What is clean eating?

FunkyTobias

Annie_01 wrote: »

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stevencloser wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

I mentioned it before but people historically have broadened the range of foods we can eat by modifying them.

• Quinoa must be washed to remove the soapy layer
• Grains ground to flour have vastly extended our culinary repertoire.
• Lupins fascinate me because like soy, they have all the macros in nearly equal balance. But they must be washed for about twenty-four hours to remove the natural toxins. This used to be done by leaving the beans in a clear running stream.
• Talk about soy beans! They've been modified through fermentation (soy sauce), or leaching (soy milk) then coagulating using gypsum (tofu).

Whole, natural and clean all sound good but it's virtually impossible to peg a definition to them. It sure comes in handy to put those words on a label, though.

Annoying when found on a label, like the Quaker chocolate muffin mix I made yesterday. It advertises, "no trans fats" which is pretty easy to do if the householder has to add their own fat. And not a word about gluten. Because gluten-free muffins, well, yukky.

If we interpret washing food as processing it, the conversation has been rendered comical.

These discussions always hit the wall because one side grabs a hold of the concept, interprets it as an absolute, gouges holes in its practical application, and dismisses it as a failure. "Clean eating" is a set of theories and aspirations, it isn't a fanatical set of sharia-type laws against all that is processed.

So the fact that processed food like protein powder, ground flour, soy beans, or Chipotle find its way into my diet isn't blasphemy or a concession that clean eating is a flawed concept, it is just a realistic understanding that the world isn't a clean eating Garden of Eden type of Utopia and that most us don't have the time or the inclination to completely (or even mostly) reject the industrialized food products that we are conveniently inundated with.

We've had many a clean eater here who's treated it like that though.
"you [people who don't eat 100% clean] obviously don't care about your health/performance/body composition"
"Processed food is full of toxins"
"They put additives in them to make you addicted"
"Processed food is the reason for obesity"
"Processed food is the reason for cancer/diabetes"
etc. all been said.

Every group of people has its fanatics...even those that believe in eating everything in moderation.

"Moderation fanatic " makes about as much sense as "militant agnostic "

janejellyroll

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

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janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

@nikkimendez666 if you have followed the thread you must know your answer is full of holes. What is a "whole food"?

Eggs are whole but aren't plant-based.
I imagine you'll allow grains and nuts to be shelled and hulled. How about grinding for flour? Is that much processing allowed in your plan?
How about pressing olives for their oil?
Drying grapes in to raisins?

If you eat only unprocessed "whole foods" could you eat a meal of hemp seeds, raisins, and broccoli as long as they weren't mixed together?

I don't think people consider applying physical force (crushing, mixing, shucking, grinding, pressing, etc.) to food as unacceptable processing, at least that is my interpretation. Unwanted processing to me is industrially injecting / mixing / treating food with chemicals to make them more profitable for corporations, ie, food coloring, preservatives mixed in a test tube, steroids, anti-biotics, hormones, etc., that don't add to the nutritional value of the food.

Aye, there's the rub, isn't it? We are dealing with many interpretations for the same idea. Hence my Venn diagram. Your use is dastardly difficult to define, as one must speak to motive.

What if a farmer's wife is doctoring her family's food in order to extend it's shelf-life, and thereby save the family money? The additives in her arsenal include salt, sugar, vinegar, gelatin, and pectin. If she mixes these ingredients in a bowl instead of a test-tube, does her final product become "clean"?

Take the lowly pickle. It has at least three of the preservatives mentioned above. None of the processing adds to the food's nutritional value; all it does is extend the shelf-life of the cucumber, saving the family money. Is a pickle dirty?

Yes, it is tricky. Maybe the line is drawn between the processing that is inherent in the creation of the food, like a pickle, and the processing that is just a corporate strategy by companies that industrially create and distribute foods to increase profitability.

So perhaps it is analyzing what ingredients / processes that are required to make a pickle and balancing those against what ingredients / processes a company uses to mass produce pickles in an effort to minimize the cost of processing and maximize the product's shelf life. In most cases I would rather eat a home processed pickle from the farmer's wife's fridge that she grew and canned herself than one from the jar that rolled off the assembly line at Vlasic. The addition of Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80 are not there to benefit my nutrition.

Home cooks frequently add ingredients that aren't there to benefit the nutritional value of the food. I'm not sure why a company doing this is worse or less "clean" than a home cook doing it.

I agree, taste is as big or a bigger priority than nutrition for a lot of people. That still doesn’t sell me on consuming Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80.

lemurcat12 wrote: »

I'm not against reading labels and learning about ingredients if one is unsure what they are/why they are there, but this is actually related to why I don't like the clean eating thing. Back when I was over-neurotic about food (from my current perspective), I'd do things like refuse to eat pickles unless I made them myself, but the truth is that my lifestyle is such that it's something of a hassle to make pickles (but yay for those of you who make them regularly, I always mean to start doing that and canning stuff and so on) and it was kind of silly to avoid eating perfectly good store-bought pickles just because in theory I wanted to be making them myself. It's also silly to feel that logging them is a failure and not living up to some standard.

I realize that for some you don't get all self-judgmental or neurotic about it, and that's great, but I worry that newbies get the message that their eating habits aren't good enough unless they cut out all such foods that really has nothing at all to do with weight loss (or, IMO, health/nutrition) and end up making the perfect the enemy of the good so it all just seems way more hard and time-consuming than it needs to be. Easy healthy or simply improving one's diet is much simpler and need not require a huge investment of time. I can whip up a dinner with lots of vegetables and some lean protein in a snap (and part of why I can do that is that I will live with relying on dried pasta or canned beans from time to time and not see that as some failure or lesser-than option vs what I should be doing).

I agree with all of this. Eating the perfect diet is aspirational, and completely unrealistic (in my life, anyways). I don’t have a jar of pickles made by a farmer’s wife in my fridge, I have Vlasic pickles, and I get my dose of food coloring and emulsifiers accordingly
I would hope that the new people understand the failures that are inherent in attempting to eat a less-processed diet, and not get too discouraged at having to settle for what is readily available.

I'm not trying to sell you on consuming anything you don't want to consume. But I'm asking you what is the distinction between a company adding an ingredient to a food to enhance taste, appearance, or texture and a home cook doing the same? I don't see a meaningful difference.

It is just a preference. Do you want mom's homemade bread with 6-7 ingredients or Subway's with 30+ ingredients? You can go down the list of ingredients that Subway adds and there is a purpose for each one (prolonging the shelf life, firmness, color, texture, etc.), but that doesn't inspire me to choose their bread over the homemade version. (And for the sensitive people out there, I'm not saying you are a bad person for eating at Subway, I have had their bread on countless occasions, so please don't be hurt by my criticism...)

Just to be clear, it's not about being a bad person. It's about priorities and not beating yourself up over dumb things. You can get bread of all sorts from the supermarket (I never buy bread from the supermarket, but just because I don't eat bread at home much and am picky about it) or from restaurants (I'm fond of a sandwich place that is pretty embarrassing in their focus on the the trendy this and that, and I bet their bread doesn't have lots of ingredients, although number of ingredients isn't a focus of mine). So if there are ingredients you'd prefer to avoid or quality differences, I totally get that, but why tell yourself that supermarket bread or bakery bread or whatever is "less clean" or "not clean" (and I still don't get how "less clean" is distinct from dirty). I just don't get that. I am all for eating in an aspirational way -- I have ideas about how I'd like to eat that I don't always live up to -- but I don't get how it helps to tell myself that my meals are clean or not clean or that I eat semi clean or whatever. I try to eat well, to prioritize nutrient dense food and quality and to also enjoy what I eat (which means trying to cook it in a way that makes it taste good).

I don't understand why saying "this meal isn't as clean as I'd like" is much different than "this meal falls short of how I'd like to eat". Sounds like to-may-toes vs. to-mah-toes to me.

Except in the first case the meal could be both not clean and how I'd like eat.

It all comes back to the implication of "clean," and I understand that you cannot see why it bothers some of us when used in the food context.

And again, because in the current commonplace usage, including on MFP, it's not about a continuum, but being either "clean" or not. One can fall short of one's goals for one's diet on a particular day and not conclude "I'm not a healthful eater." If one eats "unclean" foods, presumably one would not be a "clean eater." (Or else, I ask once again, how is being a "clean eater" different from the rest of us who merely try to eat healthful, nutrient-dense meals for the most part such that it is defended as a special, different way of eating that requires special groups and recipes.)

Using my definition the difference would be vocabulary. I do find it amusing that you suggest there is a commonplace usage for the term though. I thought the fact that there is not was the whole point of this thread.

I think the definitions all revolve around "avoiding processed food." People just have weird ideas about what processed means.

Well that's certainly true. I've heard picking vegetables, peeling an apple, cooking, and other silliness listed as examples.

If you're looking at it from a "whole foods" perspective it makes sense why peeling an apple could be considered processing that makes a food less desirable. Removing the peel of the apple removes some of the fiber, so you're actually changing the food. My mom was very into whole foods and when I was growing up, I was taught never to peel foods unless the peel was actually inedible. We never peeled apples or carrots or potatoes.

I have no beef with peeling fruits and vegetables, but I can understand the rationale behind that argument. If nature has packaged a food with certain amounts of fiber and other nutrients and you take some of them away, you no longer have a "whole food" (setting aside the fact that many fruits bear the strong impression of human design in addition to how "nature" created them). I don't think I would call the argument "silly." It's not one I personally use when making food choices, but there is an internal logic there.

I can see how it would make it less whole or less nutritious, but not less natural. The food consumed is unchanged. How would it differ from peeling a banana or orange? Or removing skin from an animal or shell from a nut?

Well, it's possible I've gotten lost in the twists and turns of the conversation, but multiple people in this thread have attempted to define "clean eating" as "eating whole foods."

So my point was that if you are defining "clean eating" as "eating whole foods," then peeling is a potentially relevant form of processing. There is a difference, nutritionally, between eating an apple with the peel and eating the apple without the peel.

I will sometimes see people around the forums say we're "meant" to eat foods in a certain way (as in, don't drink juice because we're "meant" to have the fiber along with the sugar in fruit). That's the logic behind eating the (edible) peels of fruit -- that nature somehow aligned to produce foods that are ideal for the nutritional needs of one species (us) and that we should alter those foods as little as possible.

This kind of thinking seems to be underpinning some of the "eat whole foods" or "processing is undesirable" conversations. So while I disagree, I don't think I would call it "silliness." While I don't agree that we should avoid eating only the parts of the food that we find the most tasty, I don't think it's sillier than some of the other definitions we've seen proposed in this thread (and other threads on "clean eating").

And when you say it doesn't make the food less "natural," I think we are hitting on how "natural" isn't a very useful designation for food. What makes an "apple" natural? That we eat it as it grows (that is, with the peel)? That we eat it in a form that isn't influenced by human choices (that is, wild)? That we eat it only in season? That we eat it only when we have done to work to obtain it ourselves?

Which of these standards do we adopt for "natural"? Why choose one over another?

All good points. I suppose whole would mean eating all edible portions of the food.(?) While I do know people that eat orange peels and peanut shells, let's just put those freaks aside for now. Whole foods still becomes as problematic. Easily as much or more so than 'natural', which I find easier.

Take for example a pumpkin. If you eat the flesh but not the seeds is it not a whole food because the seeds are both edible and nutritious? If you eat broccoli stalks but not the leaves, is that not a whole food? Same for beets or carrots or cauliflower or other vegetables with nutritious edible leaves that are often not consumed.

Is the broccoli not natural because I planted it? Honestly except for sh*ts and giggles on MFP I don't delve into minutiae like that. It seems unnecessary except for wanting to trip someone up.

According to some definitions of "whole food," yeah -- eating just pumpkin flesh or broccoli florets would be making the food less "whole."

You'll often see arguments that we're "supposed" to eat the whole grain or the fat in dairy. I'm not sure why fruits and vegetables would be exempted from this theory.

I would argue that it isn't just your planting it that makes "natural" a pretty meaningless term for the broccoli. There's the whole fact that broccoli wouldn't even exist without human intervention. It's a product of human intervention and decisions just like a Frito. Yeah, they have different nutritional values. But broccoli, like a Frito, doesn't exist in the wild and our consumption of it is pretty far outside any natural order.

I don't think interrogation of the category of "natural" is minutiae. I think it's worth discussing whether it is even a meaningful term.

If I plant a broccoli seed in the right weather and soil conditions nature will take it's course and a vegetable will grow. Not so with a Frito. That's a difference that seems simple and obvious to me.

You're confident that the process that led to the creation of broccoli and the existence of the seed is irrelevant to the question of what "natural" means. I don't share that confidence.

Yeah -- the end result of a recipe will never grow from the ground. Corn will, but a Frito won't. Are you saying that the end result of a recipe is always "unnatural"?

Annie_01

FunkyTobias wrote: »

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Annie_01 wrote: »

stevencloser wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

I mentioned it before but people historically have broadened the range of foods we can eat by modifying them.

• Quinoa must be washed to remove the soapy layer
• Grains ground to flour have vastly extended our culinary repertoire.
• Lupins fascinate me because like soy, they have all the macros in nearly equal balance. But they must be washed for about twenty-four hours to remove the natural toxins. This used to be done by leaving the beans in a clear running stream.
• Talk about soy beans! They've been modified through fermentation (soy sauce), or leaching (soy milk) then coagulating using gypsum (tofu).

Whole, natural and clean all sound good but it's virtually impossible to peg a definition to them. It sure comes in handy to put those words on a label, though.

Annoying when found on a label, like the Quaker chocolate muffin mix I made yesterday. It advertises, "no trans fats" which is pretty easy to do if the householder has to add their own fat. And not a word about gluten. Because gluten-free muffins, well, yukky.

If we interpret washing food as processing it, the conversation has been rendered comical.

These discussions always hit the wall because one side grabs a hold of the concept, interprets it as an absolute, gouges holes in its practical application, and dismisses it as a failure. "Clean eating" is a set of theories and aspirations, it isn't a fanatical set of sharia-type laws against all that is processed.

So the fact that processed food like protein powder, ground flour, soy beans, or Chipotle find its way into my diet isn't blasphemy or a concession that clean eating is a flawed concept, it is just a realistic understanding that the world isn't a clean eating Garden of Eden type of Utopia and that most us don't have the time or the inclination to completely (or even mostly) reject the industrialized food products that we are conveniently inundated with.

We've had many a clean eater here who's treated it like that though.
"you [people who don't eat 100% clean] obviously don't care about your health/performance/body composition"
"Processed food is full of toxins"
"They put additives in them to make you addicted"
"Processed food is the reason for obesity"
"Processed food is the reason for cancer/diabetes"
etc. all been said.

Every group of people has its fanatics...even those that believe in eating everything in moderation.

"Moderation fanatic " makes about as much sense as "militant agnostic "

I was once told by a eat everything in moderation eater...

I cut a certain food item(not an entire food group...just one certain food) out of my diet. I was informed that I had mental issues...an eating disorder...that I would fail despite having already losing 80lbs. IMO...that moderation eater was a fanatic. You might not agree and that is okay.

stevencloser

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

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janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

@nikkimendez666 if you have followed the thread you must know your answer is full of holes. What is a "whole food"?

Eggs are whole but aren't plant-based.
I imagine you'll allow grains and nuts to be shelled and hulled. How about grinding for flour? Is that much processing allowed in your plan?
How about pressing olives for their oil?
Drying grapes in to raisins?

If you eat only unprocessed "whole foods" could you eat a meal of hemp seeds, raisins, and broccoli as long as they weren't mixed together?

I don't think people consider applying physical force (crushing, mixing, shucking, grinding, pressing, etc.) to food as unacceptable processing, at least that is my interpretation. Unwanted processing to me is industrially injecting / mixing / treating food with chemicals to make them more profitable for corporations, ie, food coloring, preservatives mixed in a test tube, steroids, anti-biotics, hormones, etc., that don't add to the nutritional value of the food.

Aye, there's the rub, isn't it? We are dealing with many interpretations for the same idea. Hence my Venn diagram. Your use is dastardly difficult to define, as one must speak to motive.

What if a farmer's wife is doctoring her family's food in order to extend it's shelf-life, and thereby save the family money? The additives in her arsenal include salt, sugar, vinegar, gelatin, and pectin. If she mixes these ingredients in a bowl instead of a test-tube, does her final product become "clean"?

Take the lowly pickle. It has at least three of the preservatives mentioned above. None of the processing adds to the food's nutritional value; all it does is extend the shelf-life of the cucumber, saving the family money. Is a pickle dirty?

Yes, it is tricky. Maybe the line is drawn between the processing that is inherent in the creation of the food, like a pickle, and the processing that is just a corporate strategy by companies that industrially create and distribute foods to increase profitability.

So perhaps it is analyzing what ingredients / processes that are required to make a pickle and balancing those against what ingredients / processes a company uses to mass produce pickles in an effort to minimize the cost of processing and maximize the product's shelf life. In most cases I would rather eat a home processed pickle from the farmer's wife's fridge that she grew and canned herself than one from the jar that rolled off the assembly line at Vlasic. The addition of Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80 are not there to benefit my nutrition.

Home cooks frequently add ingredients that aren't there to benefit the nutritional value of the food. I'm not sure why a company doing this is worse or less "clean" than a home cook doing it.

I agree, taste is as big or a bigger priority than nutrition for a lot of people. That still doesn’t sell me on consuming Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80.

lemurcat12 wrote: »

I'm not against reading labels and learning about ingredients if one is unsure what they are/why they are there, but this is actually related to why I don't like the clean eating thing. Back when I was over-neurotic about food (from my current perspective), I'd do things like refuse to eat pickles unless I made them myself, but the truth is that my lifestyle is such that it's something of a hassle to make pickles (but yay for those of you who make them regularly, I always mean to start doing that and canning stuff and so on) and it was kind of silly to avoid eating perfectly good store-bought pickles just because in theory I wanted to be making them myself. It's also silly to feel that logging them is a failure and not living up to some standard.

I realize that for some you don't get all self-judgmental or neurotic about it, and that's great, but I worry that newbies get the message that their eating habits aren't good enough unless they cut out all such foods that really has nothing at all to do with weight loss (or, IMO, health/nutrition) and end up making the perfect the enemy of the good so it all just seems way more hard and time-consuming than it needs to be. Easy healthy or simply improving one's diet is much simpler and need not require a huge investment of time. I can whip up a dinner with lots of vegetables and some lean protein in a snap (and part of why I can do that is that I will live with relying on dried pasta or canned beans from time to time and not see that as some failure or lesser-than option vs what I should be doing).

I agree with all of this. Eating the perfect diet is aspirational, and completely unrealistic (in my life, anyways). I don’t have a jar of pickles made by a farmer’s wife in my fridge, I have Vlasic pickles, and I get my dose of food coloring and emulsifiers accordingly
I would hope that the new people understand the failures that are inherent in attempting to eat a less-processed diet, and not get too discouraged at having to settle for what is readily available.

I'm not trying to sell you on consuming anything you don't want to consume. But I'm asking you what is the distinction between a company adding an ingredient to a food to enhance taste, appearance, or texture and a home cook doing the same? I don't see a meaningful difference.

It is just a preference. Do you want mom's homemade bread with 6-7 ingredients or Subway's with 30+ ingredients? You can go down the list of ingredients that Subway adds and there is a purpose for each one (prolonging the shelf life, firmness, color, texture, etc.), but that doesn't inspire me to choose their bread over the homemade version. (And for the sensitive people out there, I'm not saying you are a bad person for eating at Subway, I have had their bread on countless occasions, so please don't be hurt by my criticism...)

