".
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Deep down everyone loves the bad boys of food.Need2Exerc1se wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »
Rice? Rice isn't the enemy. Look at Uncle Ben. He's not giving you junk.tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »accidentalpancake wrote: »Organic food is designated organic based on growing practices; if you see something labeled "organic" in the grocery store, it means that it has met certain standards to have that label (although you should check what the standards are for the label, your definition of "organic" could be different from what the actual law states as acceptable practices and limits).
Clean eating is not a designation, but an eating style. People's definitions of the term vary, however the most general definition would probably be "a diet with an emphasis of whole or minimally-processed foods, which minimizes or avoids heavily-processed or prepackaged convenience foods." That seems to be the most frequent explanation I've seen clean eaters have in common, and even that general definition is tweaked based on the individual. Each person seems to have their own comfort levels in regards to foods, levels of processing, and frequency of consumption. If someone asked for clean eating recipes, I would probably ask them to clarify the specifics of their diet, just like I would a vegetarian, simply because there seems to be a myriad of different styles within that umbrella term (much like there is with vegetarians).
If you're interested in learning more about clean eating, there's a pretty active group here on MFP, they would probably be a good resource to explain that way of eating and what different individuals include in their diet.
This.
Ignore the ridiculous statements about clean eating as a moral position. That has to do with the insecurity of the offended parties and nothing to do with food...
and this would be how "religious" level arguments get perpetuated. The dumbest thing about all these threads is that we end up agreeing that eating mostly nutritious food, with care for the overall nutrition in the diet is what matters most, and NOT "good or bad" in the individual foods that make up the diet.
But it's just personal vocabulary preference. "mostly nutritious food" implies that other food is not nutritious. Some people (including me) choose to call the not nutritious stuff bad or junk. So what?
If I want to say I need to clean up my diet and quit eating so much junk, that's my biz. It has nothing at all to do with you or religion or morality. It's just the way I choose to talk. It's a big world man. People don't all use the same phrases.
Exactly. That's the problem with using these bland phrases that don't have a defined meaning to everyone. People ask, over and over, what they mean, and everyone argues about it. Clean means one thing as a word by itself, but when you put it together with another word, it starts to define that other word in ways that become somehow undefineable. Healthy is another word that does that. Junk is another. If we just keep 'eating' and 'food' defined as they are, without throwing a bunch of kitschy bull in with them, we all know what we mean and just eat and leave the whole mess alone.
Or, we could just let people be who they are and talk as they like without trying to force them into a predefined mold.
Who doesn't know what "junk" is? Junk is something we all have but don't want too much of. Whether it's junk in your attic, your closet or your diet. We all have junk we just can't seem to let go of, but no one wants too much junk around. It's doesn't really matter if I think X is junk and you think X is not junk. One man's junk is another man's treasure.
Problem being when trying to help new people who are struggling, they are vilifying their own food, and that's not a healthy mindset. It leads to disordered thinking and possibly eating. If we can catch people right at the start, and help them understand that it's not the food that's the problem, it's how they think and eat, we've solved so much. Labeling is something to avoid. Food is just food and we can skip labeling it. Look at how many threads in this very forum devolve into arguments and the original point gets lost because of food labeling. That's a terrible thing.
for example, lets take something that most would agree is "junk". A white flour biscuit. As far as calories go, you have wheat and fat, and next to no micronutrition and almost no fiber.
Lets say the biscuit is a quite large at about 600 calories.
For someone who is only taking in about 1500 calories, that's a pretty high % of the diet that is now filled with "junk". Probably not the best choice for this person as it will now be harder to get adequate nutrition out of food that is palatable in 900 calories.
But, take a larger man doing lots of exercise in a day who may eat 3500-4000 calories to maintain their weight. Suddenly that biscuit could be seen as beneficial, because if the rest of the diet is whole food, you have 600 calories of easily accessible calories that doesn't overly bulk up the rest of the diet, as this person likely would eat plenty of healthy calories in the 3000ish left.
Suddenly what was "junk" put in context becomes beneficial.
That is the first time I have ever seen a white flour biscuit (homemade or otherwise) classified as "junk", and this is the perfect example of something @lemurcat12 is pointing out. You are saying we can all agree this is "junk". What about that would anyone ever think is junk, let alone the majority of people? A homemade biscuit? A delicious vehicle for butter, jam, honey, or gravy? Junk?
I will admit that things like a bag of doritos or something like that has a more universally accepted classification of junk, even though I don't classify them that way I understand when someone else labels doritos as junk. But a biscuit?
The term junk food is a great one - it saves me time having to list all the foods I am choosing to limit in my diet.
Biscuits, jam and honey are all junk food.
I don't avoid them, but they are limited and do not make up the main part of my diet.
It's all about being efficient - in this instance I am able to use two words instead of four!
Don't you think it's confusing to use a term that means entirely different things to different people? Someone will say they are limiting "junk food" and mean bacon, you will say that and mean homemade whole-grain bread.
I don't find the term junk food bothersome, but it is slightly annoying that there's not a better common definition. As WinoGelato said, I generally assume Doritos are included or a Twinkie, and often fast food (even if it has protein) or bacon (same), and I guess homemade sweets, but I wouldn't have assumed homemade starch courses, even when relatively low in nutrients. And someone just yesterday insisted that potatoes were in this category. If someone told me they didn't eat meat, I'd know not to have lamb when they come over for dinner, but if someone says they avoid "junk food," I would not know to leave out the roasted potatoes. (Which I consider nutritious, for the record.)