Just to be clear, it's not about being a bad person. It's about priorities and not beating yourself up over dumb things. You can get bread of all sorts from the supermarket (I never buy bread from the supermarket, but just because I don't eat bread at home much and am picky about it) or from restaurants (I'm fond of a sandwich place that is pretty embarrassing in their focus on the the trendy this and that, and I bet their bread doesn't have lots of ingredients, although number of ingredients isn't a focus of mine). So if there are ingredients you'd prefer to avoid or quality differences, I totally get that, but why tell yourself that supermarket bread or bakery bread or whatever is "less clean" or "not clean" (and I still don't get how "less clean" is distinct from dirty). I just don't get that. I am all for eating in an aspirational way -- I have ideas about how I'd like to eat that I don't always live up to -- but I don't get how it helps to tell myself that my meals are clean or not clean or that I eat semi clean or whatever. I try to eat well, to prioritize nutrient dense food and quality and to also enjoy what I eat (which means trying to cook it in a way that makes it taste good).

I don't understand why saying "this meal isn't as clean as I'd like" is much different than "this meal falls short of how I'd like to eat". Sounds like to-may-toes vs. to-mah-toes to me.

Except in the first case the meal could be both not clean and how I'd like eat.

It all comes back to the implication of "clean," and I understand that you cannot see why it bothers some of us when used in the food context.

And again, because in the current commonplace usage, including on MFP, it's not about a continuum, but being either "clean" or not. One can fall short of one's goals for one's diet on a particular day and not conclude "I'm not a healthful eater." If one eats "unclean" foods, presumably one would not be a "clean eater." (Or else, I ask once again, how is being a "clean eater" different from the rest of us who merely try to eat healthful, nutrient-dense meals for the most part such that it is defended as a special, different way of eating that requires special groups and recipes.)

Using my definition the difference would be vocabulary. I do find it amusing that you suggest there is a commonplace usage for the term though. I thought the fact that there is not was the whole point of this thread.

I think the definitions all revolve around "avoiding processed food." People just have weird ideas about what processed means.

Well that's certainly true. I've heard picking vegetables, peeling an apple, cooking, and other silliness listed as examples.

If you're looking at it from a "whole foods" perspective it makes sense why peeling an apple could be considered processing that makes a food less desirable. Removing the peel of the apple removes some of the fiber, so you're actually changing the food. My mom was very into whole foods and when I was growing up, I was taught never to peel foods unless the peel was actually inedible. We never peeled apples or carrots or potatoes.

I have no beef with peeling fruits and vegetables, but I can understand the rationale behind that argument. If nature has packaged a food with certain amounts of fiber and other nutrients and you take some of them away, you no longer have a "whole food" (setting aside the fact that many fruits bear the strong impression of human design in addition to how "nature" created them). I don't think I would call the argument "silly." It's not one I personally use when making food choices, but there is an internal logic there.

I can see how it would make it less whole or less nutritious, but not less natural. The food consumed is unchanged. How would it differ from peeling a banana or orange? Or removing skin from an animal or shell from a nut?

Well, it's possible I've gotten lost in the twists and turns of the conversation, but multiple people in this thread have attempted to define "clean eating" as "eating whole foods."

So my point was that if you are defining "clean eating" as "eating whole foods," then peeling is a potentially relevant form of processing. There is a difference, nutritionally, between eating an apple with the peel and eating the apple without the peel.

I will sometimes see people around the forums say we're "meant" to eat foods in a certain way (as in, don't drink juice because we're "meant" to have the fiber along with the sugar in fruit). That's the logic behind eating the (edible) peels of fruit -- that nature somehow aligned to produce foods that are ideal for the nutritional needs of one species (us) and that we should alter those foods as little as possible.

This kind of thinking seems to be underpinning some of the "eat whole foods" or "processing is undesirable" conversations. So while I disagree, I don't think I would call it "silliness." While I don't agree that we should avoid eating only the parts of the food that we find the most tasty, I don't think it's sillier than some of the other definitions we've seen proposed in this thread (and other threads on "clean eating").

And when you say it doesn't make the food less "natural," I think we are hitting on how "natural" isn't a very useful designation for food. What makes an "apple" natural? That we eat it as it grows (that is, with the peel)? That we eat it in a form that isn't influenced by human choices (that is, wild)? That we eat it only in season? That we eat it only when we have done to work to obtain it ourselves?

Which of these standards do we adopt for "natural"? Why choose one over another?

All good points. I suppose whole would mean eating all edible portions of the food.(?) While I do know people that eat orange peels and peanut shells, let's just put those freaks aside for now. Whole foods still becomes as problematic. Easily as much or more so than 'natural', which I find easier.

Take for example a pumpkin. If you eat the flesh but not the seeds is it not a whole food because the seeds are both edible and nutritious? If you eat broccoli stalks but not the leaves, is that not a whole food? Same for beets or carrots or cauliflower or other vegetables with nutritious edible leaves that are often not consumed.

Is the broccoli not natural because I planted it? Honestly except for sh*ts and giggles on MFP I don't delve into minutiae like that. It seems unnecessary except for wanting to trip someone up.

According to some definitions of "whole food," yeah -- eating just pumpkin flesh or broccoli florets would be making the food less "whole."

You'll often see arguments that we're "supposed" to eat the whole grain or the fat in dairy. I'm not sure why fruits and vegetables would be exempted from this theory.

I would argue that it isn't just your planting it that makes "natural" a pretty meaningless term for the broccoli. There's the whole fact that broccoli wouldn't even exist without human intervention. It's a product of human intervention and decisions just like a Frito. Yeah, they have different nutritional values. But broccoli, like a Frito, doesn't exist in the wild and our consumption of it is pretty far outside any natural order.

I don't think interrogation of the category of "natural" is minutiae. I think it's worth discussing whether it is even a meaningful term.

If I plant a broccoli seed in the right weather and soil conditions nature will take it's course and a vegetable will grow. Not so with a Frito. That's a difference that seems simple and obvious to me.

Jane already mentioned it, but the broccoli seed only exists because of long term human intervention over hundreds and thousands of years, making it unnatural by the definition that was provided somewhere upthread. As would be every single thing you could get anywhere to buy, processed or not.

Need2Exerc1se

stevencloser wrote: »

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Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

@nikkimendez666 if you have followed the thread you must know your answer is full of holes. What is a "whole food"?

Eggs are whole but aren't plant-based.
I imagine you'll allow grains and nuts to be shelled and hulled. How about grinding for flour? Is that much processing allowed in your plan?
How about pressing olives for their oil?
Drying grapes in to raisins?

If you eat only unprocessed "whole foods" could you eat a meal of hemp seeds, raisins, and broccoli as long as they weren't mixed together?

I don't think people consider applying physical force (crushing, mixing, shucking, grinding, pressing, etc.) to food as unacceptable processing, at least that is my interpretation. Unwanted processing to me is industrially injecting / mixing / treating food with chemicals to make them more profitable for corporations, ie, food coloring, preservatives mixed in a test tube, steroids, anti-biotics, hormones, etc., that don't add to the nutritional value of the food.

Aye, there's the rub, isn't it? We are dealing with many interpretations for the same idea. Hence my Venn diagram. Your use is dastardly difficult to define, as one must speak to motive.

What if a farmer's wife is doctoring her family's food in order to extend it's shelf-life, and thereby save the family money? The additives in her arsenal include salt, sugar, vinegar, gelatin, and pectin. If she mixes these ingredients in a bowl instead of a test-tube, does her final product become "clean"?

Take the lowly pickle. It has at least three of the preservatives mentioned above. None of the processing adds to the food's nutritional value; all it does is extend the shelf-life of the cucumber, saving the family money. Is a pickle dirty?

Yes, it is tricky. Maybe the line is drawn between the processing that is inherent in the creation of the food, like a pickle, and the processing that is just a corporate strategy by companies that industrially create and distribute foods to increase profitability.

So perhaps it is analyzing what ingredients / processes that are required to make a pickle and balancing those against what ingredients / processes a company uses to mass produce pickles in an effort to minimize the cost of processing and maximize the product's shelf life. In most cases I would rather eat a home processed pickle from the farmer's wife's fridge that she grew and canned herself than one from the jar that rolled off the assembly line at Vlasic. The addition of Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80 are not there to benefit my nutrition.

Home cooks frequently add ingredients that aren't there to benefit the nutritional value of the food. I'm not sure why a company doing this is worse or less "clean" than a home cook doing it.

I agree, taste is as big or a bigger priority than nutrition for a lot of people. That still doesn’t sell me on consuming Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80.

lemurcat12 wrote: »

I'm not against reading labels and learning about ingredients if one is unsure what they are/why they are there, but this is actually related to why I don't like the clean eating thing. Back when I was over-neurotic about food (from my current perspective), I'd do things like refuse to eat pickles unless I made them myself, but the truth is that my lifestyle is such that it's something of a hassle to make pickles (but yay for those of you who make them regularly, I always mean to start doing that and canning stuff and so on) and it was kind of silly to avoid eating perfectly good store-bought pickles just because in theory I wanted to be making them myself. It's also silly to feel that logging them is a failure and not living up to some standard.

I realize that for some you don't get all self-judgmental or neurotic about it, and that's great, but I worry that newbies get the message that their eating habits aren't good enough unless they cut out all such foods that really has nothing at all to do with weight loss (or, IMO, health/nutrition) and end up making the perfect the enemy of the good so it all just seems way more hard and time-consuming than it needs to be. Easy healthy or simply improving one's diet is much simpler and need not require a huge investment of time. I can whip up a dinner with lots of vegetables and some lean protein in a snap (and part of why I can do that is that I will live with relying on dried pasta or canned beans from time to time and not see that as some failure or lesser-than option vs what I should be doing).

I agree with all of this. Eating the perfect diet is aspirational, and completely unrealistic (in my life, anyways). I don’t have a jar of pickles made by a farmer’s wife in my fridge, I have Vlasic pickles, and I get my dose of food coloring and emulsifiers accordingly
I would hope that the new people understand the failures that are inherent in attempting to eat a less-processed diet, and not get too discouraged at having to settle for what is readily available.

I'm not trying to sell you on consuming anything you don't want to consume. But I'm asking you what is the distinction between a company adding an ingredient to a food to enhance taste, appearance, or texture and a home cook doing the same? I don't see a meaningful difference.

It is just a preference. Do you want mom's homemade bread with 6-7 ingredients or Subway's with 30+ ingredients? You can go down the list of ingredients that Subway adds and there is a purpose for each one (prolonging the shelf life, firmness, color, texture, etc.), but that doesn't inspire me to choose their bread over the homemade version. (And for the sensitive people out there, I'm not saying you are a bad person for eating at Subway, I have had their bread on countless occasions, so please don't be hurt by my criticism...)

Just to be clear, it's not about being a bad person. It's about priorities and not beating yourself up over dumb things. You can get bread of all sorts from the supermarket (I never buy bread from the supermarket, but just because I don't eat bread at home much and am picky about it) or from restaurants (I'm fond of a sandwich place that is pretty embarrassing in their focus on the the trendy this and that, and I bet their bread doesn't have lots of ingredients, although number of ingredients isn't a focus of mine). So if there are ingredients you'd prefer to avoid or quality differences, I totally get that, but why tell yourself that supermarket bread or bakery bread or whatever is "less clean" or "not clean" (and I still don't get how "less clean" is distinct from dirty). I just don't get that. I am all for eating in an aspirational way -- I have ideas about how I'd like to eat that I don't always live up to -- but I don't get how it helps to tell myself that my meals are clean or not clean or that I eat semi clean or whatever. I try to eat well, to prioritize nutrient dense food and quality and to also enjoy what I eat (which means trying to cook it in a way that makes it taste good).

I don't understand why saying "this meal isn't as clean as I'd like" is much different than "this meal falls short of how I'd like to eat". Sounds like to-may-toes vs. to-mah-toes to me.

Except in the first case the meal could be both not clean and how I'd like eat.

It all comes back to the implication of "clean," and I understand that you cannot see why it bothers some of us when used in the food context.

And again, because in the current commonplace usage, including on MFP, it's not about a continuum, but being either "clean" or not. One can fall short of one's goals for one's diet on a particular day and not conclude "I'm not a healthful eater." If one eats "unclean" foods, presumably one would not be a "clean eater." (Or else, I ask once again, how is being a "clean eater" different from the rest of us who merely try to eat healthful, nutrient-dense meals for the most part such that it is defended as a special, different way of eating that requires special groups and recipes.)

Using my definition the difference would be vocabulary. I do find it amusing that you suggest there is a commonplace usage for the term though. I thought the fact that there is not was the whole point of this thread.

I think the definitions all revolve around "avoiding processed food." People just have weird ideas about what processed means.

Well that's certainly true. I've heard picking vegetables, peeling an apple, cooking, and other silliness listed as examples.

If you're looking at it from a "whole foods" perspective it makes sense why peeling an apple could be considered processing that makes a food less desirable. Removing the peel of the apple removes some of the fiber, so you're actually changing the food. My mom was very into whole foods and when I was growing up, I was taught never to peel foods unless the peel was actually inedible. We never peeled apples or carrots or potatoes.

I have no beef with peeling fruits and vegetables, but I can understand the rationale behind that argument. If nature has packaged a food with certain amounts of fiber and other nutrients and you take some of them away, you no longer have a "whole food" (setting aside the fact that many fruits bear the strong impression of human design in addition to how "nature" created them). I don't think I would call the argument "silly." It's not one I personally use when making food choices, but there is an internal logic there.

I can see how it would make it less whole or less nutritious, but not less natural. The food consumed is unchanged. How would it differ from peeling a banana or orange? Or removing skin from an animal or shell from a nut?

Well, it's possible I've gotten lost in the twists and turns of the conversation, but multiple people in this thread have attempted to define "clean eating" as "eating whole foods."

So my point was that if you are defining "clean eating" as "eating whole foods," then peeling is a potentially relevant form of processing. There is a difference, nutritionally, between eating an apple with the peel and eating the apple without the peel.

I will sometimes see people around the forums say we're "meant" to eat foods in a certain way (as in, don't drink juice because we're "meant" to have the fiber along with the sugar in fruit). That's the logic behind eating the (edible) peels of fruit -- that nature somehow aligned to produce foods that are ideal for the nutritional needs of one species (us) and that we should alter those foods as little as possible.

This kind of thinking seems to be underpinning some of the "eat whole foods" or "processing is undesirable" conversations. So while I disagree, I don't think I would call it "silliness." While I don't agree that we should avoid eating only the parts of the food that we find the most tasty, I don't think it's sillier than some of the other definitions we've seen proposed in this thread (and other threads on "clean eating").

And when you say it doesn't make the food less "natural," I think we are hitting on how "natural" isn't a very useful designation for food. What makes an "apple" natural? That we eat it as it grows (that is, with the peel)? That we eat it in a form that isn't influenced by human choices (that is, wild)? That we eat it only in season? That we eat it only when we have done to work to obtain it ourselves?

Which of these standards do we adopt for "natural"? Why choose one over another?

All good points. I suppose whole would mean eating all edible portions of the food.(?) While I do know people that eat orange peels and peanut shells, let's just put those freaks aside for now. Whole foods still becomes as problematic. Easily as much or more so than 'natural', which I find easier.

Take for example a pumpkin. If you eat the flesh but not the seeds is it not a whole food because the seeds are both edible and nutritious? If you eat broccoli stalks but not the leaves, is that not a whole food? Same for beets or carrots or cauliflower or other vegetables with nutritious edible leaves that are often not consumed.

Is the broccoli not natural because I planted it? Honestly except for sh*ts and giggles on MFP I don't delve into minutiae like that. It seems unnecessary except for wanting to trip someone up.

According to some definitions of "whole food," yeah -- eating just pumpkin flesh or broccoli florets would be making the food less "whole."

You'll often see arguments that we're "supposed" to eat the whole grain or the fat in dairy. I'm not sure why fruits and vegetables would be exempted from this theory.

I would argue that it isn't just your planting it that makes "natural" a pretty meaningless term for the broccoli. There's the whole fact that broccoli wouldn't even exist without human intervention. It's a product of human intervention and decisions just like a Frito. Yeah, they have different nutritional values. But broccoli, like a Frito, doesn't exist in the wild and our consumption of it is pretty far outside any natural order.

I don't think interrogation of the category of "natural" is minutiae. I think it's worth discussing whether it is even a meaningful term.

If I plant a broccoli seed in the right weather and soil conditions nature will take it's course and a vegetable will grow. Not so with a Frito. That's a difference that seems simple and obvious to me.

Jane already mentioned it, but the broccoli seed only exists because of long term human intervention over hundreds and thousands of years, making it unnatural by the definition that was provided somewhere upthread. As would be every single thing you could get anywhere to buy, processed or not.

Quite true. But I don't think nature doesn't exists because man has changed the world.

janejellyroll

stevencloser wrote: »

show previous quotes

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

@nikkimendez666 if you have followed the thread you must know your answer is full of holes. What is a "whole food"?

Eggs are whole but aren't plant-based.
I imagine you'll allow grains and nuts to be shelled and hulled. How about grinding for flour? Is that much processing allowed in your plan?
How about pressing olives for their oil?
Drying grapes in to raisins?

If you eat only unprocessed "whole foods" could you eat a meal of hemp seeds, raisins, and broccoli as long as they weren't mixed together?

I don't think people consider applying physical force (crushing, mixing, shucking, grinding, pressing, etc.) to food as unacceptable processing, at least that is my interpretation. Unwanted processing to me is industrially injecting / mixing / treating food with chemicals to make them more profitable for corporations, ie, food coloring, preservatives mixed in a test tube, steroids, anti-biotics, hormones, etc., that don't add to the nutritional value of the food.

Aye, there's the rub, isn't it? We are dealing with many interpretations for the same idea. Hence my Venn diagram. Your use is dastardly difficult to define, as one must speak to motive.

What if a farmer's wife is doctoring her family's food in order to extend it's shelf-life, and thereby save the family money? The additives in her arsenal include salt, sugar, vinegar, gelatin, and pectin. If she mixes these ingredients in a bowl instead of a test-tube, does her final product become "clean"?

Take the lowly pickle. It has at least three of the preservatives mentioned above. None of the processing adds to the food's nutritional value; all it does is extend the shelf-life of the cucumber, saving the family money. Is a pickle dirty?

Yes, it is tricky. Maybe the line is drawn between the processing that is inherent in the creation of the food, like a pickle, and the processing that is just a corporate strategy by companies that industrially create and distribute foods to increase profitability.

So perhaps it is analyzing what ingredients / processes that are required to make a pickle and balancing those against what ingredients / processes a company uses to mass produce pickles in an effort to minimize the cost of processing and maximize the product's shelf life. In most cases I would rather eat a home processed pickle from the farmer's wife's fridge that she grew and canned herself than one from the jar that rolled off the assembly line at Vlasic. The addition of Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80 are not there to benefit my nutrition.

Home cooks frequently add ingredients that aren't there to benefit the nutritional value of the food. I'm not sure why a company doing this is worse or less "clean" than a home cook doing it.

I agree, taste is as big or a bigger priority than nutrition for a lot of people. That still doesn’t sell me on consuming Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80.

lemurcat12 wrote: »

I'm not against reading labels and learning about ingredients if one is unsure what they are/why they are there, but this is actually related to why I don't like the clean eating thing. Back when I was over-neurotic about food (from my current perspective), I'd do things like refuse to eat pickles unless I made them myself, but the truth is that my lifestyle is such that it's something of a hassle to make pickles (but yay for those of you who make them regularly, I always mean to start doing that and canning stuff and so on) and it was kind of silly to avoid eating perfectly good store-bought pickles just because in theory I wanted to be making them myself. It's also silly to feel that logging them is a failure and not living up to some standard.

I realize that for some you don't get all self-judgmental or neurotic about it, and that's great, but I worry that newbies get the message that their eating habits aren't good enough unless they cut out all such foods that really has nothing at all to do with weight loss (or, IMO, health/nutrition) and end up making the perfect the enemy of the good so it all just seems way more hard and time-consuming than it needs to be. Easy healthy or simply improving one's diet is much simpler and need not require a huge investment of time. I can whip up a dinner with lots of vegetables and some lean protein in a snap (and part of why I can do that is that I will live with relying on dried pasta or canned beans from time to time and not see that as some failure or lesser-than option vs what I should be doing).

I agree with all of this. Eating the perfect diet is aspirational, and completely unrealistic (in my life, anyways). I don’t have a jar of pickles made by a farmer’s wife in my fridge, I have Vlasic pickles, and I get my dose of food coloring and emulsifiers accordingly
I would hope that the new people understand the failures that are inherent in attempting to eat a less-processed diet, and not get too discouraged at having to settle for what is readily available.

I'm not trying to sell you on consuming anything you don't want to consume. But I'm asking you what is the distinction between a company adding an ingredient to a food to enhance taste, appearance, or texture and a home cook doing the same? I don't see a meaningful difference.

It is just a preference. Do you want mom's homemade bread with 6-7 ingredients or Subway's with 30+ ingredients? You can go down the list of ingredients that Subway adds and there is a purpose for each one (prolonging the shelf life, firmness, color, texture, etc.), but that doesn't inspire me to choose their bread over the homemade version. (And for the sensitive people out there, I'm not saying you are a bad person for eating at Subway, I have had their bread on countless occasions, so please don't be hurt by my criticism...)

Just to be clear, it's not about being a bad person. It's about priorities and not beating yourself up over dumb things. You can get bread of all sorts from the supermarket (I never buy bread from the supermarket, but just because I don't eat bread at home much and am picky about it) or from restaurants (I'm fond of a sandwich place that is pretty embarrassing in their focus on the the trendy this and that, and I bet their bread doesn't have lots of ingredients, although number of ingredients isn't a focus of mine). So if there are ingredients you'd prefer to avoid or quality differences, I totally get that, but why tell yourself that supermarket bread or bakery bread or whatever is "less clean" or "not clean" (and I still don't get how "less clean" is distinct from dirty). I just don't get that. I am all for eating in an aspirational way -- I have ideas about how I'd like to eat that I don't always live up to -- but I don't get how it helps to tell myself that my meals are clean or not clean or that I eat semi clean or whatever. I try to eat well, to prioritize nutrient dense food and quality and to also enjoy what I eat (which means trying to cook it in a way that makes it taste good).

I don't understand why saying "this meal isn't as clean as I'd like" is much different than "this meal falls short of how I'd like to eat". Sounds like to-may-toes vs. to-mah-toes to me.

Except in the first case the meal could be both not clean and how I'd like eat.

It all comes back to the implication of "clean," and I understand that you cannot see why it bothers some of us when used in the food context.

And again, because in the current commonplace usage, including on MFP, it's not about a continuum, but being either "clean" or not. One can fall short of one's goals for one's diet on a particular day and not conclude "I'm not a healthful eater." If one eats "unclean" foods, presumably one would not be a "clean eater." (Or else, I ask once again, how is being a "clean eater" different from the rest of us who merely try to eat healthful, nutrient-dense meals for the most part such that it is defended as a special, different way of eating that requires special groups and recipes.)

Using my definition the difference would be vocabulary. I do find it amusing that you suggest there is a commonplace usage for the term though. I thought the fact that there is not was the whole point of this thread.

I think the definitions all revolve around "avoiding processed food." People just have weird ideas about what processed means.

Well that's certainly true. I've heard picking vegetables, peeling an apple, cooking, and other silliness listed as examples.

If you're looking at it from a "whole foods" perspective it makes sense why peeling an apple could be considered processing that makes a food less desirable. Removing the peel of the apple removes some of the fiber, so you're actually changing the food. My mom was very into whole foods and when I was growing up, I was taught never to peel foods unless the peel was actually inedible. We never peeled apples or carrots or potatoes.

I have no beef with peeling fruits and vegetables, but I can understand the rationale behind that argument. If nature has packaged a food with certain amounts of fiber and other nutrients and you take some of them away, you no longer have a "whole food" (setting aside the fact that many fruits bear the strong impression of human design in addition to how "nature" created them). I don't think I would call the argument "silly." It's not one I personally use when making food choices, but there is an internal logic there.

I can see how it would make it less whole or less nutritious, but not less natural. The food consumed is unchanged. How would it differ from peeling a banana or orange? Or removing skin from an animal or shell from a nut?

Well, it's possible I've gotten lost in the twists and turns of the conversation, but multiple people in this thread have attempted to define "clean eating" as "eating whole foods."

So my point was that if you are defining "clean eating" as "eating whole foods," then peeling is a potentially relevant form of processing. There is a difference, nutritionally, between eating an apple with the peel and eating the apple without the peel.

I will sometimes see people around the forums say we're "meant" to eat foods in a certain way (as in, don't drink juice because we're "meant" to have the fiber along with the sugar in fruit). That's the logic behind eating the (edible) peels of fruit -- that nature somehow aligned to produce foods that are ideal for the nutritional needs of one species (us) and that we should alter those foods as little as possible.

This kind of thinking seems to be underpinning some of the "eat whole foods" or "processing is undesirable" conversations. So while I disagree, I don't think I would call it "silliness." While I don't agree that we should avoid eating only the parts of the food that we find the most tasty, I don't think it's sillier than some of the other definitions we've seen proposed in this thread (and other threads on "clean eating").

And when you say it doesn't make the food less "natural," I think we are hitting on how "natural" isn't a very useful designation for food. What makes an "apple" natural? That we eat it as it grows (that is, with the peel)? That we eat it in a form that isn't influenced by human choices (that is, wild)? That we eat it only in season? That we eat it only when we have done to work to obtain it ourselves?

Which of these standards do we adopt for "natural"? Why choose one over another?

All good points. I suppose whole would mean eating all edible portions of the food.(?) While I do know people that eat orange peels and peanut shells, let's just put those freaks aside for now. Whole foods still becomes as problematic. Easily as much or more so than 'natural', which I find easier.

Take for example a pumpkin. If you eat the flesh but not the seeds is it not a whole food because the seeds are both edible and nutritious? If you eat broccoli stalks but not the leaves, is that not a whole food? Same for beets or carrots or cauliflower or other vegetables with nutritious edible leaves that are often not consumed.

Is the broccoli not natural because I planted it? Honestly except for sh*ts and giggles on MFP I don't delve into minutiae like that. It seems unnecessary except for wanting to trip someone up.

According to some definitions of "whole food," yeah -- eating just pumpkin flesh or broccoli florets would be making the food less "whole."

You'll often see arguments that we're "supposed" to eat the whole grain or the fat in dairy. I'm not sure why fruits and vegetables would be exempted from this theory.

I would argue that it isn't just your planting it that makes "natural" a pretty meaningless term for the broccoli. There's the whole fact that broccoli wouldn't even exist without human intervention. It's a product of human intervention and decisions just like a Frito. Yeah, they have different nutritional values. But broccoli, like a Frito, doesn't exist in the wild and our consumption of it is pretty far outside any natural order.

I don't think interrogation of the category of "natural" is minutiae. I think it's worth discussing whether it is even a meaningful term.

If I plant a broccoli seed in the right weather and soil conditions nature will take it's course and a vegetable will grow. Not so with a Frito. That's a difference that seems simple and obvious to me.

Jane already mentioned it, but the broccoli seed only exists because of long term human intervention over hundreds and thousands of years, making it unnatural by the definition that was provided somewhere upthread. As would be every single thing you could get anywhere to buy, processed or not.

Fruits and vegetables are often upheld as the paragons of "natural" foods, but when you look into many of them, they're as much the product of human tastes and decisions as foods like Fritos are.

stevencloser

janejellyroll wrote: »

show previous quotes

stevencloser wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

@nikkimendez666 if you have followed the thread you must know your answer is full of holes. What is a "whole food"?

Eggs are whole but aren't plant-based.
I imagine you'll allow grains and nuts to be shelled and hulled. How about grinding for flour? Is that much processing allowed in your plan?
How about pressing olives for their oil?
Drying grapes in to raisins?

If you eat only unprocessed "whole foods" could you eat a meal of hemp seeds, raisins, and broccoli as long as they weren't mixed together?

I don't think people consider applying physical force (crushing, mixing, shucking, grinding, pressing, etc.) to food as unacceptable processing, at least that is my interpretation. Unwanted processing to me is industrially injecting / mixing / treating food with chemicals to make them more profitable for corporations, ie, food coloring, preservatives mixed in a test tube, steroids, anti-biotics, hormones, etc., that don't add to the nutritional value of the food.

Aye, there's the rub, isn't it? We are dealing with many interpretations for the same idea. Hence my Venn diagram. Your use is dastardly difficult to define, as one must speak to motive.

What if a farmer's wife is doctoring her family's food in order to extend it's shelf-life, and thereby save the family money? The additives in her arsenal include salt, sugar, vinegar, gelatin, and pectin. If she mixes these ingredients in a bowl instead of a test-tube, does her final product become "clean"?

Take the lowly pickle. It has at least three of the preservatives mentioned above. None of the processing adds to the food's nutritional value; all it does is extend the shelf-life of the cucumber, saving the family money. Is a pickle dirty?

Yes, it is tricky. Maybe the line is drawn between the processing that is inherent in the creation of the food, like a pickle, and the processing that is just a corporate strategy by companies that industrially create and distribute foods to increase profitability.

So perhaps it is analyzing what ingredients / processes that are required to make a pickle and balancing those against what ingredients / processes a company uses to mass produce pickles in an effort to minimize the cost of processing and maximize the product's shelf life. In most cases I would rather eat a home processed pickle from the farmer's wife's fridge that she grew and canned herself than one from the jar that rolled off the assembly line at Vlasic. The addition of Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80 are not there to benefit my nutrition.

Home cooks frequently add ingredients that aren't there to benefit the nutritional value of the food. I'm not sure why a company doing this is worse or less "clean" than a home cook doing it.

I agree, taste is as big or a bigger priority than nutrition for a lot of people. That still doesn’t sell me on consuming Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80.

lemurcat12 wrote: »

I'm not against reading labels and learning about ingredients if one is unsure what they are/why they are there, but this is actually related to why I don't like the clean eating thing. Back when I was over-neurotic about food (from my current perspective), I'd do things like refuse to eat pickles unless I made them myself, but the truth is that my lifestyle is such that it's something of a hassle to make pickles (but yay for those of you who make them regularly, I always mean to start doing that and canning stuff and so on) and it was kind of silly to avoid eating perfectly good store-bought pickles just because in theory I wanted to be making them myself. It's also silly to feel that logging them is a failure and not living up to some standard.

I realize that for some you don't get all self-judgmental or neurotic about it, and that's great, but I worry that newbies get the message that their eating habits aren't good enough unless they cut out all such foods that really has nothing at all to do with weight loss (or, IMO, health/nutrition) and end up making the perfect the enemy of the good so it all just seems way more hard and time-consuming than it needs to be. Easy healthy or simply improving one's diet is much simpler and need not require a huge investment of time. I can whip up a dinner with lots of vegetables and some lean protein in a snap (and part of why I can do that is that I will live with relying on dried pasta or canned beans from time to time and not see that as some failure or lesser-than option vs what I should be doing).

I agree with all of this. Eating the perfect diet is aspirational, and completely unrealistic (in my life, anyways). I don’t have a jar of pickles made by a farmer’s wife in my fridge, I have Vlasic pickles, and I get my dose of food coloring and emulsifiers accordingly
I would hope that the new people understand the failures that are inherent in attempting to eat a less-processed diet, and not get too discouraged at having to settle for what is readily available.

I'm not trying to sell you on consuming anything you don't want to consume. But I'm asking you what is the distinction between a company adding an ingredient to a food to enhance taste, appearance, or texture and a home cook doing the same? I don't see a meaningful difference.

It is just a preference. Do you want mom's homemade bread with 6-7 ingredients or Subway's with 30+ ingredients? You can go down the list of ingredients that Subway adds and there is a purpose for each one (prolonging the shelf life, firmness, color, texture, etc.), but that doesn't inspire me to choose their bread over the homemade version. (And for the sensitive people out there, I'm not saying you are a bad person for eating at Subway, I have had their bread on countless occasions, so please don't be hurt by my criticism...)

Just to be clear, it's not about being a bad person. It's about priorities and not beating yourself up over dumb things. You can get bread of all sorts from the supermarket (I never buy bread from the supermarket, but just because I don't eat bread at home much and am picky about it) or from restaurants (I'm fond of a sandwich place that is pretty embarrassing in their focus on the the trendy this and that, and I bet their bread doesn't have lots of ingredients, although number of ingredients isn't a focus of mine). So if there are ingredients you'd prefer to avoid or quality differences, I totally get that, but why tell yourself that supermarket bread or bakery bread or whatever is "less clean" or "not clean" (and I still don't get how "less clean" is distinct from dirty). I just don't get that. I am all for eating in an aspirational way -- I have ideas about how I'd like to eat that I don't always live up to -- but I don't get how it helps to tell myself that my meals are clean or not clean or that I eat semi clean or whatever. I try to eat well, to prioritize nutrient dense food and quality and to also enjoy what I eat (which means trying to cook it in a way that makes it taste good).

I don't understand why saying "this meal isn't as clean as I'd like" is much different than "this meal falls short of how I'd like to eat". Sounds like to-may-toes vs. to-mah-toes to me.

Except in the first case the meal could be both not clean and how I'd like eat.

It all comes back to the implication of "clean," and I understand that you cannot see why it bothers some of us when used in the food context.

And again, because in the current commonplace usage, including on MFP, it's not about a continuum, but being either "clean" or not. One can fall short of one's goals for one's diet on a particular day and not conclude "I'm not a healthful eater." If one eats "unclean" foods, presumably one would not be a "clean eater." (Or else, I ask once again, how is being a "clean eater" different from the rest of us who merely try to eat healthful, nutrient-dense meals for the most part such that it is defended as a special, different way of eating that requires special groups and recipes.)

Using my definition the difference would be vocabulary. I do find it amusing that you suggest there is a commonplace usage for the term though. I thought the fact that there is not was the whole point of this thread.

I think the definitions all revolve around "avoiding processed food." People just have weird ideas about what processed means.

Well that's certainly true. I've heard picking vegetables, peeling an apple, cooking, and other silliness listed as examples.

If you're looking at it from a "whole foods" perspective it makes sense why peeling an apple could be considered processing that makes a food less desirable. Removing the peel of the apple removes some of the fiber, so you're actually changing the food. My mom was very into whole foods and when I was growing up, I was taught never to peel foods unless the peel was actually inedible. We never peeled apples or carrots or potatoes.

I have no beef with peeling fruits and vegetables, but I can understand the rationale behind that argument. If nature has packaged a food with certain amounts of fiber and other nutrients and you take some of them away, you no longer have a "whole food" (setting aside the fact that many fruits bear the strong impression of human design in addition to how "nature" created them). I don't think I would call the argument "silly." It's not one I personally use when making food choices, but there is an internal logic there.

I can see how it would make it less whole or less nutritious, but not less natural. The food consumed is unchanged. How would it differ from peeling a banana or orange? Or removing skin from an animal or shell from a nut?

Well, it's possible I've gotten lost in the twists and turns of the conversation, but multiple people in this thread have attempted to define "clean eating" as "eating whole foods."

So my point was that if you are defining "clean eating" as "eating whole foods," then peeling is a potentially relevant form of processing. There is a difference, nutritionally, between eating an apple with the peel and eating the apple without the peel.

I will sometimes see people around the forums say we're "meant" to eat foods in a certain way (as in, don't drink juice because we're "meant" to have the fiber along with the sugar in fruit). That's the logic behind eating the (edible) peels of fruit -- that nature somehow aligned to produce foods that are ideal for the nutritional needs of one species (us) and that we should alter those foods as little as possible.

This kind of thinking seems to be underpinning some of the "eat whole foods" or "processing is undesirable" conversations. So while I disagree, I don't think I would call it "silliness." While I don't agree that we should avoid eating only the parts of the food that we find the most tasty, I don't think it's sillier than some of the other definitions we've seen proposed in this thread (and other threads on "clean eating").

And when you say it doesn't make the food less "natural," I think we are hitting on how "natural" isn't a very useful designation for food. What makes an "apple" natural? That we eat it as it grows (that is, with the peel)? That we eat it in a form that isn't influenced by human choices (that is, wild)? That we eat it only in season? That we eat it only when we have done to work to obtain it ourselves?

Which of these standards do we adopt for "natural"? Why choose one over another?

All good points. I suppose whole would mean eating all edible portions of the food.(?) While I do know people that eat orange peels and peanut shells, let's just put those freaks aside for now. Whole foods still becomes as problematic. Easily as much or more so than 'natural', which I find easier.

Take for example a pumpkin. If you eat the flesh but not the seeds is it not a whole food because the seeds are both edible and nutritious? If you eat broccoli stalks but not the leaves, is that not a whole food? Same for beets or carrots or cauliflower or other vegetables with nutritious edible leaves that are often not consumed.

Is the broccoli not natural because I planted it? Honestly except for sh*ts and giggles on MFP I don't delve into minutiae like that. It seems unnecessary except for wanting to trip someone up.

According to some definitions of "whole food," yeah -- eating just pumpkin flesh or broccoli florets would be making the food less "whole."

You'll often see arguments that we're "supposed" to eat the whole grain or the fat in dairy. I'm not sure why fruits and vegetables would be exempted from this theory.

I would argue that it isn't just your planting it that makes "natural" a pretty meaningless term for the broccoli. There's the whole fact that broccoli wouldn't even exist without human intervention. It's a product of human intervention and decisions just like a Frito. Yeah, they have different nutritional values. But broccoli, like a Frito, doesn't exist in the wild and our consumption of it is pretty far outside any natural order.

I don't think interrogation of the category of "natural" is minutiae. I think it's worth discussing whether it is even a meaningful term.

If I plant a broccoli seed in the right weather and soil conditions nature will take it's course and a vegetable will grow. Not so with a Frito. That's a difference that seems simple and obvious to me.

Jane already mentioned it, but the broccoli seed only exists because of long term human intervention over hundreds and thousands of years, making it unnatural by the definition that was provided somewhere upthread. As would be every single thing you could get anywhere to buy, processed or not.

Fruits and vegetables are often upheld as the paragons of "natural" foods, but when you look into many of them, they're as much the product of human tastes and decisions as foods like Fritos are.

Even more so. We didn't spend centuries trying to perfect the frito. Yet.

Need2Exerc1se

janejellyroll wrote: »

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Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

@nikkimendez666 if you have followed the thread you must know your answer is full of holes. What is a "whole food"?

Eggs are whole but aren't plant-based.
I imagine you'll allow grains and nuts to be shelled and hulled. How about grinding for flour? Is that much processing allowed in your plan?
How about pressing olives for their oil?
Drying grapes in to raisins?

If you eat only unprocessed "whole foods" could you eat a meal of hemp seeds, raisins, and broccoli as long as they weren't mixed together?

I don't think people consider applying physical force (crushing, mixing, shucking, grinding, pressing, etc.) to food as unacceptable processing, at least that is my interpretation. Unwanted processing to me is industrially injecting / mixing / treating food with chemicals to make them more profitable for corporations, ie, food coloring, preservatives mixed in a test tube, steroids, anti-biotics, hormones, etc., that don't add to the nutritional value of the food.