Who would classify 'bacon' as junk food??????
The US government claims it's a major contributor of "empty calories." The same argument was used here to defend a claim that "pizza" is always junk food. Therefore, the USA.
Joking aside, I think it fits the definition as well as many things called "junk food."
Yep it probably does classify as that for many people. I would add to my list: Rice, Pasta, Bread, Mash Potato.
Rice isn't the enemy - no-one is saying it is.
Possibly that's the problem! Just because I don't rate somethings as being beneficial to my diet I don't immediately think of it as destructive.
I don't watch 'The Voice' on TV, but I don't hate the program.
It's okay for things to be thought of a neutral.
Why isn't it okay for things to be thought of as bad? Bad doesn't make something the enemy. I think Doritos are delicious but I still think of them as a bad food. That doesn't make them an enemy. It makes them a food I don't eat often. I don't like a lot of bad in my life. I like to eat mostly good food.0 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »
Rice? Rice isn't the enemy. Look at Uncle Ben. He's not giving you junk.tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »accidentalpancake wrote: »Organic food is designated organic based on growing practices; if you see something labeled "organic" in the grocery store, it means that it has met certain standards to have that label (although you should check what the standards are for the label, your definition of "organic" could be different from what the actual law states as acceptable practices and limits).
Clean eating is not a designation, but an eating style. People's definitions of the term vary, however the most general definition would probably be "a diet with an emphasis of whole or minimally-processed foods, which minimizes or avoids heavily-processed or prepackaged convenience foods." That seems to be the most frequent explanation I've seen clean eaters have in common, and even that general definition is tweaked based on the individual. Each person seems to have their own comfort levels in regards to foods, levels of processing, and frequency of consumption. If someone asked for clean eating recipes, I would probably ask them to clarify the specifics of their diet, just like I would a vegetarian, simply because there seems to be a myriad of different styles within that umbrella term (much like there is with vegetarians).
If you're interested in learning more about clean eating, there's a pretty active group here on MFP, they would probably be a good resource to explain that way of eating and what different individuals include in their diet.
This.
Ignore the ridiculous statements about clean eating as a moral position. That has to do with the insecurity of the offended parties and nothing to do with food...
and this would be how "religious" level arguments get perpetuated. The dumbest thing about all these threads is that we end up agreeing that eating mostly nutritious food, with care for the overall nutrition in the diet is what matters most, and NOT "good or bad" in the individual foods that make up the diet.
But it's just personal vocabulary preference. "mostly nutritious food" implies that other food is not nutritious. Some people (including me) choose to call the not nutritious stuff bad or junk. So what?
If I want to say I need to clean up my diet and quit eating so much junk, that's my biz. It has nothing at all to do with you or religion or morality. It's just the way I choose to talk. It's a big world man. People don't all use the same phrases.
Exactly. That's the problem with using these bland phrases that don't have a defined meaning to everyone. People ask, over and over, what they mean, and everyone argues about it. Clean means one thing as a word by itself, but when you put it together with another word, it starts to define that other word in ways that become somehow undefineable. Healthy is another word that does that. Junk is another. If we just keep 'eating' and 'food' defined as they are, without throwing a bunch of kitschy bull in with them, we all know what we mean and just eat and leave the whole mess alone.
Or, we could just let people be who they are and talk as they like without trying to force them into a predefined mold.
Who doesn't know what "junk" is? Junk is something we all have but don't want too much of. Whether it's junk in your attic, your closet or your diet. We all have junk we just can't seem to let go of, but no one wants too much junk around. It's doesn't really matter if I think X is junk and you think X is not junk. One man's junk is another man's treasure.
Problem being when trying to help new people who are struggling, they are vilifying their own food, and that's not a healthy mindset. It leads to disordered thinking and possibly eating. If we can catch people right at the start, and help them understand that it's not the food that's the problem, it's how they think and eat, we've solved so much. Labeling is something to avoid. Food is just food and we can skip labeling it. Look at how many threads in this very forum devolve into arguments and the original point gets lost because of food labeling. That's a terrible thing.
for example, lets take something that most would agree is "junk". A white flour biscuit. As far as calories go, you have wheat and fat, and next to no micronutrition and almost no fiber.
Lets say the biscuit is a quite large at about 600 calories.
For someone who is only taking in about 1500 calories, that's a pretty high % of the diet that is now filled with "junk". Probably not the best choice for this person as it will now be harder to get adequate nutrition out of food that is palatable in 900 calories.
But, take a larger man doing lots of exercise in a day who may eat 3500-4000 calories to maintain their weight. Suddenly that biscuit could be seen as beneficial, because if the rest of the diet is whole food, you have 600 calories of easily accessible calories that doesn't overly bulk up the rest of the diet, as this person likely would eat plenty of healthy calories in the 3000ish left.
Suddenly what was "junk" put in context becomes beneficial.
That is the first time I have ever seen a white flour biscuit (homemade or otherwise) classified as "junk", and this is the perfect example of something @lemurcat12 is pointing out. You are saying we can all agree this is "junk". What about that would anyone ever think is junk, let alone the majority of people? A homemade biscuit? A delicious vehicle for butter, jam, honey, or gravy? Junk?