Aye, there's the rub, isn't it? We are dealing with many interpretations for the same idea. Hence my Venn diagram. Your use is dastardly difficult to define, as one must speak to motive.

What if a farmer's wife is doctoring her family's food in order to extend it's shelf-life, and thereby save the family money? The additives in her arsenal include salt, sugar, vinegar, gelatin, and pectin. If she mixes these ingredients in a bowl instead of a test-tube, does her final product become "clean"?

Take the lowly pickle. It has at least three of the preservatives mentioned above. None of the processing adds to the food's nutritional value; all it does is extend the shelf-life of the cucumber, saving the family money. Is a pickle dirty?

Yes, it is tricky. Maybe the line is drawn between the processing that is inherent in the creation of the food, like a pickle, and the processing that is just a corporate strategy by companies that industrially create and distribute foods to increase profitability.

So perhaps it is analyzing what ingredients / processes that are required to make a pickle and balancing those against what ingredients / processes a company uses to mass produce pickles in an effort to minimize the cost of processing and maximize the product's shelf life. In most cases I would rather eat a home processed pickle from the farmer's wife's fridge that she grew and canned herself than one from the jar that rolled off the assembly line at Vlasic. The addition of Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80 are not there to benefit my nutrition.

Home cooks frequently add ingredients that aren't there to benefit the nutritional value of the food. I'm not sure why a company doing this is worse or less "clean" than a home cook doing it.

I agree, taste is as big or a bigger priority than nutrition for a lot of people. That still doesn’t sell me on consuming Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80.

lemurcat12 wrote: »

I'm not against reading labels and learning about ingredients if one is unsure what they are/why they are there, but this is actually related to why I don't like the clean eating thing. Back when I was over-neurotic about food (from my current perspective), I'd do things like refuse to eat pickles unless I made them myself, but the truth is that my lifestyle is such that it's something of a hassle to make pickles (but yay for those of you who make them regularly, I always mean to start doing that and canning stuff and so on) and it was kind of silly to avoid eating perfectly good store-bought pickles just because in theory I wanted to be making them myself. It's also silly to feel that logging them is a failure and not living up to some standard.

I realize that for some you don't get all self-judgmental or neurotic about it, and that's great, but I worry that newbies get the message that their eating habits aren't good enough unless they cut out all such foods that really has nothing at all to do with weight loss (or, IMO, health/nutrition) and end up making the perfect the enemy of the good so it all just seems way more hard and time-consuming than it needs to be. Easy healthy or simply improving one's diet is much simpler and need not require a huge investment of time. I can whip up a dinner with lots of vegetables and some lean protein in a snap (and part of why I can do that is that I will live with relying on dried pasta or canned beans from time to time and not see that as some failure or lesser-than option vs what I should be doing).

I agree with all of this. Eating the perfect diet is aspirational, and completely unrealistic (in my life, anyways). I don’t have a jar of pickles made by a farmer’s wife in my fridge, I have Vlasic pickles, and I get my dose of food coloring and emulsifiers accordingly
I would hope that the new people understand the failures that are inherent in attempting to eat a less-processed diet, and not get too discouraged at having to settle for what is readily available.

I'm not trying to sell you on consuming anything you don't want to consume. But I'm asking you what is the distinction between a company adding an ingredient to a food to enhance taste, appearance, or texture and a home cook doing the same? I don't see a meaningful difference.

It is just a preference. Do you want mom's homemade bread with 6-7 ingredients or Subway's with 30+ ingredients? You can go down the list of ingredients that Subway adds and there is a purpose for each one (prolonging the shelf life, firmness, color, texture, etc.), but that doesn't inspire me to choose their bread over the homemade version. (And for the sensitive people out there, I'm not saying you are a bad person for eating at Subway, I have had their bread on countless occasions, so please don't be hurt by my criticism...)

Just to be clear, it's not about being a bad person. It's about priorities and not beating yourself up over dumb things. You can get bread of all sorts from the supermarket (I never buy bread from the supermarket, but just because I don't eat bread at home much and am picky about it) or from restaurants (I'm fond of a sandwich place that is pretty embarrassing in their focus on the the trendy this and that, and I bet their bread doesn't have lots of ingredients, although number of ingredients isn't a focus of mine). So if there are ingredients you'd prefer to avoid or quality differences, I totally get that, but why tell yourself that supermarket bread or bakery bread or whatever is "less clean" or "not clean" (and I still don't get how "less clean" is distinct from dirty). I just don't get that. I am all for eating in an aspirational way -- I have ideas about how I'd like to eat that I don't always live up to -- but I don't get how it helps to tell myself that my meals are clean or not clean or that I eat semi clean or whatever. I try to eat well, to prioritize nutrient dense food and quality and to also enjoy what I eat (which means trying to cook it in a way that makes it taste good).

I don't understand why saying "this meal isn't as clean as I'd like" is much different than "this meal falls short of how I'd like to eat". Sounds like to-may-toes vs. to-mah-toes to me.

Except in the first case the meal could be both not clean and how I'd like eat.

It all comes back to the implication of "clean," and I understand that you cannot see why it bothers some of us when used in the food context.

And again, because in the current commonplace usage, including on MFP, it's not about a continuum, but being either "clean" or not. One can fall short of one's goals for one's diet on a particular day and not conclude "I'm not a healthful eater." If one eats "unclean" foods, presumably one would not be a "clean eater." (Or else, I ask once again, how is being a "clean eater" different from the rest of us who merely try to eat healthful, nutrient-dense meals for the most part such that it is defended as a special, different way of eating that requires special groups and recipes.)

Using my definition the difference would be vocabulary. I do find it amusing that you suggest there is a commonplace usage for the term though. I thought the fact that there is not was the whole point of this thread.

I think the definitions all revolve around "avoiding processed food." People just have weird ideas about what processed means.

Well that's certainly true. I've heard picking vegetables, peeling an apple, cooking, and other silliness listed as examples.

If you're looking at it from a "whole foods" perspective it makes sense why peeling an apple could be considered processing that makes a food less desirable. Removing the peel of the apple removes some of the fiber, so you're actually changing the food. My mom was very into whole foods and when I was growing up, I was taught never to peel foods unless the peel was actually inedible. We never peeled apples or carrots or potatoes.

I have no beef with peeling fruits and vegetables, but I can understand the rationale behind that argument. If nature has packaged a food with certain amounts of fiber and other nutrients and you take some of them away, you no longer have a "whole food" (setting aside the fact that many fruits bear the strong impression of human design in addition to how "nature" created them). I don't think I would call the argument "silly." It's not one I personally use when making food choices, but there is an internal logic there.

I can see how it would make it less whole or less nutritious, but not less natural. The food consumed is unchanged. How would it differ from peeling a banana or orange? Or removing skin from an animal or shell from a nut?

Well, it's possible I've gotten lost in the twists and turns of the conversation, but multiple people in this thread have attempted to define "clean eating" as "eating whole foods."

So my point was that if you are defining "clean eating" as "eating whole foods," then peeling is a potentially relevant form of processing. There is a difference, nutritionally, between eating an apple with the peel and eating the apple without the peel.

I will sometimes see people around the forums say we're "meant" to eat foods in a certain way (as in, don't drink juice because we're "meant" to have the fiber along with the sugar in fruit). That's the logic behind eating the (edible) peels of fruit -- that nature somehow aligned to produce foods that are ideal for the nutritional needs of one species (us) and that we should alter those foods as little as possible.

This kind of thinking seems to be underpinning some of the "eat whole foods" or "processing is undesirable" conversations. So while I disagree, I don't think I would call it "silliness." While I don't agree that we should avoid eating only the parts of the food that we find the most tasty, I don't think it's sillier than some of the other definitions we've seen proposed in this thread (and other threads on "clean eating").

And when you say it doesn't make the food less "natural," I think we are hitting on how "natural" isn't a very useful designation for food. What makes an "apple" natural? That we eat it as it grows (that is, with the peel)? That we eat it in a form that isn't influenced by human choices (that is, wild)? That we eat it only in season? That we eat it only when we have done to work to obtain it ourselves?

Which of these standards do we adopt for "natural"? Why choose one over another?

All good points. I suppose whole would mean eating all edible portions of the food.(?) While I do know people that eat orange peels and peanut shells, let's just put those freaks aside for now. Whole foods still becomes as problematic. Easily as much or more so than 'natural', which I find easier.

Take for example a pumpkin. If you eat the flesh but not the seeds is it not a whole food because the seeds are both edible and nutritious? If you eat broccoli stalks but not the leaves, is that not a whole food? Same for beets or carrots or cauliflower or other vegetables with nutritious edible leaves that are often not consumed.

Is the broccoli not natural because I planted it? Honestly except for sh*ts and giggles on MFP I don't delve into minutiae like that. It seems unnecessary except for wanting to trip someone up.

According to some definitions of "whole food," yeah -- eating just pumpkin flesh or broccoli florets would be making the food less "whole."

You'll often see arguments that we're "supposed" to eat the whole grain or the fat in dairy. I'm not sure why fruits and vegetables would be exempted from this theory.

I would argue that it isn't just your planting it that makes "natural" a pretty meaningless term for the broccoli. There's the whole fact that broccoli wouldn't even exist without human intervention. It's a product of human intervention and decisions just like a Frito. Yeah, they have different nutritional values. But broccoli, like a Frito, doesn't exist in the wild and our consumption of it is pretty far outside any natural order.

I don't think interrogation of the category of "natural" is minutiae. I think it's worth discussing whether it is even a meaningful term.

If I plant a broccoli seed in the right weather and soil conditions nature will take it's course and a vegetable will grow. Not so with a Frito. That's a difference that seems simple and obvious to me.

You're confident that the process that led to the creation of broccoli and the existence of the seed is irrelevant to the question of what "natural" means. I don't share that confidence.

Yeah -- the end result of a recipe will never grow from the ground. Corn will, but a Frito won't. Are you saying that the end result of a recipe is always "unnatural"?

No, I would not say it is irrelevant. But the definition I know of clean isn't 100% natural.

No, if I'd wanted to say that, I'd say it.

lemurcat12

Bry_Lander wrote: »

so the fact that processed food like protein powder, ground flour, soy beans, or Chipotle find its way into my diet isn't blasphemy or a concession that clean eating is a flawed concept, it is just a realistic understanding that the world isn't a clean eating Garden of Eden type of Utopia and that most us don't have the time or the inclination to completely (or even mostly) reject the industrialized food products that we are conveniently inundated with.

Then let me ask this sincere question which has always confused me.

The self-identified "clean eaters" on MFP seem to think that there's a huge difference between what they do and what others of us who are concerned about health and nutrition do (let's call us moderates). For example, they ask for others who self-identify as "clean eaters" to friend and enter into exclusive groups with, they ask for "clean eating" recipes as if those would be vastly different than normal recipes in cookbooks (the cookbooks I use seem to be based on whole foods, but shrug, maybe there's something I'm not seeing), they seem to think that menu ideas from non clean eaters aren't worthwhile (perhaps we pour sugar on our chicken?), so on.

But from your explanation I'm not seeing much difference in how you eat and how I eat (in fact, it seems that you may be more open to certain kinds of "industrialized food products" than I am). Hmm, except perhaps for certain judgment calls and that you identify with the term "clean eater" whereas I do not (in part because I find it obviously false and laughable to claim that I don't eat processed foods). Again, I see people making that weird claim all the time on MFP, and also I don't see it as an ideal -- because of stuff like the smoked salmon, and some "clean eater" claiming a homemade strawberry rhubarb pie was "processed junk" (technically, perhaps, but I think there's room in my life for some homemade pie on occasion and don't consider that hugely "industrial).

So if you acknowledge that your definition of "clean eating" is basically, well, moderation, why all the arguments and the claim that clean eating is somehow better or nutritionally superior that always seem to be at the basis of these discussions? Instead, it seems like we are using different language for basically the same thing (and anyone who claims not to eat any processed food is probably lying).

Need2Exerc1se

Annie_01 wrote: »

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FunkyTobias wrote: »

Annie_01 wrote: »

stevencloser wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

I mentioned it before but people historically have broadened the range of foods we can eat by modifying them.

• Quinoa must be washed to remove the soapy layer
• Grains ground to flour have vastly extended our culinary repertoire.
• Lupins fascinate me because like soy, they have all the macros in nearly equal balance. But they must be washed for about twenty-four hours to remove the natural toxins. This used to be done by leaving the beans in a clear running stream.
• Talk about soy beans! They've been modified through fermentation (soy sauce), or leaching (soy milk) then coagulating using gypsum (tofu).

Whole, natural and clean all sound good but it's virtually impossible to peg a definition to them. It sure comes in handy to put those words on a label, though.

Annoying when found on a label, like the Quaker chocolate muffin mix I made yesterday. It advertises, "no trans fats" which is pretty easy to do if the householder has to add their own fat. And not a word about gluten. Because gluten-free muffins, well, yukky.

If we interpret washing food as processing it, the conversation has been rendered comical.

These discussions always hit the wall because one side grabs a hold of the concept, interprets it as an absolute, gouges holes in its practical application, and dismisses it as a failure. "Clean eating" is a set of theories and aspirations, it isn't a fanatical set of sharia-type laws against all that is processed.

So the fact that processed food like protein powder, ground flour, soy beans, or Chipotle find its way into my diet isn't blasphemy or a concession that clean eating is a flawed concept, it is just a realistic understanding that the world isn't a clean eating Garden of Eden type of Utopia and that most us don't have the time or the inclination to completely (or even mostly) reject the industrialized food products that we are conveniently inundated with.

We've had many a clean eater here who's treated it like that though.
"you [people who don't eat 100% clean] obviously don't care about your health/performance/body composition"
"Processed food is full of toxins"
"They put additives in them to make you addicted"
"Processed food is the reason for obesity"
"Processed food is the reason for cancer/diabetes"
etc. all been said.

Every group of people has its fanatics...even those that believe in eating everything in moderation.

"Moderation fanatic " makes about as much sense as "militant agnostic "

I was once told by a eat everything in moderation eater...

I cut a certain food item(not an entire food group...just one certain food) out of my diet. I was informed that I had mental issues...an eating disorder...that I would fail despite having already losing 80lbs. IMO...that moderation eater was a fanatic. You might not agree and that is okay.

Ha! I'm pretty sure at least one poster in this thread told me that because I said I hadn't eaten cheesecake in over a decade. Apparently I have a bad relationship with cheesecake. Which seems a pretty good reason to avoid it if you ask me.

lemurcat12

Bry_Lander wrote: »

show previous quotes

stevencloser wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

I mentioned it before but people historically have broadened the range of foods we can eat by modifying them.

• Quinoa must be washed to remove the soapy layer
• Grains ground to flour have vastly extended our culinary repertoire.
• Lupins fascinate me because like soy, they have all the macros in nearly equal balance. But they must be washed for about twenty-four hours to remove the natural toxins. This used to be done by leaving the beans in a clear running stream.
• Talk about soy beans! They've been modified through fermentation (soy sauce), or leaching (soy milk) then coagulating using gypsum (tofu).

Whole, natural and clean all sound good but it's virtually impossible to peg a definition to them. It sure comes in handy to put those words on a label, though.

Annoying when found on a label, like the Quaker chocolate muffin mix I made yesterday. It advertises, "no trans fats" which is pretty easy to do if the householder has to add their own fat. And not a word about gluten. Because gluten-free muffins, well, yukky.

If we interpret washing food as processing it, the conversation has been rendered comical.

These discussions always hit the wall because one side grabs a hold of the concept, interprets it as an absolute, gouges holes in its practical application, and dismisses it as a failure. "Clean eating" is a set of theories and aspirations, it isn't a fanatical set of sharia-type laws against all that is processed.

So the fact that processed food like protein powder, ground flour, soy beans, or Chipotle find its way into my diet isn't blasphemy or a concession that clean eating is a flawed concept, it is just a realistic understanding that the world isn't a clean eating Garden of Eden type of Utopia and that most us don't have the time or the inclination to completely (or even mostly) reject the industrialized food products that we are conveniently inundated with.

We've had many a clean eater here who's treated it like that though.
"you [people who don't eat 100% clean] obviously don't care about your health/performance/body composition"
"Processed food is full of toxins"
"They put additives in them to make you addicted"
"Processed food is the reason for obesity"
"Processed food is the reason for cancer/diabetes"
etc. all been said.

I think those types you listed are the opposite fringe of those who are citing processed food to include food that is washed, shelled nuts, grinding wheat/corn", etc., and providing these as examples of the types of processing that clean eating people are opposed to. That is just a cartoonish characterization that doesn't lend to a productive discussion.

I disagree with respect to grinding wheat. That flour/pasta/bread = processed (and bad) seems to me to be one of the more common assertions by a certain faction of clean eater. It's one reason my strawberry rhubarb pie got called processed junk. (Also, of course, sugar.)

I think flour is obviously processed, but that it's bad or "not recognized by your grandparents" or whatever else is often claimed has always amused me (my family had a mill in Iowa in the 1830s -- and I'm not claiming that was some early date for grinding at all).

eeejer

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

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eeejer wrote: »

clean eating = preparing everything you eat yourself, knowing every single ingredient in your food because you put it there. Nothing premade at all. You start with raw ingredients (preferably bought from local sources you know). It is pretty much a meaningless term, but this is my definition of it.

I like the intent of this idea but wouldn't that mean a meal you make would be clean for you but not for me, and vice versa?

if the food was prepared by someone you know cares about quality, freshness, ingredients and preparation then yes, it would be "clean" by that definition. By that same definition no restaurant food can be "clean" because we don't know what went into it exactly.

janejellyroll

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

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janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

@nikkimendez666 if you have followed the thread you must know your answer is full of holes. What is a "whole food"?

Eggs are whole but aren't plant-based.
I imagine you'll allow grains and nuts to be shelled and hulled. How about grinding for flour? Is that much processing allowed in your plan?
How about pressing olives for their oil?
Drying grapes in to raisins?

If you eat only unprocessed "whole foods" could you eat a meal of hemp seeds, raisins, and broccoli as long as they weren't mixed together?

I don't think people consider applying physical force (crushing, mixing, shucking, grinding, pressing, etc.) to food as unacceptable processing, at least that is my interpretation. Unwanted processing to me is industrially injecting / mixing / treating food with chemicals to make them more profitable for corporations, ie, food coloring, preservatives mixed in a test tube, steroids, anti-biotics, hormones, etc., that don't add to the nutritional value of the food.

Aye, there's the rub, isn't it? We are dealing with many interpretations for the same idea. Hence my Venn diagram. Your use is dastardly difficult to define, as one must speak to motive.

What if a farmer's wife is doctoring her family's food in order to extend it's shelf-life, and thereby save the family money? The additives in her arsenal include salt, sugar, vinegar, gelatin, and pectin. If she mixes these ingredients in a bowl instead of a test-tube, does her final product become "clean"?

Take the lowly pickle. It has at least three of the preservatives mentioned above. None of the processing adds to the food's nutritional value; all it does is extend the shelf-life of the cucumber, saving the family money. Is a pickle dirty?

Yes, it is tricky. Maybe the line is drawn between the processing that is inherent in the creation of the food, like a pickle, and the processing that is just a corporate strategy by companies that industrially create and distribute foods to increase profitability.

So perhaps it is analyzing what ingredients / processes that are required to make a pickle and balancing those against what ingredients / processes a company uses to mass produce pickles in an effort to minimize the cost of processing and maximize the product's shelf life. In most cases I would rather eat a home processed pickle from the farmer's wife's fridge that she grew and canned herself than one from the jar that rolled off the assembly line at Vlasic. The addition of Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80 are not there to benefit my nutrition.

Home cooks frequently add ingredients that aren't there to benefit the nutritional value of the food. I'm not sure why a company doing this is worse or less "clean" than a home cook doing it.

I agree, taste is as big or a bigger priority than nutrition for a lot of people. That still doesn’t sell me on consuming Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80.

lemurcat12 wrote: »

I'm not against reading labels and learning about ingredients if one is unsure what they are/why they are there, but this is actually related to why I don't like the clean eating thing. Back when I was over-neurotic about food (from my current perspective), I'd do things like refuse to eat pickles unless I made them myself, but the truth is that my lifestyle is such that it's something of a hassle to make pickles (but yay for those of you who make them regularly, I always mean to start doing that and canning stuff and so on) and it was kind of silly to avoid eating perfectly good store-bought pickles just because in theory I wanted to be making them myself. It's also silly to feel that logging them is a failure and not living up to some standard.

I realize that for some you don't get all self-judgmental or neurotic about it, and that's great, but I worry that newbies get the message that their eating habits aren't good enough unless they cut out all such foods that really has nothing at all to do with weight loss (or, IMO, health/nutrition) and end up making the perfect the enemy of the good so it all just seems way more hard and time-consuming than it needs to be. Easy healthy or simply improving one's diet is much simpler and need not require a huge investment of time. I can whip up a dinner with lots of vegetables and some lean protein in a snap (and part of why I can do that is that I will live with relying on dried pasta or canned beans from time to time and not see that as some failure or lesser-than option vs what I should be doing).

I agree with all of this. Eating the perfect diet is aspirational, and completely unrealistic (in my life, anyways). I don’t have a jar of pickles made by a farmer’s wife in my fridge, I have Vlasic pickles, and I get my dose of food coloring and emulsifiers accordingly
I would hope that the new people understand the failures that are inherent in attempting to eat a less-processed diet, and not get too discouraged at having to settle for what is readily available.

I'm not trying to sell you on consuming anything you don't want to consume. But I'm asking you what is the distinction between a company adding an ingredient to a food to enhance taste, appearance, or texture and a home cook doing the same? I don't see a meaningful difference.

It is just a preference. Do you want mom's homemade bread with 6-7 ingredients or Subway's with 30+ ingredients? You can go down the list of ingredients that Subway adds and there is a purpose for each one (prolonging the shelf life, firmness, color, texture, etc.), but that doesn't inspire me to choose their bread over the homemade version. (And for the sensitive people out there, I'm not saying you are a bad person for eating at Subway, I have had their bread on countless occasions, so please don't be hurt by my criticism...)

Just to be clear, it's not about being a bad person. It's about priorities and not beating yourself up over dumb things. You can get bread of all sorts from the supermarket (I never buy bread from the supermarket, but just because I don't eat bread at home much and am picky about it) or from restaurants (I'm fond of a sandwich place that is pretty embarrassing in their focus on the the trendy this and that, and I bet their bread doesn't have lots of ingredients, although number of ingredients isn't a focus of mine). So if there are ingredients you'd prefer to avoid or quality differences, I totally get that, but why tell yourself that supermarket bread or bakery bread or whatever is "less clean" or "not clean" (and I still don't get how "less clean" is distinct from dirty). I just don't get that. I am all for eating in an aspirational way -- I have ideas about how I'd like to eat that I don't always live up to -- but I don't get how it helps to tell myself that my meals are clean or not clean or that I eat semi clean or whatever. I try to eat well, to prioritize nutrient dense food and quality and to also enjoy what I eat (which means trying to cook it in a way that makes it taste good).

I don't understand why saying "this meal isn't as clean as I'd like" is much different than "this meal falls short of how I'd like to eat". Sounds like to-may-toes vs. to-mah-toes to me.

Except in the first case the meal could be both not clean and how I'd like eat.

It all comes back to the implication of "clean," and I understand that you cannot see why it bothers some of us when used in the food context.

And again, because in the current commonplace usage, including on MFP, it's not about a continuum, but being either "clean" or not. One can fall short of one's goals for one's diet on a particular day and not conclude "I'm not a healthful eater." If one eats "unclean" foods, presumably one would not be a "clean eater." (Or else, I ask once again, how is being a "clean eater" different from the rest of us who merely try to eat healthful, nutrient-dense meals for the most part such that it is defended as a special, different way of eating that requires special groups and recipes.)

Using my definition the difference would be vocabulary. I do find it amusing that you suggest there is a commonplace usage for the term though. I thought the fact that there is not was the whole point of this thread.

I think the definitions all revolve around "avoiding processed food." People just have weird ideas about what processed means.

Well that's certainly true. I've heard picking vegetables, peeling an apple, cooking, and other silliness listed as examples.

If you're looking at it from a "whole foods" perspective it makes sense why peeling an apple could be considered processing that makes a food less desirable. Removing the peel of the apple removes some of the fiber, so you're actually changing the food. My mom was very into whole foods and when I was growing up, I was taught never to peel foods unless the peel was actually inedible. We never peeled apples or carrots or potatoes.

I have no beef with peeling fruits and vegetables, but I can understand the rationale behind that argument. If nature has packaged a food with certain amounts of fiber and other nutrients and you take some of them away, you no longer have a "whole food" (setting aside the fact that many fruits bear the strong impression of human design in addition to how "nature" created them). I don't think I would call the argument "silly." It's not one I personally use when making food choices, but there is an internal logic there.

I can see how it would make it less whole or less nutritious, but not less natural. The food consumed is unchanged. How would it differ from peeling a banana or orange? Or removing skin from an animal or shell from a nut?

Well, it's possible I've gotten lost in the twists and turns of the conversation, but multiple people in this thread have attempted to define "clean eating" as "eating whole foods."

So my point was that if you are defining "clean eating" as "eating whole foods," then peeling is a potentially relevant form of processing. There is a difference, nutritionally, between eating an apple with the peel and eating the apple without the peel.

I will sometimes see people around the forums say we're "meant" to eat foods in a certain way (as in, don't drink juice because we're "meant" to have the fiber along with the sugar in fruit). That's the logic behind eating the (edible) peels of fruit -- that nature somehow aligned to produce foods that are ideal for the nutritional needs of one species (us) and that we should alter those foods as little as possible.

This kind of thinking seems to be underpinning some of the "eat whole foods" or "processing is undesirable" conversations. So while I disagree, I don't think I would call it "silliness." While I don't agree that we should avoid eating only the parts of the food that we find the most tasty, I don't think it's sillier than some of the other definitions we've seen proposed in this thread (and other threads on "clean eating").

And when you say it doesn't make the food less "natural," I think we are hitting on how "natural" isn't a very useful designation for food. What makes an "apple" natural? That we eat it as it grows (that is, with the peel)? That we eat it in a form that isn't influenced by human choices (that is, wild)? That we eat it only in season? That we eat it only when we have done to work to obtain it ourselves?

Which of these standards do we adopt for "natural"? Why choose one over another?

All good points. I suppose whole would mean eating all edible portions of the food.(?) While I do know people that eat orange peels and peanut shells, let's just put those freaks aside for now. Whole foods still becomes as problematic. Easily as much or more so than 'natural', which I find easier.

Take for example a pumpkin. If you eat the flesh but not the seeds is it not a whole food because the seeds are both edible and nutritious? If you eat broccoli stalks but not the leaves, is that not a whole food? Same for beets or carrots or cauliflower or other vegetables with nutritious edible leaves that are often not consumed.

Is the broccoli not natural because I planted it? Honestly except for sh*ts and giggles on MFP I don't delve into minutiae like that. It seems unnecessary except for wanting to trip someone up.

According to some definitions of "whole food," yeah -- eating just pumpkin flesh or broccoli florets would be making the food less "whole."

You'll often see arguments that we're "supposed" to eat the whole grain or the fat in dairy. I'm not sure why fruits and vegetables would be exempted from this theory.

I would argue that it isn't just your planting it that makes "natural" a pretty meaningless term for the broccoli. There's the whole fact that broccoli wouldn't even exist without human intervention. It's a product of human intervention and decisions just like a Frito. Yeah, they have different nutritional values. But broccoli, like a Frito, doesn't exist in the wild and our consumption of it is pretty far outside any natural order.

I don't think interrogation of the category of "natural" is minutiae. I think it's worth discussing whether it is even a meaningful term.

If I plant a broccoli seed in the right weather and soil conditions nature will take it's course and a vegetable will grow. Not so with a Frito. That's a difference that seems simple and obvious to me.

You're confident that the process that led to the creation of broccoli and the existence of the seed is irrelevant to the question of what "natural" means. I don't share that confidence.

Yeah -- the end result of a recipe will never grow from the ground. Corn will, but a Frito won't. Are you saying that the end result of a recipe is always "unnatural"?

No, I would not say it is irrelevant. But the definition I know of clean isn't 100% natural.

No, if I'd wanted to say that, I'd say it.

Then why bother to point out that a Frito would never grow from the ground if it isn't relevant to whether or not it is "natural"?

lemurcat12

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

show previous quotes

stevencloser wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

@nikkimendez666 if you have followed the thread you must know your answer is full of holes. What is a "whole food"?

Eggs are whole but aren't plant-based.
I imagine you'll allow grains and nuts to be shelled and hulled. How about grinding for flour? Is that much processing allowed in your plan?
How about pressing olives for their oil?
Drying grapes in to raisins?

If you eat only unprocessed "whole foods" could you eat a meal of hemp seeds, raisins, and broccoli as long as they weren't mixed together?

I don't think people consider applying physical force (crushing, mixing, shucking, grinding, pressing, etc.) to food as unacceptable processing, at least that is my interpretation. Unwanted processing to me is industrially injecting / mixing / treating food with chemicals to make them more profitable for corporations, ie, food coloring, preservatives mixed in a test tube, steroids, anti-biotics, hormones, etc., that don't add to the nutritional value of the food.

Aye, there's the rub, isn't it? We are dealing with many interpretations for the same idea. Hence my Venn diagram. Your use is dastardly difficult to define, as one must speak to motive.

What if a farmer's wife is doctoring her family's food in order to extend it's shelf-life, and thereby save the family money? The additives in her arsenal include salt, sugar, vinegar, gelatin, and pectin. If she mixes these ingredients in a bowl instead of a test-tube, does her final product become "clean"?

Take the lowly pickle. It has at least three of the preservatives mentioned above. None of the processing adds to the food's nutritional value; all it does is extend the shelf-life of the cucumber, saving the family money. Is a pickle dirty?

Yes, it is tricky. Maybe the line is drawn between the processing that is inherent in the creation of the food, like a pickle, and the processing that is just a corporate strategy by companies that industrially create and distribute foods to increase profitability.

So perhaps it is analyzing what ingredients / processes that are required to make a pickle and balancing those against what ingredients / processes a company uses to mass produce pickles in an effort to minimize the cost of processing and maximize the product's shelf life. In most cases I would rather eat a home processed pickle from the farmer's wife's fridge that she grew and canned herself than one from the jar that rolled off the assembly line at Vlasic. The addition of Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80 are not there to benefit my nutrition.

Home cooks frequently add ingredients that aren't there to benefit the nutritional value of the food. I'm not sure why a company doing this is worse or less "clean" than a home cook doing it.

I agree, taste is as big or a bigger priority than nutrition for a lot of people. That still doesn’t sell me on consuming Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80.

lemurcat12 wrote: »

I'm not against reading labels and learning about ingredients if one is unsure what they are/why they are there, but this is actually related to why I don't like the clean eating thing. Back when I was over-neurotic about food (from my current perspective), I'd do things like refuse to eat pickles unless I made them myself, but the truth is that my lifestyle is such that it's something of a hassle to make pickles (but yay for those of you who make them regularly, I always mean to start doing that and canning stuff and so on) and it was kind of silly to avoid eating perfectly good store-bought pickles just because in theory I wanted to be making them myself. It's also silly to feel that logging them is a failure and not living up to some standard.

I realize that for some you don't get all self-judgmental or neurotic about it, and that's great, but I worry that newbies get the message that their eating habits aren't good enough unless they cut out all such foods that really has nothing at all to do with weight loss (or, IMO, health/nutrition) and end up making the perfect the enemy of the good so it all just seems way more hard and time-consuming than it needs to be. Easy healthy or simply improving one's diet is much simpler and need not require a huge investment of time. I can whip up a dinner with lots of vegetables and some lean protein in a snap (and part of why I can do that is that I will live with relying on dried pasta or canned beans from time to time and not see that as some failure or lesser-than option vs what I should be doing).

I agree with all of this. Eating the perfect diet is aspirational, and completely unrealistic (in my life, anyways). I don’t have a jar of pickles made by a farmer’s wife in my fridge, I have Vlasic pickles, and I get my dose of food coloring and emulsifiers accordingly
I would hope that the new people understand the failures that are inherent in attempting to eat a less-processed diet, and not get too discouraged at having to settle for what is readily available.

I'm not trying to sell you on consuming anything you don't want to consume. But I'm asking you what is the distinction between a company adding an ingredient to a food to enhance taste, appearance, or texture and a home cook doing the same? I don't see a meaningful difference.

It is just a preference. Do you want mom's homemade bread with 6-7 ingredients or Subway's with 30+ ingredients? You can go down the list of ingredients that Subway adds and there is a purpose for each one (prolonging the shelf life, firmness, color, texture, etc.), but that doesn't inspire me to choose their bread over the homemade version. (And for the sensitive people out there, I'm not saying you are a bad person for eating at Subway, I have had their bread on countless occasions, so please don't be hurt by my criticism...)

Just to be clear, it's not about being a bad person. It's about priorities and not beating yourself up over dumb things. You can get bread of all sorts from the supermarket (I never buy bread from the supermarket, but just because I don't eat bread at home much and am picky about it) or from restaurants (I'm fond of a sandwich place that is pretty embarrassing in their focus on the the trendy this and that, and I bet their bread doesn't have lots of ingredients, although number of ingredients isn't a focus of mine). So if there are ingredients you'd prefer to avoid or quality differences, I totally get that, but why tell yourself that supermarket bread or bakery bread or whatever is "less clean" or "not clean" (and I still don't get how "less clean" is distinct from dirty). I just don't get that. I am all for eating in an aspirational way -- I have ideas about how I'd like to eat that I don't always live up to -- but I don't get how it helps to tell myself that my meals are clean or not clean or that I eat semi clean or whatever. I try to eat well, to prioritize nutrient dense food and quality and to also enjoy what I eat (which means trying to cook it in a way that makes it taste good).

I don't understand why saying "this meal isn't as clean as I'd like" is much different than "this meal falls short of how I'd like to eat". Sounds like to-may-toes vs. to-mah-toes to me.

Except in the first case the meal could be both not clean and how I'd like eat.

It all comes back to the implication of "clean," and I understand that you cannot see why it bothers some of us when used in the food context.

And again, because in the current commonplace usage, including on MFP, it's not about a continuum, but being either "clean" or not. One can fall short of one's goals for one's diet on a particular day and not conclude "I'm not a healthful eater." If one eats "unclean" foods, presumably one would not be a "clean eater." (Or else, I ask once again, how is being a "clean eater" different from the rest of us who merely try to eat healthful, nutrient-dense meals for the most part such that it is defended as a special, different way of eating that requires special groups and recipes.)

Using my definition the difference would be vocabulary. I do find it amusing that you suggest there is a commonplace usage for the term though. I thought the fact that there is not was the whole point of this thread.

I think the definitions all revolve around "avoiding processed food." People just have weird ideas about what processed means.

Well that's certainly true. I've heard picking vegetables, peeling an apple, cooking, and other silliness listed as examples.

If you're looking at it from a "whole foods" perspective it makes sense why peeling an apple could be considered processing that makes a food less desirable. Removing the peel of the apple removes some of the fiber, so you're actually changing the food. My mom was very into whole foods and when I was growing up, I was taught never to peel foods unless the peel was actually inedible. We never peeled apples or carrots or potatoes.

I have no beef with peeling fruits and vegetables, but I can understand the rationale behind that argument. If nature has packaged a food with certain amounts of fiber and other nutrients and you take some of them away, you no longer have a "whole food" (setting aside the fact that many fruits bear the strong impression of human design in addition to how "nature" created them). I don't think I would call the argument "silly." It's not one I personally use when making food choices, but there is an internal logic there.

I can see how it would make it less whole or less nutritious, but not less natural. The food consumed is unchanged. How would it differ from peeling a banana or orange? Or removing skin from an animal or shell from a nut?

Well, it's possible I've gotten lost in the twists and turns of the conversation, but multiple people in this thread have attempted to define "clean eating" as "eating whole foods."

So my point was that if you are defining "clean eating" as "eating whole foods," then peeling is a potentially relevant form of processing. There is a difference, nutritionally, between eating an apple with the peel and eating the apple without the peel.

I will sometimes see people around the forums say we're "meant" to eat foods in a certain way (as in, don't drink juice because we're "meant" to have the fiber along with the sugar in fruit). That's the logic behind eating the (edible) peels of fruit -- that nature somehow aligned to produce foods that are ideal for the nutritional needs of one species (us) and that we should alter those foods as little as possible.

This kind of thinking seems to be underpinning some of the "eat whole foods" or "processing is undesirable" conversations. So while I disagree, I don't think I would call it "silliness." While I don't agree that we should avoid eating only the parts of the food that we find the most tasty, I don't think it's sillier than some of the other definitions we've seen proposed in this thread (and other threads on "clean eating").

And when you say it doesn't make the food less "natural," I think we are hitting on how "natural" isn't a very useful designation for food. What makes an "apple" natural? That we eat it as it grows (that is, with the peel)? That we eat it in a form that isn't influenced by human choices (that is, wild)? That we eat it only in season? That we eat it only when we have done to work to obtain it ourselves?

Which of these standards do we adopt for "natural"? Why choose one over another?

All good points. I suppose whole would mean eating all edible portions of the food.(?) While I do know people that eat orange peels and peanut shells, let's just put those freaks aside for now. Whole foods still becomes as problematic. Easily as much or more so than 'natural', which I find easier.

Take for example a pumpkin. If you eat the flesh but not the seeds is it not a whole food because the seeds are both edible and nutritious? If you eat broccoli stalks but not the leaves, is that not a whole food? Same for beets or carrots or cauliflower or other vegetables with nutritious edible leaves that are often not consumed.

Is the broccoli not natural because I planted it? Honestly except for sh*ts and giggles on MFP I don't delve into minutiae like that. It seems unnecessary except for wanting to trip someone up.

According to some definitions of "whole food," yeah -- eating just pumpkin flesh or broccoli florets would be making the food less "whole."

You'll often see arguments that we're "supposed" to eat the whole grain or the fat in dairy. I'm not sure why fruits and vegetables would be exempted from this theory.

I would argue that it isn't just your planting it that makes "natural" a pretty meaningless term for the broccoli. There's the whole fact that broccoli wouldn't even exist without human intervention. It's a product of human intervention and decisions just like a Frito. Yeah, they have different nutritional values. But broccoli, like a Frito, doesn't exist in the wild and our consumption of it is pretty far outside any natural order.

I don't think interrogation of the category of "natural" is minutiae. I think it's worth discussing whether it is even a meaningful term.

If I plant a broccoli seed in the right weather and soil conditions nature will take it's course and a vegetable will grow. Not so with a Frito. That's a difference that seems simple and obvious to me.

Jane already mentioned it, but the broccoli seed only exists because of long term human intervention over hundreds and thousands of years, making it unnatural by the definition that was provided somewhere upthread. As would be every single thing you could get anywhere to buy, processed or not.

Quite true. But I don't think nature doesn't exists because man has changed the world.

Okay, let's follow this to the end.