I will admit that things like a bag of doritos or something like that has a more universally accepted classification of junk, even though I don't classify them that way I understand when someone else labels doritos as junk. But a biscuit?
The term junk food is a great one - it saves me time having to list all the foods I am choosing to limit in my diet.
Biscuits, jam and honey are all junk food.
I don't avoid them, but they are limited and do not make up the main part of my diet.
It's all about being efficient - in this instance I am able to use two words instead of four!
Don't you think it's confusing to use a term that means entirely different things to different people? Someone will say they are limiting "junk food" and mean bacon, you will say that and mean homemade whole-grain bread.
I don't find the term junk food bothersome, but it is slightly annoying that there's not a better common definition. As WinoGelato said, I generally assume Doritos are included or a Twinkie, and often fast food (even if it has protein) or bacon (same), and I guess homemade sweets, but I wouldn't have assumed homemade starch courses, even when relatively low in nutrients. And someone just yesterday insisted that potatoes were in this category. If someone told me they didn't eat meat, I'd know not to have lamb when they come over for dinner, but if someone says they avoid "junk food," I would not know to leave out the roasted potatoes. (Which I consider nutritious, for the record.)
Who would classify 'bacon' as junk food??????
The US government claims it's a major contributor of "empty calories." The same argument was used here to defend a claim that "pizza" is always junk food. Therefore, the USA.
Joking aside, I think it fits the definition as well as many things called "junk food."
Yep it probably does classify as that for many people. I would add to my list: Rice, Pasta, Bread, Mash Potato.
Rice isn't the enemy - no-one is saying it is.
Possibly that's the problem! Just because I don't rate somethings as being beneficial to my diet I don't immediately think of it as destructive.
I don't watch 'The Voice' on TV, but I don't hate the program.
It's okay for things to be thought of a neutral.
Why isn't it okay for things to be thought of as bad? Bad doesn't make something the enemy. I think Doritos are delicious but I still think of them as a bad food. That doesn't make them an enemy. It makes them a food I don't eat often. I don't like a lot of bad in my life. I like to eat mostly good food.
That's my issue. There is no reason to think of them as bad so what's the point of labeling them that? How about a starving child in a random country who hasn't had food in 3 days. Are those Doritos bad for him when compared to starvation? That's an extreme obviously, but it makes my point on why it's ridiculous to arbitrarily label something "bad".
I'm not labeling them for a starving child, I'm labeling them for me. I don't think what I choose to call food has any global ramifications. And my label isn't arbirtrary.0 -
Deep down everyone loves the bad boys of food.Need2Exerc1se wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »
Rice? Rice isn't the enemy. Look at Uncle Ben. He's not giving you junk.tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »accidentalpancake wrote: »Organic food is designated organic based on growing practices; if you see something labeled "organic" in the grocery store, it means that it has met certain standards to have that label (although you should check what the standards are for the label, your definition of "organic" could be different from what the actual law states as acceptable practices and limits).
Clean eating is not a designation, but an eating style. People's definitions of the term vary, however the most general definition would probably be "a diet with an emphasis of whole or minimally-processed foods, which minimizes or avoids heavily-processed or prepackaged convenience foods." That seems to be the most frequent explanation I've seen clean eaters have in common, and even that general definition is tweaked based on the individual. Each person seems to have their own comfort levels in regards to foods, levels of processing, and frequency of consumption. If someone asked for clean eating recipes, I would probably ask them to clarify the specifics of their diet, just like I would a vegetarian, simply because there seems to be a myriad of different styles within that umbrella term (much like there is with vegetarians).
If you're interested in learning more about clean eating, there's a pretty active group here on MFP, they would probably be a good resource to explain that way of eating and what different individuals include in their diet.
This.
Ignore the ridiculous statements about clean eating as a moral position. That has to do with the insecurity of the offended parties and nothing to do with food...
and this would be how "religious" level arguments get perpetuated. The dumbest thing about all these threads is that we end up agreeing that eating mostly nutritious food, with care for the overall nutrition in the diet is what matters most, and NOT "good or bad" in the individual foods that make up the diet.
But it's just personal vocabulary preference. "mostly nutritious food" implies that other food is not nutritious. Some people (including me) choose to call the not nutritious stuff bad or junk. So what?
If I want to say I need to clean up my diet and quit eating so much junk, that's my biz. It has nothing at all to do with you or religion or morality. It's just the way I choose to talk. It's a big world man. People don't all use the same phrases.
Exactly. That's the problem with using these bland phrases that don't have a defined meaning to everyone. People ask, over and over, what they mean, and everyone argues about it. Clean means one thing as a word by itself, but when you put it together with another word, it starts to define that other word in ways that become somehow undefineable. Healthy is another word that does that. Junk is another. If we just keep 'eating' and 'food' defined as they are, without throwing a bunch of kitschy bull in with them, we all know what we mean and just eat and leave the whole mess alone.
Or, we could just let people be who they are and talk as they like without trying to force them into a predefined mold.
Who doesn't know what "junk" is? Junk is something we all have but don't want too much of. Whether it's junk in your attic, your closet or your diet. We all have junk we just can't seem to let go of, but no one wants too much junk around. It's doesn't really matter if I think X is junk and you think X is not junk. One man's junk is another man's treasure.