You seem to be saying -- and I would agree -- that a clean eater utopia would be the ability to grow, raise, or hunt everything you eat.

The question is if there's some actual benefit to this -- is it healthier? And, if so, is it healthier given the extra work and stress?

For someone who lives on a farm or close to it in a moderate climate and who is skilled at and knows how to preserve foods -- maybe. I'm not convinced even of that, but won't say it's not.

But for someone who lives in a city in a northern climate, so cannot grow so much stuff or raise livestock, who may need to pay more for farm produce (I'm lucky, so can generally get this stuff), and -- and this is my big issue -- who has to deal with the reality that much of the year very little is in season? No, I don't think that we were always better off from a health perspective.

My grandparents lived on a farm. I don't think how they were able to eat was inherently better or healthier than I can. Part of that is availability -- they actually probably ate more from cans than I do (including cans from the store). They definitely ate a smaller variety of fish and produce in some respects than I can, and had much less access to really good restaurants and ethnic foods and the like. So did they live in a utopia vs. what I have? I am not convinced.

WinoGelato

stevencloser wrote: »

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janejellyroll wrote: »

stevencloser wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

@nikkimendez666 if you have followed the thread you must know your answer is full of holes. What is a "whole food"?

Eggs are whole but aren't plant-based.
I imagine you'll allow grains and nuts to be shelled and hulled. How about grinding for flour? Is that much processing allowed in your plan?
How about pressing olives for their oil?
Drying grapes in to raisins?

If you eat only unprocessed "whole foods" could you eat a meal of hemp seeds, raisins, and broccoli as long as they weren't mixed together?

I don't think people consider applying physical force (crushing, mixing, shucking, grinding, pressing, etc.) to food as unacceptable processing, at least that is my interpretation. Unwanted processing to me is industrially injecting / mixing / treating food with chemicals to make them more profitable for corporations, ie, food coloring, preservatives mixed in a test tube, steroids, anti-biotics, hormones, etc., that don't add to the nutritional value of the food.

Aye, there's the rub, isn't it? We are dealing with many interpretations for the same idea. Hence my Venn diagram. Your use is dastardly difficult to define, as one must speak to motive.

What if a farmer's wife is doctoring her family's food in order to extend it's shelf-life, and thereby save the family money? The additives in her arsenal include salt, sugar, vinegar, gelatin, and pectin. If she mixes these ingredients in a bowl instead of a test-tube, does her final product become "clean"?

Take the lowly pickle. It has at least three of the preservatives mentioned above. None of the processing adds to the food's nutritional value; all it does is extend the shelf-life of the cucumber, saving the family money. Is a pickle dirty?

Yes, it is tricky. Maybe the line is drawn between the processing that is inherent in the creation of the food, like a pickle, and the processing that is just a corporate strategy by companies that industrially create and distribute foods to increase profitability.

So perhaps it is analyzing what ingredients / processes that are required to make a pickle and balancing those against what ingredients / processes a company uses to mass produce pickles in an effort to minimize the cost of processing and maximize the product's shelf life. In most cases I would rather eat a home processed pickle from the farmer's wife's fridge that she grew and canned herself than one from the jar that rolled off the assembly line at Vlasic. The addition of Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80 are not there to benefit my nutrition.

Home cooks frequently add ingredients that aren't there to benefit the nutritional value of the food. I'm not sure why a company doing this is worse or less "clean" than a home cook doing it.

I agree, taste is as big or a bigger priority than nutrition for a lot of people. That still doesn’t sell me on consuming Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80.

lemurcat12 wrote: »

I'm not against reading labels and learning about ingredients if one is unsure what they are/why they are there, but this is actually related to why I don't like the clean eating thing. Back when I was over-neurotic about food (from my current perspective), I'd do things like refuse to eat pickles unless I made them myself, but the truth is that my lifestyle is such that it's something of a hassle to make pickles (but yay for those of you who make them regularly, I always mean to start doing that and canning stuff and so on) and it was kind of silly to avoid eating perfectly good store-bought pickles just because in theory I wanted to be making them myself. It's also silly to feel that logging them is a failure and not living up to some standard.

I realize that for some you don't get all self-judgmental or neurotic about it, and that's great, but I worry that newbies get the message that their eating habits aren't good enough unless they cut out all such foods that really has nothing at all to do with weight loss (or, IMO, health/nutrition) and end up making the perfect the enemy of the good so it all just seems way more hard and time-consuming than it needs to be. Easy healthy or simply improving one's diet is much simpler and need not require a huge investment of time. I can whip up a dinner with lots of vegetables and some lean protein in a snap (and part of why I can do that is that I will live with relying on dried pasta or canned beans from time to time and not see that as some failure or lesser-than option vs what I should be doing).

I agree with all of this. Eating the perfect diet is aspirational, and completely unrealistic (in my life, anyways). I don’t have a jar of pickles made by a farmer’s wife in my fridge, I have Vlasic pickles, and I get my dose of food coloring and emulsifiers accordingly
I would hope that the new people understand the failures that are inherent in attempting to eat a less-processed diet, and not get too discouraged at having to settle for what is readily available.

I'm not trying to sell you on consuming anything you don't want to consume. But I'm asking you what is the distinction between a company adding an ingredient to a food to enhance taste, appearance, or texture and a home cook doing the same? I don't see a meaningful difference.

It is just a preference. Do you want mom's homemade bread with 6-7 ingredients or Subway's with 30+ ingredients? You can go down the list of ingredients that Subway adds and there is a purpose for each one (prolonging the shelf life, firmness, color, texture, etc.), but that doesn't inspire me to choose their bread over the homemade version. (And for the sensitive people out there, I'm not saying you are a bad person for eating at Subway, I have had their bread on countless occasions, so please don't be hurt by my criticism...)

Just to be clear, it's not about being a bad person. It's about priorities and not beating yourself up over dumb things. You can get bread of all sorts from the supermarket (I never buy bread from the supermarket, but just because I don't eat bread at home much and am picky about it) or from restaurants (I'm fond of a sandwich place that is pretty embarrassing in their focus on the the trendy this and that, and I bet their bread doesn't have lots of ingredients, although number of ingredients isn't a focus of mine). So if there are ingredients you'd prefer to avoid or quality differences, I totally get that, but why tell yourself that supermarket bread or bakery bread or whatever is "less clean" or "not clean" (and I still don't get how "less clean" is distinct from dirty). I just don't get that. I am all for eating in an aspirational way -- I have ideas about how I'd like to eat that I don't always live up to -- but I don't get how it helps to tell myself that my meals are clean or not clean or that I eat semi clean or whatever. I try to eat well, to prioritize nutrient dense food and quality and to also enjoy what I eat (which means trying to cook it in a way that makes it taste good).

I don't understand why saying "this meal isn't as clean as I'd like" is much different than "this meal falls short of how I'd like to eat". Sounds like to-may-toes vs. to-mah-toes to me.

Except in the first case the meal could be both not clean and how I'd like eat.

It all comes back to the implication of "clean," and I understand that you cannot see why it bothers some of us when used in the food context.

And again, because in the current commonplace usage, including on MFP, it's not about a continuum, but being either "clean" or not. One can fall short of one's goals for one's diet on a particular day and not conclude "I'm not a healthful eater." If one eats "unclean" foods, presumably one would not be a "clean eater." (Or else, I ask once again, how is being a "clean eater" different from the rest of us who merely try to eat healthful, nutrient-dense meals for the most part such that it is defended as a special, different way of eating that requires special groups and recipes.)

Using my definition the difference would be vocabulary. I do find it amusing that you suggest there is a commonplace usage for the term though. I thought the fact that there is not was the whole point of this thread.

I think the definitions all revolve around "avoiding processed food." People just have weird ideas about what processed means.

Well that's certainly true. I've heard picking vegetables, peeling an apple, cooking, and other silliness listed as examples.

If you're looking at it from a "whole foods" perspective it makes sense why peeling an apple could be considered processing that makes a food less desirable. Removing the peel of the apple removes some of the fiber, so you're actually changing the food. My mom was very into whole foods and when I was growing up, I was taught never to peel foods unless the peel was actually inedible. We never peeled apples or carrots or potatoes.

I have no beef with peeling fruits and vegetables, but I can understand the rationale behind that argument. If nature has packaged a food with certain amounts of fiber and other nutrients and you take some of them away, you no longer have a "whole food" (setting aside the fact that many fruits bear the strong impression of human design in addition to how "nature" created them). I don't think I would call the argument "silly." It's not one I personally use when making food choices, but there is an internal logic there.

I can see how it would make it less whole or less nutritious, but not less natural. The food consumed is unchanged. How would it differ from peeling a banana or orange? Or removing skin from an animal or shell from a nut?

Well, it's possible I've gotten lost in the twists and turns of the conversation, but multiple people in this thread have attempted to define "clean eating" as "eating whole foods."

So my point was that if you are defining "clean eating" as "eating whole foods," then peeling is a potentially relevant form of processing. There is a difference, nutritionally, between eating an apple with the peel and eating the apple without the peel.

I will sometimes see people around the forums say we're "meant" to eat foods in a certain way (as in, don't drink juice because we're "meant" to have the fiber along with the sugar in fruit). That's the logic behind eating the (edible) peels of fruit -- that nature somehow aligned to produce foods that are ideal for the nutritional needs of one species (us) and that we should alter those foods as little as possible.

This kind of thinking seems to be underpinning some of the "eat whole foods" or "processing is undesirable" conversations. So while I disagree, I don't think I would call it "silliness." While I don't agree that we should avoid eating only the parts of the food that we find the most tasty, I don't think it's sillier than some of the other definitions we've seen proposed in this thread (and other threads on "clean eating").

And when you say it doesn't make the food less "natural," I think we are hitting on how "natural" isn't a very useful designation for food. What makes an "apple" natural? That we eat it as it grows (that is, with the peel)? That we eat it in a form that isn't influenced by human choices (that is, wild)? That we eat it only in season? That we eat it only when we have done to work to obtain it ourselves?

Which of these standards do we adopt for "natural"? Why choose one over another?

All good points. I suppose whole would mean eating all edible portions of the food.(?) While I do know people that eat orange peels and peanut shells, let's just put those freaks aside for now. Whole foods still becomes as problematic. Easily as much or more so than 'natural', which I find easier.

Take for example a pumpkin. If you eat the flesh but not the seeds is it not a whole food because the seeds are both edible and nutritious? If you eat broccoli stalks but not the leaves, is that not a whole food? Same for beets or carrots or cauliflower or other vegetables with nutritious edible leaves that are often not consumed.

Is the broccoli not natural because I planted it? Honestly except for sh*ts and giggles on MFP I don't delve into minutiae like that. It seems unnecessary except for wanting to trip someone up.

According to some definitions of "whole food," yeah -- eating just pumpkin flesh or broccoli florets would be making the food less "whole."

You'll often see arguments that we're "supposed" to eat the whole grain or the fat in dairy. I'm not sure why fruits and vegetables would be exempted from this theory.

I would argue that it isn't just your planting it that makes "natural" a pretty meaningless term for the broccoli. There's the whole fact that broccoli wouldn't even exist without human intervention. It's a product of human intervention and decisions just like a Frito. Yeah, they have different nutritional values. But broccoli, like a Frito, doesn't exist in the wild and our consumption of it is pretty far outside any natural order.

I don't think interrogation of the category of "natural" is minutiae. I think it's worth discussing whether it is even a meaningful term.

If I plant a broccoli seed in the right weather and soil conditions nature will take it's course and a vegetable will grow. Not so with a Frito. That's a difference that seems simple and obvious to me.

Jane already mentioned it, but the broccoli seed only exists because of long term human intervention over hundreds and thousands of years, making it unnatural by the definition that was provided somewhere upthread. As would be every single thing you could get anywhere to buy, processed or not.

Fruits and vegetables are often upheld as the paragons of "natural" foods, but when you look into many of them, they're as much the product of human tastes and decisions as foods like Fritos are.

Even more so. We didn't spend centuries trying to perfect the frito. Yet.

Um, why would we need to? It has been perfect since its inception. It does have a mascot though, so therefore it can't be clean...



Ay - Yi - Yi - Yi....

CasperNaegle

I can't believe this thread is still going!

jgnatca

Turns out there is some commonality. Fruit, beans, and vegetables.

As an aside, I attended a documentary on the weekend (Elder in the Making) where a prairie naturalist pointed out that humans are a "keystone species". We transform any habitat we are a part of. Everything we do, everything we eat has a human touch to it.

lemurcat12

jgnatca wrote: »

Turns out there is some commonality. Fruit, beans, and vegetables.

As an aside, I attended a documentary on the weekend (Elder in the Making) where a prairie naturalist pointed out that humans are a "keystone species". We transform any habitat we are a part of. Everything we do, everything we eat has a human touch to it.

Paleo folks consider legumes not clean.

Need2Exerc1se

lemurcat12 wrote: »

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Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

stevencloser wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

@nikkimendez666 if you have followed the thread you must know your answer is full of holes. What is a "whole food"?

Eggs are whole but aren't plant-based.
I imagine you'll allow grains and nuts to be shelled and hulled. How about grinding for flour? Is that much processing allowed in your plan?
How about pressing olives for their oil?
Drying grapes in to raisins?

If you eat only unprocessed "whole foods" could you eat a meal of hemp seeds, raisins, and broccoli as long as they weren't mixed together?

I don't think people consider applying physical force (crushing, mixing, shucking, grinding, pressing, etc.) to food as unacceptable processing, at least that is my interpretation. Unwanted processing to me is industrially injecting / mixing / treating food with chemicals to make them more profitable for corporations, ie, food coloring, preservatives mixed in a test tube, steroids, anti-biotics, hormones, etc., that don't add to the nutritional value of the food.

Aye, there's the rub, isn't it? We are dealing with many interpretations for the same idea. Hence my Venn diagram. Your use is dastardly difficult to define, as one must speak to motive.

What if a farmer's wife is doctoring her family's food in order to extend it's shelf-life, and thereby save the family money? The additives in her arsenal include salt, sugar, vinegar, gelatin, and pectin. If she mixes these ingredients in a bowl instead of a test-tube, does her final product become "clean"?

Take the lowly pickle. It has at least three of the preservatives mentioned above. None of the processing adds to the food's nutritional value; all it does is extend the shelf-life of the cucumber, saving the family money. Is a pickle dirty?

Yes, it is tricky. Maybe the line is drawn between the processing that is inherent in the creation of the food, like a pickle, and the processing that is just a corporate strategy by companies that industrially create and distribute foods to increase profitability.

So perhaps it is analyzing what ingredients / processes that are required to make a pickle and balancing those against what ingredients / processes a company uses to mass produce pickles in an effort to minimize the cost of processing and maximize the product's shelf life. In most cases I would rather eat a home processed pickle from the farmer's wife's fridge that she grew and canned herself than one from the jar that rolled off the assembly line at Vlasic. The addition of Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80 are not there to benefit my nutrition.

Home cooks frequently add ingredients that aren't there to benefit the nutritional value of the food. I'm not sure why a company doing this is worse or less "clean" than a home cook doing it.

I agree, taste is as big or a bigger priority than nutrition for a lot of people. That still doesn’t sell me on consuming Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80.

lemurcat12 wrote: »

I'm not against reading labels and learning about ingredients if one is unsure what they are/why they are there, but this is actually related to why I don't like the clean eating thing. Back when I was over-neurotic about food (from my current perspective), I'd do things like refuse to eat pickles unless I made them myself, but the truth is that my lifestyle is such that it's something of a hassle to make pickles (but yay for those of you who make them regularly, I always mean to start doing that and canning stuff and so on) and it was kind of silly to avoid eating perfectly good store-bought pickles just because in theory I wanted to be making them myself. It's also silly to feel that logging them is a failure and not living up to some standard.

I realize that for some you don't get all self-judgmental or neurotic about it, and that's great, but I worry that newbies get the message that their eating habits aren't good enough unless they cut out all such foods that really has nothing at all to do with weight loss (or, IMO, health/nutrition) and end up making the perfect the enemy of the good so it all just seems way more hard and time-consuming than it needs to be. Easy healthy or simply improving one's diet is much simpler and need not require a huge investment of time. I can whip up a dinner with lots of vegetables and some lean protein in a snap (and part of why I can do that is that I will live with relying on dried pasta or canned beans from time to time and not see that as some failure or lesser-than option vs what I should be doing).

I agree with all of this. Eating the perfect diet is aspirational, and completely unrealistic (in my life, anyways). I don’t have a jar of pickles made by a farmer’s wife in my fridge, I have Vlasic pickles, and I get my dose of food coloring and emulsifiers accordingly
I would hope that the new people understand the failures that are inherent in attempting to eat a less-processed diet, and not get too discouraged at having to settle for what is readily available.

I'm not trying to sell you on consuming anything you don't want to consume. But I'm asking you what is the distinction between a company adding an ingredient to a food to enhance taste, appearance, or texture and a home cook doing the same? I don't see a meaningful difference.

It is just a preference. Do you want mom's homemade bread with 6-7 ingredients or Subway's with 30+ ingredients? You can go down the list of ingredients that Subway adds and there is a purpose for each one (prolonging the shelf life, firmness, color, texture, etc.), but that doesn't inspire me to choose their bread over the homemade version. (And for the sensitive people out there, I'm not saying you are a bad person for eating at Subway, I have had their bread on countless occasions, so please don't be hurt by my criticism...)

Just to be clear, it's not about being a bad person. It's about priorities and not beating yourself up over dumb things. You can get bread of all sorts from the supermarket (I never buy bread from the supermarket, but just because I don't eat bread at home much and am picky about it) or from restaurants (I'm fond of a sandwich place that is pretty embarrassing in their focus on the the trendy this and that, and I bet their bread doesn't have lots of ingredients, although number of ingredients isn't a focus of mine). So if there are ingredients you'd prefer to avoid or quality differences, I totally get that, but why tell yourself that supermarket bread or bakery bread or whatever is "less clean" or "not clean" (and I still don't get how "less clean" is distinct from dirty). I just don't get that. I am all for eating in an aspirational way -- I have ideas about how I'd like to eat that I don't always live up to -- but I don't get how it helps to tell myself that my meals are clean or not clean or that I eat semi clean or whatever. I try to eat well, to prioritize nutrient dense food and quality and to also enjoy what I eat (which means trying to cook it in a way that makes it taste good).

I don't understand why saying "this meal isn't as clean as I'd like" is much different than "this meal falls short of how I'd like to eat". Sounds like to-may-toes vs. to-mah-toes to me.

Except in the first case the meal could be both not clean and how I'd like eat.

It all comes back to the implication of "clean," and I understand that you cannot see why it bothers some of us when used in the food context.

And again, because in the current commonplace usage, including on MFP, it's not about a continuum, but being either "clean" or not. One can fall short of one's goals for one's diet on a particular day and not conclude "I'm not a healthful eater." If one eats "unclean" foods, presumably one would not be a "clean eater." (Or else, I ask once again, how is being a "clean eater" different from the rest of us who merely try to eat healthful, nutrient-dense meals for the most part such that it is defended as a special, different way of eating that requires special groups and recipes.)

Using my definition the difference would be vocabulary. I do find it amusing that you suggest there is a commonplace usage for the term though. I thought the fact that there is not was the whole point of this thread.

I think the definitions all revolve around "avoiding processed food." People just have weird ideas about what processed means.

Well that's certainly true. I've heard picking vegetables, peeling an apple, cooking, and other silliness listed as examples.

If you're looking at it from a "whole foods" perspective it makes sense why peeling an apple could be considered processing that makes a food less desirable. Removing the peel of the apple removes some of the fiber, so you're actually changing the food. My mom was very into whole foods and when I was growing up, I was taught never to peel foods unless the peel was actually inedible. We never peeled apples or carrots or potatoes.

I have no beef with peeling fruits and vegetables, but I can understand the rationale behind that argument. If nature has packaged a food with certain amounts of fiber and other nutrients and you take some of them away, you no longer have a "whole food" (setting aside the fact that many fruits bear the strong impression of human design in addition to how "nature" created them). I don't think I would call the argument "silly." It's not one I personally use when making food choices, but there is an internal logic there.

I can see how it would make it less whole or less nutritious, but not less natural. The food consumed is unchanged. How would it differ from peeling a banana or orange? Or removing skin from an animal or shell from a nut?

Well, it's possible I've gotten lost in the twists and turns of the conversation, but multiple people in this thread have attempted to define "clean eating" as "eating whole foods."

So my point was that if you are defining "clean eating" as "eating whole foods," then peeling is a potentially relevant form of processing. There is a difference, nutritionally, between eating an apple with the peel and eating the apple without the peel.

I will sometimes see people around the forums say we're "meant" to eat foods in a certain way (as in, don't drink juice because we're "meant" to have the fiber along with the sugar in fruit). That's the logic behind eating the (edible) peels of fruit -- that nature somehow aligned to produce foods that are ideal for the nutritional needs of one species (us) and that we should alter those foods as little as possible.

This kind of thinking seems to be underpinning some of the "eat whole foods" or "processing is undesirable" conversations. So while I disagree, I don't think I would call it "silliness." While I don't agree that we should avoid eating only the parts of the food that we find the most tasty, I don't think it's sillier than some of the other definitions we've seen proposed in this thread (and other threads on "clean eating").

And when you say it doesn't make the food less "natural," I think we are hitting on how "natural" isn't a very useful designation for food. What makes an "apple" natural? That we eat it as it grows (that is, with the peel)? That we eat it in a form that isn't influenced by human choices (that is, wild)? That we eat it only in season? That we eat it only when we have done to work to obtain it ourselves?

Which of these standards do we adopt for "natural"? Why choose one over another?

All good points. I suppose whole would mean eating all edible portions of the food.(?) While I do know people that eat orange peels and peanut shells, let's just put those freaks aside for now. Whole foods still becomes as problematic. Easily as much or more so than 'natural', which I find easier.

Take for example a pumpkin. If you eat the flesh but not the seeds is it not a whole food because the seeds are both edible and nutritious? If you eat broccoli stalks but not the leaves, is that not a whole food? Same for beets or carrots or cauliflower or other vegetables with nutritious edible leaves that are often not consumed.

Is the broccoli not natural because I planted it? Honestly except for sh*ts and giggles on MFP I don't delve into minutiae like that. It seems unnecessary except for wanting to trip someone up.

According to some definitions of "whole food," yeah -- eating just pumpkin flesh or broccoli florets would be making the food less "whole."

You'll often see arguments that we're "supposed" to eat the whole grain or the fat in dairy. I'm not sure why fruits and vegetables would be exempted from this theory.

I would argue that it isn't just your planting it that makes "natural" a pretty meaningless term for the broccoli. There's the whole fact that broccoli wouldn't even exist without human intervention. It's a product of human intervention and decisions just like a Frito. Yeah, they have different nutritional values. But broccoli, like a Frito, doesn't exist in the wild and our consumption of it is pretty far outside any natural order.

I don't think interrogation of the category of "natural" is minutiae. I think it's worth discussing whether it is even a meaningful term.

If I plant a broccoli seed in the right weather and soil conditions nature will take it's course and a vegetable will grow. Not so with a Frito. That's a difference that seems simple and obvious to me.

Jane already mentioned it, but the broccoli seed only exists because of long term human intervention over hundreds and thousands of years, making it unnatural by the definition that was provided somewhere upthread. As would be every single thing you could get anywhere to buy, processed or not.

Quite true. But I don't think nature doesn't exists because man has changed the world.

Okay, let's follow this to the end.

You seem to be saying -- and I would agree -- that a clean eater utopia would be the ability to grow, raise, or hunt everything you eat.

The question is if there's some actual benefit to this -- is it healthier? And, if so, is it healthier given the extra work and stress?

For someone who lives on a farm or close to it in a moderate climate and who is skilled at and knows how to preserve foods -- maybe. I'm not convinced even of that, but won't say it's not.

But for someone who lives in a city in a northern climate, so cannot grow so much stuff or raise livestock, who may need to pay more for farm produce (I'm lucky, so can generally get this stuff), and -- and this is my big issue -- who has to deal with the reality that much of the year very little is in season? No, I don't think that we were always better off from a health perspective.

My grandparents lived on a farm. I don't think how they were able to eat was inherently better or healthier than I can. Part of that is availability -- they actually probably ate more from cans than I do (including cans from the store). They definitely ate a smaller variety of fish and produce in some respects than I can, and had much less access to really good restaurants and ethnic foods and the like. So did they live in a utopia vs. what I have? I am not convinced.

A clean eating utopia? :laugh: Well, never gave that much thought but off the top of my head I guess it would be all your food was grown without synthetic additives (fertilizer or pesticides) and as few pesticides as possible and your meats were naturally caught/raised/hunted without anything synthetic. I don't think it would necessarily have to all be grown by you.

I think the extra work is a very good thing, because exercise. I don't know about stress because I find this type of life rewarding and reduces stress. But if you did find it stressful then spend the extra money to buy from someone else that raises food this way.

I really don't know how to address your need to think of one way as better than the other. If I thought clean eating was the only way to be healthy I'm sure I'd eat cleaner than I do.

*use of the word you is used generally and not intended to mean anyone in particular

jgnatca

Paleo would be a subset of Natural, right?

Need2Exerc1se

janejellyroll wrote: »

show previous quotes

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

@nikkimendez666 if you have followed the thread you must know your answer is full of holes. What is a "whole food"?

Eggs are whole but aren't plant-based.
I imagine you'll allow grains and nuts to be shelled and hulled. How about grinding for flour? Is that much processing allowed in your plan?
How about pressing olives for their oil?
Drying grapes in to raisins?

If you eat only unprocessed "whole foods" could you eat a meal of hemp seeds, raisins, and broccoli as long as they weren't mixed together?

I don't think people consider applying physical force (crushing, mixing, shucking, grinding, pressing, etc.) to food as unacceptable processing, at least that is my interpretation. Unwanted processing to me is industrially injecting / mixing / treating food with chemicals to make them more profitable for corporations, ie, food coloring, preservatives mixed in a test tube, steroids, anti-biotics, hormones, etc., that don't add to the nutritional value of the food.

Aye, there's the rub, isn't it? We are dealing with many interpretations for the same idea. Hence my Venn diagram. Your use is dastardly difficult to define, as one must speak to motive.

What if a farmer's wife is doctoring her family's food in order to extend it's shelf-life, and thereby save the family money? The additives in her arsenal include salt, sugar, vinegar, gelatin, and pectin. If she mixes these ingredients in a bowl instead of a test-tube, does her final product become "clean"?

Take the lowly pickle. It has at least three of the preservatives mentioned above. None of the processing adds to the food's nutritional value; all it does is extend the shelf-life of the cucumber, saving the family money. Is a pickle dirty?

Yes, it is tricky. Maybe the line is drawn between the processing that is inherent in the creation of the food, like a pickle, and the processing that is just a corporate strategy by companies that industrially create and distribute foods to increase profitability.

So perhaps it is analyzing what ingredients / processes that are required to make a pickle and balancing those against what ingredients / processes a company uses to mass produce pickles in an effort to minimize the cost of processing and maximize the product's shelf life. In most cases I would rather eat a home processed pickle from the farmer's wife's fridge that she grew and canned herself than one from the jar that rolled off the assembly line at Vlasic. The addition of Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80 are not there to benefit my nutrition.

Home cooks frequently add ingredients that aren't there to benefit the nutritional value of the food. I'm not sure why a company doing this is worse or less "clean" than a home cook doing it.

I agree, taste is as big or a bigger priority than nutrition for a lot of people. That still doesn’t sell me on consuming Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80.

lemurcat12 wrote: »

I'm not against reading labels and learning about ingredients if one is unsure what they are/why they are there, but this is actually related to why I don't like the clean eating thing. Back when I was over-neurotic about food (from my current perspective), I'd do things like refuse to eat pickles unless I made them myself, but the truth is that my lifestyle is such that it's something of a hassle to make pickles (but yay for those of you who make them regularly, I always mean to start doing that and canning stuff and so on) and it was kind of silly to avoid eating perfectly good store-bought pickles just because in theory I wanted to be making them myself. It's also silly to feel that logging them is a failure and not living up to some standard.

I realize that for some you don't get all self-judgmental or neurotic about it, and that's great, but I worry that newbies get the message that their eating habits aren't good enough unless they cut out all such foods that really has nothing at all to do with weight loss (or, IMO, health/nutrition) and end up making the perfect the enemy of the good so it all just seems way more hard and time-consuming than it needs to be. Easy healthy or simply improving one's diet is much simpler and need not require a huge investment of time. I can whip up a dinner with lots of vegetables and some lean protein in a snap (and part of why I can do that is that I will live with relying on dried pasta or canned beans from time to time and not see that as some failure or lesser-than option vs what I should be doing).

I agree with all of this. Eating the perfect diet is aspirational, and completely unrealistic (in my life, anyways). I don’t have a jar of pickles made by a farmer’s wife in my fridge, I have Vlasic pickles, and I get my dose of food coloring and emulsifiers accordingly
I would hope that the new people understand the failures that are inherent in attempting to eat a less-processed diet, and not get too discouraged at having to settle for what is readily available.

I'm not trying to sell you on consuming anything you don't want to consume. But I'm asking you what is the distinction between a company adding an ingredient to a food to enhance taste, appearance, or texture and a home cook doing the same? I don't see a meaningful difference.

It is just a preference. Do you want mom's homemade bread with 6-7 ingredients or Subway's with 30+ ingredients? You can go down the list of ingredients that Subway adds and there is a purpose for each one (prolonging the shelf life, firmness, color, texture, etc.), but that doesn't inspire me to choose their bread over the homemade version. (And for the sensitive people out there, I'm not saying you are a bad person for eating at Subway, I have had their bread on countless occasions, so please don't be hurt by my criticism...)

Just to be clear, it's not about being a bad person. It's about priorities and not beating yourself up over dumb things. You can get bread of all sorts from the supermarket (I never buy bread from the supermarket, but just because I don't eat bread at home much and am picky about it) or from restaurants (I'm fond of a sandwich place that is pretty embarrassing in their focus on the the trendy this and that, and I bet their bread doesn't have lots of ingredients, although number of ingredients isn't a focus of mine). So if there are ingredients you'd prefer to avoid or quality differences, I totally get that, but why tell yourself that supermarket bread or bakery bread or whatever is "less clean" or "not clean" (and I still don't get how "less clean" is distinct from dirty). I just don't get that. I am all for eating in an aspirational way -- I have ideas about how I'd like to eat that I don't always live up to -- but I don't get how it helps to tell myself that my meals are clean or not clean or that I eat semi clean or whatever. I try to eat well, to prioritize nutrient dense food and quality and to also enjoy what I eat (which means trying to cook it in a way that makes it taste good).

I don't understand why saying "this meal isn't as clean as I'd like" is much different than "this meal falls short of how I'd like to eat". Sounds like to-may-toes vs. to-mah-toes to me.

Except in the first case the meal could be both not clean and how I'd like eat.

It all comes back to the implication of "clean," and I understand that you cannot see why it bothers some of us when used in the food context.

And again, because in the current commonplace usage, including on MFP, it's not about a continuum, but being either "clean" or not. One can fall short of one's goals for one's diet on a particular day and not conclude "I'm not a healthful eater." If one eats "unclean" foods, presumably one would not be a "clean eater." (Or else, I ask once again, how is being a "clean eater" different from the rest of us who merely try to eat healthful, nutrient-dense meals for the most part such that it is defended as a special, different way of eating that requires special groups and recipes.)

Using my definition the difference would be vocabulary. I do find it amusing that you suggest there is a commonplace usage for the term though. I thought the fact that there is not was the whole point of this thread.

I think the definitions all revolve around "avoiding processed food." People just have weird ideas about what processed means.

Well that's certainly true. I've heard picking vegetables, peeling an apple, cooking, and other silliness listed as examples.

If you're looking at it from a "whole foods" perspective it makes sense why peeling an apple could be considered processing that makes a food less desirable. Removing the peel of the apple removes some of the fiber, so you're actually changing the food. My mom was very into whole foods and when I was growing up, I was taught never to peel foods unless the peel was actually inedible. We never peeled apples or carrots or potatoes.

I have no beef with peeling fruits and vegetables, but I can understand the rationale behind that argument. If nature has packaged a food with certain amounts of fiber and other nutrients and you take some of them away, you no longer have a "whole food" (setting aside the fact that many fruits bear the strong impression of human design in addition to how "nature" created them). I don't think I would call the argument "silly." It's not one I personally use when making food choices, but there is an internal logic there.

I can see how it would make it less whole or less nutritious, but not less natural. The food consumed is unchanged. How would it differ from peeling a banana or orange? Or removing skin from an animal or shell from a nut?

Well, it's possible I've gotten lost in the twists and turns of the conversation, but multiple people in this thread have attempted to define "clean eating" as "eating whole foods."

So my point was that if you are defining "clean eating" as "eating whole foods," then peeling is a potentially relevant form of processing. There is a difference, nutritionally, between eating an apple with the peel and eating the apple without the peel.

I will sometimes see people around the forums say we're "meant" to eat foods in a certain way (as in, don't drink juice because we're "meant" to have the fiber along with the sugar in fruit). That's the logic behind eating the (edible) peels of fruit -- that nature somehow aligned to produce foods that are ideal for the nutritional needs of one species (us) and that we should alter those foods as little as possible.

This kind of thinking seems to be underpinning some of the "eat whole foods" or "processing is undesirable" conversations. So while I disagree, I don't think I would call it "silliness." While I don't agree that we should avoid eating only the parts of the food that we find the most tasty, I don't think it's sillier than some of the other definitions we've seen proposed in this thread (and other threads on "clean eating").

And when you say it doesn't make the food less "natural," I think we are hitting on how "natural" isn't a very useful designation for food. What makes an "apple" natural? That we eat it as it grows (that is, with the peel)? That we eat it in a form that isn't influenced by human choices (that is, wild)? That we eat it only in season? That we eat it only when we have done to work to obtain it ourselves?

Which of these standards do we adopt for "natural"? Why choose one over another?

All good points. I suppose whole would mean eating all edible portions of the food.(?) While I do know people that eat orange peels and peanut shells, let's just put those freaks aside for now. Whole foods still becomes as problematic. Easily as much or more so than 'natural', which I find easier.

Take for example a pumpkin. If you eat the flesh but not the seeds is it not a whole food because the seeds are both edible and nutritious? If you eat broccoli stalks but not the leaves, is that not a whole food? Same for beets or carrots or cauliflower or other vegetables with nutritious edible leaves that are often not consumed.

Is the broccoli not natural because I planted it? Honestly except for sh*ts and giggles on MFP I don't delve into minutiae like that. It seems unnecessary except for wanting to trip someone up.

According to some definitions of "whole food," yeah -- eating just pumpkin flesh or broccoli florets would be making the food less "whole."

You'll often see arguments that we're "supposed" to eat the whole grain or the fat in dairy. I'm not sure why fruits and vegetables would be exempted from this theory.

I would argue that it isn't just your planting it that makes "natural" a pretty meaningless term for the broccoli. There's the whole fact that broccoli wouldn't even exist without human intervention. It's a product of human intervention and decisions just like a Frito. Yeah, they have different nutritional values. But broccoli, like a Frito, doesn't exist in the wild and our consumption of it is pretty far outside any natural order.

I don't think interrogation of the category of "natural" is minutiae. I think it's worth discussing whether it is even a meaningful term.

If I plant a broccoli seed in the right weather and soil conditions nature will take it's course and a vegetable will grow. Not so with a Frito. That's a difference that seems simple and obvious to me.

You're confident that the process that led to the creation of broccoli and the existence of the seed is irrelevant to the question of what "natural" means. I don't share that confidence.

Yeah -- the end result of a recipe will never grow from the ground. Corn will, but a Frito won't. Are you saying that the end result of a recipe is always "unnatural"?

No, I would not say it is irrelevant. But the definition I know of clean isn't 100% natural.

No, if I'd wanted to say that, I'd say it.

Then why bother to point out that a Frito would never grow from the ground if it isn't relevant to whether or not it is "natural"?

I don't think "the process that led to the creation of broccoli and the existence of the seed is irrelevant to the question of what "natural" means". That it can be grown naturally once planted does seem relevant. But seriously, if you can't understand why broccoli is more natural than a Frito I don't think I could ever clear that up for you.

stevencloser

Annie_01 wrote: »

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stevencloser wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

I mentioned it before but people historically have broadened the range of foods we can eat by modifying them.

• Quinoa must be washed to remove the soapy layer
• Grains ground to flour have vastly extended our culinary repertoire.
• Lupins fascinate me because like soy, they have all the macros in nearly equal balance. But they must be washed for about twenty-four hours to remove the natural toxins. This used to be done by leaving the beans in a clear running stream.
• Talk about soy beans! They've been modified through fermentation (soy sauce), or leaching (soy milk) then coagulating using gypsum (tofu).

Whole, natural and clean all sound good but it's virtually impossible to peg a definition to them. It sure comes in handy to put those words on a label, though.

Annoying when found on a label, like the Quaker chocolate muffin mix I made yesterday. It advertises, "no trans fats" which is pretty easy to do if the householder has to add their own fat. And not a word about gluten. Because gluten-free muffins, well, yukky.

If we interpret washing food as processing it, the conversation has been rendered comical.

These discussions always hit the wall because one side grabs a hold of the concept, interprets it as an absolute, gouges holes in its practical application, and dismisses it as a failure. "Clean eating" is a set of theories and aspirations, it isn't a fanatical set of sharia-type laws against all that is processed.

So the fact that processed food like protein powder, ground flour, soy beans, or Chipotle find its way into my diet isn't blasphemy or a concession that clean eating is a flawed concept, it is just a realistic understanding that the world isn't a clean eating Garden of Eden type of Utopia and that most us don't have the time or the inclination to completely (or even mostly) reject the industrialized food products that we are conveniently inundated with.

We've had many a clean eater here who's treated it like that though.
"you [people who don't eat 100% clean] obviously don't care about your health/performance/body composition"
"Processed food is full of toxins"
"They put additives in them to make you addicted"
"Processed food is the reason for obesity"
"Processed food is the reason for cancer/diabetes"
etc. all been said.

Every group of people has its fanatics...even those that believe in eating everything in moderation.

Bry_Lander wrote: »

show previous quotes

stevencloser wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

I mentioned it before but people historically have broadened the range of foods we can eat by modifying them.

• Quinoa must be washed to remove the soapy layer
• Grains ground to flour have vastly extended our culinary repertoire.
• Lupins fascinate me because like soy, they have all the macros in nearly equal balance. But they must be washed for about twenty-four hours to remove the natural toxins. This used to be done by leaving the beans in a clear running stream.
• Talk about soy beans! They've been modified through fermentation (soy sauce), or leaching (soy milk) then coagulating using gypsum (tofu).

Whole, natural and clean all sound good but it's virtually impossible to peg a definition to them. It sure comes in handy to put those words on a label, though.

Annoying when found on a label, like the Quaker chocolate muffin mix I made yesterday. It advertises, "no trans fats" which is pretty easy to do if the householder has to add their own fat. And not a word about gluten. Because gluten-free muffins, well, yukky.