Problem being when trying to help new people who are struggling, they are vilifying their own food, and that's not a healthy mindset. It leads to disordered thinking and possibly eating. If we can catch people right at the start, and help them understand that it's not the food that's the problem, it's how they think and eat, we've solved so much. Labeling is something to avoid. Food is just food and we can skip labeling it. Look at how many threads in this very forum devolve into arguments and the original point gets lost because of food labeling. That's a terrible thing.
for example, lets take something that most would agree is "junk". A white flour biscuit. As far as calories go, you have wheat and fat, and next to no micronutrition and almost no fiber.
Lets say the biscuit is a quite large at about 600 calories.
For someone who is only taking in about 1500 calories, that's a pretty high % of the diet that is now filled with "junk". Probably not the best choice for this person as it will now be harder to get adequate nutrition out of food that is palatable in 900 calories.
But, take a larger man doing lots of exercise in a day who may eat 3500-4000 calories to maintain their weight. Suddenly that biscuit could be seen as beneficial, because if the rest of the diet is whole food, you have 600 calories of easily accessible calories that doesn't overly bulk up the rest of the diet, as this person likely would eat plenty of healthy calories in the 3000ish left.
Suddenly what was "junk" put in context becomes beneficial.
That is the first time I have ever seen a white flour biscuit (homemade or otherwise) classified as "junk", and this is the perfect example of something @lemurcat12 is pointing out. You are saying we can all agree this is "junk". What about that would anyone ever think is junk, let alone the majority of people? A homemade biscuit? A delicious vehicle for butter, jam, honey, or gravy? Junk?
I will admit that things like a bag of doritos or something like that has a more universally accepted classification of junk, even though I don't classify them that way I understand when someone else labels doritos as junk. But a biscuit?
The term junk food is a great one - it saves me time having to list all the foods I am choosing to limit in my diet.
Biscuits, jam and honey are all junk food.
I don't avoid them, but they are limited and do not make up the main part of my diet.
It's all about being efficient - in this instance I am able to use two words instead of four!
Don't you think it's confusing to use a term that means entirely different things to different people? Someone will say they are limiting "junk food" and mean bacon, you will say that and mean homemade whole-grain bread.
I don't find the term junk food bothersome, but it is slightly annoying that there's not a better common definition. As WinoGelato said, I generally assume Doritos are included or a Twinkie, and often fast food (even if it has protein) or bacon (same), and I guess homemade sweets, but I wouldn't have assumed homemade starch courses, even when relatively low in nutrients. And someone just yesterday insisted that potatoes were in this category. If someone told me they didn't eat meat, I'd know not to have lamb when they come over for dinner, but if someone says they avoid "junk food," I would not know to leave out the roasted potatoes. (Which I consider nutritious, for the record.)
Who would classify 'bacon' as junk food??????
The US government claims it's a major contributor of "empty calories." The same argument was used here to defend a claim that "pizza" is always junk food. Therefore, the USA.
Joking aside, I think it fits the definition as well as many things called "junk food."
Yep it probably does classify as that for many people. I would add to my list: Rice, Pasta, Bread, Mash Potato.
Rice isn't the enemy - no-one is saying it is.
Possibly that's the problem! Just because I don't rate somethings as being beneficial to my diet I don't immediately think of it as destructive.
I don't watch 'The Voice' on TV, but I don't hate the program.
It's okay for things to be thought of a neutral.
Why isn't it okay for things to be thought of as bad? Bad doesn't make something the enemy. I think Doritos are delicious but I still think of them as a bad food. That doesn't make them an enemy. It makes them a food I don't eat often. I don't like a lot of bad in my life. I like to eat mostly good food.
True that! ::laugh::0 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »
Rice? Rice isn't the enemy. Look at Uncle Ben. He's not giving you junk.tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »accidentalpancake wrote: »Organic food is designated organic based on growing practices; if you see something labeled "organic" in the grocery store, it means that it has met certain standards to have that label (although you should check what the standards are for the label, your definition of "organic" could be different from what the actual law states as acceptable practices and limits).
Clean eating is not a designation, but an eating style. People's definitions of the term vary, however the most general definition would probably be "a diet with an emphasis of whole or minimally-processed foods, which minimizes or avoids heavily-processed or prepackaged convenience foods." That seems to be the most frequent explanation I've seen clean eaters have in common, and even that general definition is tweaked based on the individual. Each person seems to have their own comfort levels in regards to foods, levels of processing, and frequency of consumption. If someone asked for clean eating recipes, I would probably ask them to clarify the specifics of their diet, just like I would a vegetarian, simply because there seems to be a myriad of different styles within that umbrella term (much like there is with vegetarians).
If you're interested in learning more about clean eating, there's a pretty active group here on MFP, they would probably be a good resource to explain that way of eating and what different individuals include in their diet.
This.
Ignore the ridiculous statements about clean eating as a moral position. That has to do with the insecurity of the offended parties and nothing to do with food...
and this would be how "religious" level arguments get perpetuated. The dumbest thing about all these threads is that we end up agreeing that eating mostly nutritious food, with care for the overall nutrition in the diet is what matters most, and NOT "good or bad" in the individual foods that make up the diet.
But it's just personal vocabulary preference. "mostly nutritious food" implies that other food is not nutritious. Some people (including me) choose to call the not nutritious stuff bad or junk. So what?
If I want to say I need to clean up my diet and quit eating so much junk, that's my biz. It has nothing at all to do with you or religion or morality. It's just the way I choose to talk. It's a big world man. People don't all use the same phrases.
Exactly. That's the problem with using these bland phrases that don't have a defined meaning to everyone. People ask, over and over, what they mean, and everyone argues about it. Clean means one thing as a word by itself, but when you put it together with another word, it starts to define that other word in ways that become somehow undefineable. Healthy is another word that does that. Junk is another. If we just keep 'eating' and 'food' defined as they are, without throwing a bunch of kitschy bull in with them, we all know what we mean and just eat and leave the whole mess alone.
Or, we could just let people be who they are and talk as they like without trying to force them into a predefined mold.
Who doesn't know what "junk" is? Junk is something we all have but don't want too much of. Whether it's junk in your attic, your closet or your diet. We all have junk we just can't seem to let go of, but no one wants too much junk around. It's doesn't really matter if I think X is junk and you think X is not junk. One man's junk is another man's treasure.
Problem being when trying to help new people who are struggling, they are vilifying their own food, and that's not a healthy mindset. It leads to disordered thinking and possibly eating. If we can catch people right at the start, and help them understand that it's not the food that's the problem, it's how they think and eat, we've solved so much. Labeling is something to avoid. Food is just food and we can skip labeling it. Look at how many threads in this very forum devolve into arguments and the original point gets lost because of food labeling. That's a terrible thing.
for example, lets take something that most would agree is "junk". A white flour biscuit. As far as calories go, you have wheat and fat, and next to no micronutrition and almost no fiber.
Lets say the biscuit is a quite large at about 600 calories.
For someone who is only taking in about 1500 calories, that's a pretty high % of the diet that is now filled with "junk". Probably not the best choice for this person as it will now be harder to get adequate nutrition out of food that is palatable in 900 calories.
But, take a larger man doing lots of exercise in a day who may eat 3500-4000 calories to maintain their weight. Suddenly that biscuit could be seen as beneficial, because if the rest of the diet is whole food, you have 600 calories of easily accessible calories that doesn't overly bulk up the rest of the diet, as this person likely would eat plenty of healthy calories in the 3000ish left.
Suddenly what was "junk" put in context becomes beneficial.
That is the first time I have ever seen a white flour biscuit (homemade or otherwise) classified as "junk", and this is the perfect example of something @lemurcat12 is pointing out. You are saying we can all agree this is "junk". What about that would anyone ever think is junk, let alone the majority of people? A homemade biscuit? A delicious vehicle for butter, jam, honey, or gravy? Junk?
I will admit that things like a bag of doritos or something like that has a more universally accepted classification of junk, even though I don't classify them that way I understand when someone else labels doritos as junk. But a biscuit?
The term junk food is a great one - it saves me time having to list all the foods I am choosing to limit in my diet.
Biscuits, jam and honey are all junk food.
I don't avoid them, but they are limited and do not make up the main part of my diet.
It's all about being efficient - in this instance I am able to use two words instead of four!
Don't you think it's confusing to use a term that means entirely different things to different people? Someone will say they are limiting "junk food" and mean bacon, you will say that and mean homemade whole-grain bread.
I don't find the term junk food bothersome, but it is slightly annoying that there's not a better common definition. As WinoGelato said, I generally assume Doritos are included or a Twinkie, and often fast food (even if it has protein) or bacon (same), and I guess homemade sweets, but I wouldn't have assumed homemade starch courses, even when relatively low in nutrients. And someone just yesterday insisted that potatoes were in this category. If someone told me they didn't eat meat, I'd know not to have lamb when they come over for dinner, but if someone says they avoid "junk food," I would not know to leave out the roasted potatoes. (Which I consider nutritious, for the record.)
Who would classify 'bacon' as junk food??????
The US government claims it's a major contributor of "empty calories." The same argument was used here to defend a claim that "pizza" is always junk food. Therefore, the USA.
Joking aside, I think it fits the definition as well as many things called "junk food."
Yep it probably does classify as that for many people. I would add to my list: Rice, Pasta, Bread, Mash Potato.
Rice isn't the enemy - no-one is saying it is.
Possibly that's the problem! Just because I don't rate somethings as being beneficial to my diet I don't immediately think of it as destructive.
I don't watch 'The Voice' on TV, but I don't hate the program.
It's okay for things to be thought of a neutral.
Why isn't it okay for things to be thought of as bad? Bad doesn't make something the enemy. I think Doritos are delicious but I still think of them as a bad food. That doesn't make them an enemy. It makes them a food I don't eat often. I don't like a lot of bad in my life. I like to eat mostly good food.
That's my issue. There is no reason to think of them as bad so what's the point of labeling them that? How about a starving child in a random country who hasn't had food in 3 days. Are those Doritos bad for him when compared to starvation? That's an extreme obviously, but it makes my point on why it's ridiculous to arbitrarily label something "bad".
I'm not labeling them for a starving child, I'm labeling them for me. I don't think what I choose to call food has any global ramifications. And my label isn't arbirtrary.
but it immediately becomes more than internal as soon as one posts their opinion in a public forum.0 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »
Rice? Rice isn't the enemy. Look at Uncle Ben. He's not giving you junk.tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »accidentalpancake wrote: »Organic food is designated organic based on growing practices; if you see something labeled "organic" in the grocery store, it means that it has met certain standards to have that label (although you should check what the standards are for the label, your definition of "organic" could be different from what the actual law states as acceptable practices and limits).