If we interpret washing food as processing it, the conversation has been rendered comical.

These discussions always hit the wall because one side grabs a hold of the concept, interprets it as an absolute, gouges holes in its practical application, and dismisses it as a failure. "Clean eating" is a set of theories and aspirations, it isn't a fanatical set of sharia-type laws against all that is processed.

So the fact that processed food like protein powder, ground flour, soy beans, or Chipotle find its way into my diet isn't blasphemy or a concession that clean eating is a flawed concept, it is just a realistic understanding that the world isn't a clean eating Garden of Eden type of Utopia and that most us don't have the time or the inclination to completely (or even mostly) reject the industrialized food products that we are conveniently inundated with.

We've had many a clean eater here who's treated it like that though.
"you [people who don't eat 100% clean] obviously don't care about your health/performance/body composition"
"Processed food is full of toxins"
"They put additives in them to make you addicted"
"Processed food is the reason for obesity"
"Processed food is the reason for cancer/diabetes"
etc. all been said.

I think those types you listed are the opposite fringe of those who are citing processed food to include food that is washed, shelled nuts, grinding wheat/corn", etc., and providing these as examples of the types of processing that clean eating people are opposed to. That is just a cartoonish characterization that doesn't lend to a productive discussion.

If those types of posts were few and far between, I wouldn't mention them. But just like you can keep a checklist of certain things that 100% will be said in any thread about diet coke (which has been filled within 2 pages on the newest one already), you can expect certain things to always be said when it comes to clean eating. The strawman of "eat only twinkies or whatever and see how your health goes" one being the most prominent that even was in this very thread.

Need2Exerc1se

WinoGelato wrote: »

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stevencloser wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

stevencloser wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

@nikkimendez666 if you have followed the thread you must know your answer is full of holes. What is a "whole food"?

Eggs are whole but aren't plant-based.
I imagine you'll allow grains and nuts to be shelled and hulled. How about grinding for flour? Is that much processing allowed in your plan?
How about pressing olives for their oil?
Drying grapes in to raisins?

If you eat only unprocessed "whole foods" could you eat a meal of hemp seeds, raisins, and broccoli as long as they weren't mixed together?

I don't think people consider applying physical force (crushing, mixing, shucking, grinding, pressing, etc.) to food as unacceptable processing, at least that is my interpretation. Unwanted processing to me is industrially injecting / mixing / treating food with chemicals to make them more profitable for corporations, ie, food coloring, preservatives mixed in a test tube, steroids, anti-biotics, hormones, etc., that don't add to the nutritional value of the food.

Aye, there's the rub, isn't it? We are dealing with many interpretations for the same idea. Hence my Venn diagram. Your use is dastardly difficult to define, as one must speak to motive.

What if a farmer's wife is doctoring her family's food in order to extend it's shelf-life, and thereby save the family money? The additives in her arsenal include salt, sugar, vinegar, gelatin, and pectin. If she mixes these ingredients in a bowl instead of a test-tube, does her final product become "clean"?

Take the lowly pickle. It has at least three of the preservatives mentioned above. None of the processing adds to the food's nutritional value; all it does is extend the shelf-life of the cucumber, saving the family money. Is a pickle dirty?

Yes, it is tricky. Maybe the line is drawn between the processing that is inherent in the creation of the food, like a pickle, and the processing that is just a corporate strategy by companies that industrially create and distribute foods to increase profitability.

So perhaps it is analyzing what ingredients / processes that are required to make a pickle and balancing those against what ingredients / processes a company uses to mass produce pickles in an effort to minimize the cost of processing and maximize the product's shelf life. In most cases I would rather eat a home processed pickle from the farmer's wife's fridge that she grew and canned herself than one from the jar that rolled off the assembly line at Vlasic. The addition of Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80 are not there to benefit my nutrition.

Home cooks frequently add ingredients that aren't there to benefit the nutritional value of the food. I'm not sure why a company doing this is worse or less "clean" than a home cook doing it.

I agree, taste is as big or a bigger priority than nutrition for a lot of people. That still doesn’t sell me on consuming Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80.

lemurcat12 wrote: »

I'm not against reading labels and learning about ingredients if one is unsure what they are/why they are there, but this is actually related to why I don't like the clean eating thing. Back when I was over-neurotic about food (from my current perspective), I'd do things like refuse to eat pickles unless I made them myself, but the truth is that my lifestyle is such that it's something of a hassle to make pickles (but yay for those of you who make them regularly, I always mean to start doing that and canning stuff and so on) and it was kind of silly to avoid eating perfectly good store-bought pickles just because in theory I wanted to be making them myself. It's also silly to feel that logging them is a failure and not living up to some standard.

I realize that for some you don't get all self-judgmental or neurotic about it, and that's great, but I worry that newbies get the message that their eating habits aren't good enough unless they cut out all such foods that really has nothing at all to do with weight loss (or, IMO, health/nutrition) and end up making the perfect the enemy of the good so it all just seems way more hard and time-consuming than it needs to be. Easy healthy or simply improving one's diet is much simpler and need not require a huge investment of time. I can whip up a dinner with lots of vegetables and some lean protein in a snap (and part of why I can do that is that I will live with relying on dried pasta or canned beans from time to time and not see that as some failure or lesser-than option vs what I should be doing).

I agree with all of this. Eating the perfect diet is aspirational, and completely unrealistic (in my life, anyways). I don’t have a jar of pickles made by a farmer’s wife in my fridge, I have Vlasic pickles, and I get my dose of food coloring and emulsifiers accordingly
I would hope that the new people understand the failures that are inherent in attempting to eat a less-processed diet, and not get too discouraged at having to settle for what is readily available.

I'm not trying to sell you on consuming anything you don't want to consume. But I'm asking you what is the distinction between a company adding an ingredient to a food to enhance taste, appearance, or texture and a home cook doing the same? I don't see a meaningful difference.

It is just a preference. Do you want mom's homemade bread with 6-7 ingredients or Subway's with 30+ ingredients? You can go down the list of ingredients that Subway adds and there is a purpose for each one (prolonging the shelf life, firmness, color, texture, etc.), but that doesn't inspire me to choose their bread over the homemade version. (And for the sensitive people out there, I'm not saying you are a bad person for eating at Subway, I have had their bread on countless occasions, so please don't be hurt by my criticism...)

Just to be clear, it's not about being a bad person. It's about priorities and not beating yourself up over dumb things. You can get bread of all sorts from the supermarket (I never buy bread from the supermarket, but just because I don't eat bread at home much and am picky about it) or from restaurants (I'm fond of a sandwich place that is pretty embarrassing in their focus on the the trendy this and that, and I bet their bread doesn't have lots of ingredients, although number of ingredients isn't a focus of mine). So if there are ingredients you'd prefer to avoid or quality differences, I totally get that, but why tell yourself that supermarket bread or bakery bread or whatever is "less clean" or "not clean" (and I still don't get how "less clean" is distinct from dirty). I just don't get that. I am all for eating in an aspirational way -- I have ideas about how I'd like to eat that I don't always live up to -- but I don't get how it helps to tell myself that my meals are clean or not clean or that I eat semi clean or whatever. I try to eat well, to prioritize nutrient dense food and quality and to also enjoy what I eat (which means trying to cook it in a way that makes it taste good).

I don't understand why saying "this meal isn't as clean as I'd like" is much different than "this meal falls short of how I'd like to eat". Sounds like to-may-toes vs. to-mah-toes to me.

Except in the first case the meal could be both not clean and how I'd like eat.

It all comes back to the implication of "clean," and I understand that you cannot see why it bothers some of us when used in the food context.

And again, because in the current commonplace usage, including on MFP, it's not about a continuum, but being either "clean" or not. One can fall short of one's goals for one's diet on a particular day and not conclude "I'm not a healthful eater." If one eats "unclean" foods, presumably one would not be a "clean eater." (Or else, I ask once again, how is being a "clean eater" different from the rest of us who merely try to eat healthful, nutrient-dense meals for the most part such that it is defended as a special, different way of eating that requires special groups and recipes.)

Using my definition the difference would be vocabulary. I do find it amusing that you suggest there is a commonplace usage for the term though. I thought the fact that there is not was the whole point of this thread.

I think the definitions all revolve around "avoiding processed food." People just have weird ideas about what processed means.

Well that's certainly true. I've heard picking vegetables, peeling an apple, cooking, and other silliness listed as examples.

If you're looking at it from a "whole foods" perspective it makes sense why peeling an apple could be considered processing that makes a food less desirable. Removing the peel of the apple removes some of the fiber, so you're actually changing the food. My mom was very into whole foods and when I was growing up, I was taught never to peel foods unless the peel was actually inedible. We never peeled apples or carrots or potatoes.

I have no beef with peeling fruits and vegetables, but I can understand the rationale behind that argument. If nature has packaged a food with certain amounts of fiber and other nutrients and you take some of them away, you no longer have a "whole food" (setting aside the fact that many fruits bear the strong impression of human design in addition to how "nature" created them). I don't think I would call the argument "silly." It's not one I personally use when making food choices, but there is an internal logic there.

I can see how it would make it less whole or less nutritious, but not less natural. The food consumed is unchanged. How would it differ from peeling a banana or orange? Or removing skin from an animal or shell from a nut?

Well, it's possible I've gotten lost in the twists and turns of the conversation, but multiple people in this thread have attempted to define "clean eating" as "eating whole foods."

So my point was that if you are defining "clean eating" as "eating whole foods," then peeling is a potentially relevant form of processing. There is a difference, nutritionally, between eating an apple with the peel and eating the apple without the peel.

I will sometimes see people around the forums say we're "meant" to eat foods in a certain way (as in, don't drink juice because we're "meant" to have the fiber along with the sugar in fruit). That's the logic behind eating the (edible) peels of fruit -- that nature somehow aligned to produce foods that are ideal for the nutritional needs of one species (us) and that we should alter those foods as little as possible.

This kind of thinking seems to be underpinning some of the "eat whole foods" or "processing is undesirable" conversations. So while I disagree, I don't think I would call it "silliness." While I don't agree that we should avoid eating only the parts of the food that we find the most tasty, I don't think it's sillier than some of the other definitions we've seen proposed in this thread (and other threads on "clean eating").

And when you say it doesn't make the food less "natural," I think we are hitting on how "natural" isn't a very useful designation for food. What makes an "apple" natural? That we eat it as it grows (that is, with the peel)? That we eat it in a form that isn't influenced by human choices (that is, wild)? That we eat it only in season? That we eat it only when we have done to work to obtain it ourselves?

Which of these standards do we adopt for "natural"? Why choose one over another?

All good points. I suppose whole would mean eating all edible portions of the food.(?) While I do know people that eat orange peels and peanut shells, let's just put those freaks aside for now. Whole foods still becomes as problematic. Easily as much or more so than 'natural', which I find easier.

Take for example a pumpkin. If you eat the flesh but not the seeds is it not a whole food because the seeds are both edible and nutritious? If you eat broccoli stalks but not the leaves, is that not a whole food? Same for beets or carrots or cauliflower or other vegetables with nutritious edible leaves that are often not consumed.

Is the broccoli not natural because I planted it? Honestly except for sh*ts and giggles on MFP I don't delve into minutiae like that. It seems unnecessary except for wanting to trip someone up.

According to some definitions of "whole food," yeah -- eating just pumpkin flesh or broccoli florets would be making the food less "whole."

You'll often see arguments that we're "supposed" to eat the whole grain or the fat in dairy. I'm not sure why fruits and vegetables would be exempted from this theory.

I would argue that it isn't just your planting it that makes "natural" a pretty meaningless term for the broccoli. There's the whole fact that broccoli wouldn't even exist without human intervention. It's a product of human intervention and decisions just like a Frito. Yeah, they have different nutritional values. But broccoli, like a Frito, doesn't exist in the wild and our consumption of it is pretty far outside any natural order.

I don't think interrogation of the category of "natural" is minutiae. I think it's worth discussing whether it is even a meaningful term.

If I plant a broccoli seed in the right weather and soil conditions nature will take it's course and a vegetable will grow. Not so with a Frito. That's a difference that seems simple and obvious to me.

Jane already mentioned it, but the broccoli seed only exists because of long term human intervention over hundreds and thousands of years, making it unnatural by the definition that was provided somewhere upthread. As would be every single thing you could get anywhere to buy, processed or not.

Fruits and vegetables are often upheld as the paragons of "natural" foods, but when you look into many of them, they're as much the product of human tastes and decisions as foods like Fritos are.

Even more so. We didn't spend centuries trying to perfect the frito. Yet.

Um, why would we need to? It has been perfect since its inception. It does have a mascot though, so therefore it can't be clean...



Ay - Yi - Yi - Yi....

Used to have a mascot. Apparently mascots need to be PC whether the food is clean or not.

Need2Exerc1se

jgnatca wrote: »

Paleo would be a subset of Natural, right?

IDK They seem to have a weird obsession with coconut oil which is obviously a processed food.

jgnatca

The extra work from home preparing food from scratch, along with the washing machine, plumbing, and the vacuum cleaner, freed the woman from the kitchen. Which might be argued also allowed for the industrial revolution, feminism, and first world problems.

I've experimented with home-made cottage cheese, bread, noodles, and yogurt. The amount of time required to produce these basic foodstuffs make it very, very expensive compared to the factory produced versions. And I've found it virtually impossible to maintain a thriving community of natural yeasts or bacteria from batch to batch. I've developed a whole new level of respect for the stainless steel laboratories that supply us with genetically identical, thriving, and reliable bread yeasts and yogurt strains.

senecarr

BecomingBane wrote: »

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senecarr wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

@nikkimendez666 if you have followed the thread you must know your answer is full of holes. What is a "whole food"?

Eggs are whole but aren't plant-based.
I imagine you'll allow grains and nuts to be shelled and hulled. How about grinding for flour? Is that much processing allowed in your plan?
How about pressing olives for their oil?
Drying grapes in to raisins?

If you eat only unprocessed "whole foods" could you eat a meal of hemp seeds, raisins, and broccoli as long as they weren't mixed together?

I don't think people consider applying physical force (crushing, mixing, shucking, grinding, pressing, etc.) to food as unacceptable processing, at least that is my interpretation. Unwanted processing to me is industrially injecting / mixing / treating food with chemicals to make them more profitable for corporations, ie, food coloring, preservatives mixed in a test tube, steroids, anti-biotics, hormones, etc., that don't add to the nutritional value of the food.

Aye, there's the rub, isn't it? We are dealing with many interpretations for the same idea. Hence my Venn diagram. Your use is dastardly difficult to define, as one must speak to motive.

What if a farmer's wife is doctoring her family's food in order to extend it's shelf-life, and thereby save the family money? The additives in her arsenal include salt, sugar, vinegar, gelatin, and pectin. If she mixes these ingredients in a bowl instead of a test-tube, does her final product become "clean"?

Take the lowly pickle. It has at least three of the preservatives mentioned above. None of the processing adds to the food's nutritional value; all it does is extend the shelf-life of the cucumber, saving the family money. Is a pickle dirty?

Yes, it is tricky. Maybe the line is drawn between the processing that is inherent in the creation of the food, like a pickle, and the processing that is just a corporate strategy by companies that industrially create and distribute foods to increase profitability.

So perhaps it is analyzing what ingredients / processes that are required to make a pickle and balancing those against what ingredients / processes a company uses to mass produce pickles in an effort to minimize the cost of processing and maximize the product's shelf life. In most cases I would rather eat a home processed pickle from the farmer's wife's fridge that she grew and canned herself than one from the jar that rolled off the assembly line at Vlasic. The addition of Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80 are not there to benefit my nutrition.

So Vladimir Von Oreo made under communism is cleaner than capitalist Oreo? I'm not seeing why corporatism and profit motive matter in how clean a food is.
Most people consider raw organic produce rather clean but most of it reaches people via chains of large corporations. Indeed, advertising the concept of clean and natural is a corporate strategy in itself.

I talked about this earlier from an insider perspective... I think you were the only person to comment on it.

Shhhhh. I'm a programmer, but it is for an advertising company. I'm the deepest of shills.

jgnatca

Coconut oil is added. I put it under "Natural".

senecarr

Bry_Lander wrote: »

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senecarr wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

Bry_Lander wrote: »

jgnatca wrote: »

@nikkimendez666 if you have followed the thread you must know your answer is full of holes. What is a "whole food"?

Eggs are whole but aren't plant-based.
I imagine you'll allow grains and nuts to be shelled and hulled. How about grinding for flour? Is that much processing allowed in your plan?
How about pressing olives for their oil?
Drying grapes in to raisins?

If you eat only unprocessed "whole foods" could you eat a meal of hemp seeds, raisins, and broccoli as long as they weren't mixed together?

I don't think people consider applying physical force (crushing, mixing, shucking, grinding, pressing, etc.) to food as unacceptable processing, at least that is my interpretation. Unwanted processing to me is industrially injecting / mixing / treating food with chemicals to make them more profitable for corporations, ie, food coloring, preservatives mixed in a test tube, steroids, anti-biotics, hormones, etc., that don't add to the nutritional value of the food.

Aye, there's the rub, isn't it? We are dealing with many interpretations for the same idea. Hence my Venn diagram. Your use is dastardly difficult to define, as one must speak to motive.

What if a farmer's wife is doctoring her family's food in order to extend it's shelf-life, and thereby save the family money? The additives in her arsenal include salt, sugar, vinegar, gelatin, and pectin. If she mixes these ingredients in a bowl instead of a test-tube, does her final product become "clean"?

Take the lowly pickle. It has at least three of the preservatives mentioned above. None of the processing adds to the food's nutritional value; all it does is extend the shelf-life of the cucumber, saving the family money. Is a pickle dirty?

Yes, it is tricky. Maybe the line is drawn between the processing that is inherent in the creation of the food, like a pickle, and the processing that is just a corporate strategy by companies that industrially create and distribute foods to increase profitability.

So perhaps it is analyzing what ingredients / processes that are required to make a pickle and balancing those against what ingredients / processes a company uses to mass produce pickles in an effort to minimize the cost of processing and maximize the product's shelf life. In most cases I would rather eat a home processed pickle from the farmer's wife's fridge that she grew and canned herself than one from the jar that rolled off the assembly line at Vlasic. The addition of Yellow #5 and Polysorbate 80 are not there to benefit my nutrition.

So Vladimir Von Oreo made under communism is cleaner than capitalist Oreo? I'm not seeing why corporatism and profit motive matter in how clean a food is.
Most people consider raw organic produce rather clean but most of it reaches people via chains of large corporations. Indeed, advertising the concept of clean and natural is a corporate strategy in itself.

It is fascinating how the same companies that spent 50+ years jamming extra salt, sugar, fat, and industrially strategic (for lack of a better term) ingredients in food to make it taste, look, feel, and smell better while giving it an incredibly long shelf life changed strategies fairly recently, removing a lot of the industrial additives they pioneered and touting that as a revolutionary product development initiative.

Well if for the price of a few ads and puff pieces in magazines you can convince people to accept sooner expiration dates, charge them more for it, and now use less inputs, why wouldn't you if your goal is maximizing profits?
It is kind of brilliant from that perspective.

senecarr

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Or people excluding protein powder or Chipotle or focusing on whether or not something has a bar code or comes in packaging.

The barcodes aren't the problem, it is that it causes them to touch your food with lasers. You can buy any of the barcode foods at Whole Foods so long as you demand the cashier key in the bar code by hand so the laser doesn't touch your food.
I wish that was completely a joke and not based on things people have actually told cashiers at Whole Foods. I wish I lived in that world where it is only a joke.

jgnatca

I always thought the 100 calorie snack packaging was brilliant. Less food for more money.