Clean eating is not a designation, but an eating style. People's definitions of the term vary, however the most general definition would probably be "a diet with an emphasis of whole or minimally-processed foods, which minimizes or avoids heavily-processed or prepackaged convenience foods." That seems to be the most frequent explanation I've seen clean eaters have in common, and even that general definition is tweaked based on the individual. Each person seems to have their own comfort levels in regards to foods, levels of processing, and frequency of consumption. If someone asked for clean eating recipes, I would probably ask them to clarify the specifics of their diet, just like I would a vegetarian, simply because there seems to be a myriad of different styles within that umbrella term (much like there is with vegetarians).
If you're interested in learning more about clean eating, there's a pretty active group here on MFP, they would probably be a good resource to explain that way of eating and what different individuals include in their diet.
This.
Ignore the ridiculous statements about clean eating as a moral position. That has to do with the insecurity of the offended parties and nothing to do with food...
and this would be how "religious" level arguments get perpetuated. The dumbest thing about all these threads is that we end up agreeing that eating mostly nutritious food, with care for the overall nutrition in the diet is what matters most, and NOT "good or bad" in the individual foods that make up the diet.
But it's just personal vocabulary preference. "mostly nutritious food" implies that other food is not nutritious. Some people (including me) choose to call the not nutritious stuff bad or junk. So what?
If I want to say I need to clean up my diet and quit eating so much junk, that's my biz. It has nothing at all to do with you or religion or morality. It's just the way I choose to talk. It's a big world man. People don't all use the same phrases.
Exactly. That's the problem with using these bland phrases that don't have a defined meaning to everyone. People ask, over and over, what they mean, and everyone argues about it. Clean means one thing as a word by itself, but when you put it together with another word, it starts to define that other word in ways that become somehow undefineable. Healthy is another word that does that. Junk is another. If we just keep 'eating' and 'food' defined as they are, without throwing a bunch of kitschy bull in with them, we all know what we mean and just eat and leave the whole mess alone.
Or, we could just let people be who they are and talk as they like without trying to force them into a predefined mold.
Who doesn't know what "junk" is? Junk is something we all have but don't want too much of. Whether it's junk in your attic, your closet or your diet. We all have junk we just can't seem to let go of, but no one wants too much junk around. It's doesn't really matter if I think X is junk and you think X is not junk. One man's junk is another man's treasure.
Problem being when trying to help new people who are struggling, they are vilifying their own food, and that's not a healthy mindset. It leads to disordered thinking and possibly eating. If we can catch people right at the start, and help them understand that it's not the food that's the problem, it's how they think and eat, we've solved so much. Labeling is something to avoid. Food is just food and we can skip labeling it. Look at how many threads in this very forum devolve into arguments and the original point gets lost because of food labeling. That's a terrible thing.
for example, lets take something that most would agree is "junk". A white flour biscuit. As far as calories go, you have wheat and fat, and next to no micronutrition and almost no fiber.
Lets say the biscuit is a quite large at about 600 calories.
For someone who is only taking in about 1500 calories, that's a pretty high % of the diet that is now filled with "junk". Probably not the best choice for this person as it will now be harder to get adequate nutrition out of food that is palatable in 900 calories.
But, take a larger man doing lots of exercise in a day who may eat 3500-4000 calories to maintain their weight. Suddenly that biscuit could be seen as beneficial, because if the rest of the diet is whole food, you have 600 calories of easily accessible calories that doesn't overly bulk up the rest of the diet, as this person likely would eat plenty of healthy calories in the 3000ish left.
Suddenly what was "junk" put in context becomes beneficial.
That is the first time I have ever seen a white flour biscuit (homemade or otherwise) classified as "junk", and this is the perfect example of something @lemurcat12 is pointing out. You are saying we can all agree this is "junk". What about that would anyone ever think is junk, let alone the majority of people? A homemade biscuit? A delicious vehicle for butter, jam, honey, or gravy? Junk?
I will admit that things like a bag of doritos or something like that has a more universally accepted classification of junk, even though I don't classify them that way I understand when someone else labels doritos as junk. But a biscuit?
The term junk food is a great one - it saves me time having to list all the foods I am choosing to limit in my diet.
Biscuits, jam and honey are all junk food.
I don't avoid them, but they are limited and do not make up the main part of my diet.
It's all about being efficient - in this instance I am able to use two words instead of four!
Don't you think it's confusing to use a term that means entirely different things to different people? Someone will say they are limiting "junk food" and mean bacon, you will say that and mean homemade whole-grain bread.
I don't find the term junk food bothersome, but it is slightly annoying that there's not a better common definition. As WinoGelato said, I generally assume Doritos are included or a Twinkie, and often fast food (even if it has protein) or bacon (same), and I guess homemade sweets, but I wouldn't have assumed homemade starch courses, even when relatively low in nutrients. And someone just yesterday insisted that potatoes were in this category. If someone told me they didn't eat meat, I'd know not to have lamb when they come over for dinner, but if someone says they avoid "junk food," I would not know to leave out the roasted potatoes. (Which I consider nutritious, for the record.)
Who would classify 'bacon' as junk food??????
The US government claims it's a major contributor of "empty calories." The same argument was used here to defend a claim that "pizza" is always junk food. Therefore, the USA.
Joking aside, I think it fits the definition as well as many things called "junk food."
Yep it probably does classify as that for many people. I would add to my list: Rice, Pasta, Bread, Mash Potato.
Rice isn't the enemy - no-one is saying it is.
Possibly that's the problem! Just because I don't rate somethings as being beneficial to my diet I don't immediately think of it as destructive.
I don't watch 'The Voice' on TV, but I don't hate the program.
It's okay for things to be thought of a neutral.
Why isn't it okay for things to be thought of as bad? Bad doesn't make something the enemy. I think Doritos are delicious but I still think of them as a bad food. That doesn't make them an enemy. It makes them a food I don't eat often. I don't like a lot of bad in my life. I like to eat mostly good food.
That's my issue. There is no reason to think of them as bad so what's the point of labeling them that? How about a starving child in a random country who hasn't had food in 3 days. Are those Doritos bad for him when compared to starvation? That's an extreme obviously, but it makes my point on why it's ridiculous to arbitrarily label something "bad".
I'm not labeling them for a starving child, I'm labeling them for me. I don't think what I choose to call food has any global ramifications. And my label isn't arbirtrary.
Right, people can label all they want for themselves, but the minute it comes on to a public forum, it is no longer only about you. I'm not a fan of GM cars cause I've had some bad luck. That doesn't mean that I think all GM cars in all situations are "bad". They just didn't work for me. So if I was on a GM forum, I would give my story, but wouldn't insist to the entire forum that they are "bad". That's what happens here. People don't just give their story...they argue that stuff is "bad".
0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »ceoverturf wrote: »No one cares what any one of us chooses to eat or not to eat personally. Frankly, none of us are that interesting to the group as a whole.
People DO tend to care when people preach what other people MUST eat or (more commonly) MUST NOT eat.
Why this seems to constantly be a mystery to other long-time posters of this board baffles me.
Yep I find it annoying when people preach that others MUST eat in moderation and MUST NOT limit carbs, especially when the OP has expressed an interest in eating a way that is not 'portion restricted'!
Has anyone here (as in involved with this thread) done that?
Personally, I have NEVER said that anyone else must eat in moderation or must not limit carbs. (In that I've limited carbs from time to time -- and still will turn them down to meet my protein or fat goals or my calorie goal -- and don't eat certain foods (although I generally don't want them either), that would be awfully hypocritical, and hypocrisy is one of the things I'm arguing against here. Specifically, the hypocrisy of someone who eats processed foods preaching to others about how all processed foods are bad.)
Actually most of the threads I've read are where the OP explains how bad they believe processed food to be and that is why 'THEY' are limiting or avoiding them.
We must be reading different threads, as almost all either have an OP giving general rules that say WE ALL should limit processed foods or complaining that others here aren't as focused on nutrition since they eat BAD foods.
Sometimes OP seems worried about how to cut out foods and there I think it's worth seeing if she really wants to or has just read that one must to lose weight. Quite often these OP's are happy to learn they don't have to, and others have been successful without.
And more often than not the OP asks an innocuous question and gets helpful responses and then someone swoops in and tells her that she MUST cut out sugar or fruit or carbs or processed foods. Those are the ones that I seem to end up in most often lately.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10235669/clean-eating
- asking if anyone would like to join her (not saying they have to or even need to)
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10246844/transition-to-clean-eating-with-a-family-involved
- again not telling anyone to clean eat. She is asking for clean eating advice
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10191201/clean-eating
- just asking for advice.
I did a quick search on Clean Eating for the forum and these are three examples from the last couple of months. Couldn't find any that told anyone else they should be clean eating.
Maybe you can share the links if you can find them.0 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »
Rice? Rice isn't the enemy. Look at Uncle Ben. He's not giving you junk.tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »accidentalpancake wrote: »Organic food is designated organic based on growing practices; if you see something labeled "organic" in the grocery store, it means that it has met certain standards to have that label (although you should check what the standards are for the label, your definition of "organic" could be different from what the actual law states as acceptable practices and limits).
Clean eating is not a designation, but an eating style. People's definitions of the term vary, however the most general definition would probably be "a diet with an emphasis of whole or minimally-processed foods, which minimizes or avoids heavily-processed or prepackaged convenience foods." That seems to be the most frequent explanation I've seen clean eaters have in common, and even that general definition is tweaked based on the individual. Each person seems to have their own comfort levels in regards to foods, levels of processing, and frequency of consumption. If someone asked for clean eating recipes, I would probably ask them to clarify the specifics of their diet, just like I would a vegetarian, simply because there seems to be a myriad of different styles within that umbrella term (much like there is with vegetarians).
If you're interested in learning more about clean eating, there's a pretty active group here on MFP, they would probably be a good resource to explain that way of eating and what different individuals include in their diet.
This.
Ignore the ridiculous statements about clean eating as a moral position. That has to do with the insecurity of the offended parties and nothing to do with food...
and this would be how "religious" level arguments get perpetuated. The dumbest thing about all these threads is that we end up agreeing that eating mostly nutritious food, with care for the overall nutrition in the diet is what matters most, and NOT "good or bad" in the individual foods that make up the diet.
But it's just personal vocabulary preference. "mostly nutritious food" implies that other food is not nutritious. Some people (including me) choose to call the not nutritious stuff bad or junk. So what?
If I want to say I need to clean up my diet and quit eating so much junk, that's my biz. It has nothing at all to do with you or religion or morality. It's just the way I choose to talk. It's a big world man. People don't all use the same phrases.
Exactly. That's the problem with using these bland phrases that don't have a defined meaning to everyone. People ask, over and over, what they mean, and everyone argues about it. Clean means one thing as a word by itself, but when you put it together with another word, it starts to define that other word in ways that become somehow undefineable. Healthy is another word that does that. Junk is another. If we just keep 'eating' and 'food' defined as they are, without throwing a bunch of kitschy bull in with them, we all know what we mean and just eat and leave the whole mess alone.
Or, we could just let people be who they are and talk as they like without trying to force them into a predefined mold.
Who doesn't know what "junk" is? Junk is something we all have but don't want too much of. Whether it's junk in your attic, your closet or your diet. We all have junk we just can't seem to let go of, but no one wants too much junk around. It's doesn't really matter if I think X is junk and you think X is not junk. One man's junk is another man's treasure.
Problem being when trying to help new people who are struggling, they are vilifying their own food, and that's not a healthy mindset. It leads to disordered thinking and possibly eating. If we can catch people right at the start, and help them understand that it's not the food that's the problem, it's how they think and eat, we've solved so much. Labeling is something to avoid. Food is just food and we can skip labeling it. Look at how many threads in this very forum devolve into arguments and the original point gets lost because of food labeling. That's a terrible thing.
for example, lets take something that most would agree is "junk". A white flour biscuit. As far as calories go, you have wheat and fat, and next to no micronutrition and almost no fiber.
Lets say the biscuit is a quite large at about 600 calories.
For someone who is only taking in about 1500 calories, that's a pretty high % of the diet that is now filled with "junk". Probably not the best choice for this person as it will now be harder to get adequate nutrition out of food that is palatable in 900 calories.
But, take a larger man doing lots of exercise in a day who may eat 3500-4000 calories to maintain their weight. Suddenly that biscuit could be seen as beneficial, because if the rest of the diet is whole food, you have 600 calories of easily accessible calories that doesn't overly bulk up the rest of the diet, as this person likely would eat plenty of healthy calories in the 3000ish left.
Suddenly what was "junk" put in context becomes beneficial.
That is the first time I have ever seen a white flour biscuit (homemade or otherwise) classified as "junk", and this is the perfect example of something @lemurcat12 is pointing out. You are saying we can all agree this is "junk". What about that would anyone ever think is junk, let alone the majority of people? A homemade biscuit? A delicious vehicle for butter, jam, honey, or gravy? Junk?
I will admit that things like a bag of doritos or something like that has a more universally accepted classification of junk, even though I don't classify them that way I understand when someone else labels doritos as junk. But a biscuit?
The term junk food is a great one - it saves me time having to list all the foods I am choosing to limit in my diet.
Biscuits, jam and honey are all junk food.
I don't avoid them, but they are limited and do not make up the main part of my diet.
It's all about being efficient - in this instance I am able to use two words instead of four!
Don't you think it's confusing to use a term that means entirely different things to different people? Someone will say they are limiting "junk food" and mean bacon, you will say that and mean homemade whole-grain bread.
I don't find the term junk food bothersome, but it is slightly annoying that there's not a better common definition. As WinoGelato said, I generally assume Doritos are included or a Twinkie, and often fast food (even if it has protein) or bacon (same), and I guess homemade sweets, but I wouldn't have assumed homemade starch courses, even when relatively low in nutrients. And someone just yesterday insisted that potatoes were in this category. If someone told me they didn't eat meat, I'd know not to have lamb when they come over for dinner, but if someone says they avoid "junk food," I would not know to leave out the roasted potatoes. (Which I consider nutritious, for the record.)
Who would classify 'bacon' as junk food??????
The US government claims it's a major contributor of "empty calories." The same argument was used here to defend a claim that "pizza" is always junk food. Therefore, the USA.
Joking aside, I think it fits the definition as well as many things called "junk food."
Yep it probably does classify as that for many people. I would add to my list: Rice, Pasta, Bread, Mash Potato.
Rice isn't the enemy - no-one is saying it is.
Possibly that's the problem! Just because I don't rate somethings as being beneficial to my diet I don't immediately think of it as destructive.
I don't watch 'The Voice' on TV, but I don't hate the program.
It's okay for things to be thought of a neutral.
Why isn't it okay for things to be thought of as bad? Bad doesn't make something the enemy. I think Doritos are delicious but I still think of them as a bad food. That doesn't make them an enemy. It makes them a food I don't eat often. I don't like a lot of bad in my life. I like to eat mostly good food.
That's my issue. There is no reason to think of them as bad so what's the point of labeling them that? How about a starving child in a random country who hasn't had food in 3 days. Are those Doritos bad for him when compared to starvation? That's an extreme obviously, but it makes my point on why it's ridiculous to arbitrarily label something "bad".
I'm not labeling them for a starving child, I'm labeling them for me. I don't think what I choose to call food has any global ramifications. And my label isn't arbirtrary.
but it immediately becomes more than internal as soon as one posts their opinion in a public forum.
Sorry, not sure what your point is. Do you think there are starving children on here that will offended. Or that someone will let a child starve because all they have to offer is a Dorito and I called them bad? How is my personal label impacting the world once I post it here?0
This discussion has been closed.
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