Thoughts on "Clean Eating"

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Replies

  • CrittaHipHop
    CrittaHipHop Posts: 17 Member
    edited July 2016
    I have not researched any specific ingredient, and I wont. The idea of "clean eating" is what drew me to it. It opened my eyes to pay attention. Be aware and look at ingredients. And most importantly test my will power to stay determined. Its interesting turning down a day of golf and drinking or some dinner when I can just cook at home. Which in past has been tough.

    I also dont stick to all the strict or far fetched clean eating rules. I just follow the basic premise of it. Keeping it easy.
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    edited July 2016
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  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,267 Member
    I have not researched any specific ingredient, and I wont. The idea of "clean eating" is what drew me to it. It opened my eyes to pay attention. Be aware and look at ingredients. And most importantly test my will power to stay determined. Its interesting turning down a day of golf and drinking or some dinner when I can just cook at home. Which in past has been tough.

    I also dont stick to all the strict or far fetched clean eating rules. I just follow the basic premise of it. Keeping it easy.

    why would you do that? turn down exercise, being social and having some fun????

  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    Thanks for the shout-out for my Venn diagrams, @diannethegeek .

    OP, glad you are losing weight, and good on you that you are reading labels. I have done so for years first to watch for forbidden ingredients to prevent my sons migraines and later for my type 2 diabetes (now in remission).

    On occasion I would read the labels of my children's favourite processed foods to wingle out my rival's secrets. From that investigation I began adding mustard to my cheese sauce (and sometimes a little curry too), and xanthan gum to my bread recipes.

    Knowledge is power. Don't stop learning about what you are eating.
  • CrittaHipHop
    CrittaHipHop Posts: 17 Member
    Its been a long time since I used a forum and forgot that every word is taken completely literal.

    I did not turn down the golf, I turned down the drinking. The golf was fun but being the only sober guy takes will power...the point.

    I havent looked up chemicals because I don't really care what each purpose is. I will go back to eating those things after the 30th day. Its a mentality challenge is what I was trying to point out.

    I guess I should have pointed out whether or not I care if you agree with it or not...just to make it clear...I don't. I was simply looking to see if others have tried it and how they like it. Turn your nose up at it if you like. The goals I have accomplished in the last 3 weeks and the fact that I feel way better are enough for me to be ok with it. Thanks to the few who actually had input.
  • CrittaHipHop
    CrittaHipHop Posts: 17 Member
    Agreed, but we may have different ideas of drinking lol.

    I understand now that the "clean eating" is a sensitive subject around here. But its the basic idea I stuck to and I do like it and for me it has worked. If for only the fact that im paying attention more, it has helped.
  • bagge72
    bagge72 Posts: 1,377 Member
    I have not researched any specific ingredient, and I wont. The idea of "clean eating" is what drew me to it. It opened my eyes to pay attention. Be aware and look at ingredients. And most importantly test my will power to stay determined. Its interesting turning down a day of golf and drinking or some dinner when I can just cook at home. Which in past has been tough.

    I also dont stick to all the strict or far fetched clean eating rules. I just follow the basic premise of it. Keeping it easy.

    Huh? So you don't golf because beer is processed, and don't go out to eat with friends because getting a steak, green beans, and potatoes at a restaurant is not clean eating? There is plenty of time to cook at home, and going out every once in a while isn't going to undo that. It just sounds like you are setting yourself up here. But if you can do it good luck.

    PS so you read the ingredients list of something you buy, but don't do research on what it is? Isn't that like opening a dictionary to look up a word, reading the word, and the skipping the definition?

  • CrittaHipHop
    CrittaHipHop Posts: 17 Member
    bagge72 wrote: »
    Wow ladies and gentlemen, the whole "if you cant pronounce it" rule is meant to say about chemicals added to products because some are pretty difficult to pronounce. Its not meant to say if you are illiterate, you cant eat anything or if you are especially good with chemical terms you can eat everything...

    I'm also not looking to get ripped with this challenge. It's to look outside the box (pun) and realize the different "Clean" ways of eating food. If you were to actually take a look at the things added to products for all types of reasons that are not to the benefit of the human body. Doing this challenge has opened my eyes to all the chemicals and additives because I look at EVERY ingredient list I can. The end game for my weight loss is 80 lbs, this is just a stepping stone.

    Remain calm, it will all be ok.

    You look outside the box except for the things you "break" the rules with, those are ok. That's what kills me about this diets people call cleaning eating, the people who do always need to break their own rules to do it, so what is the point of that? If you can break the food for two foods you use why can't you break it for the rest? Probably because then they would realize that they are actually losing weight from a calorie deficit, and not because they left a hard to pronounce word out of some of their foods.

    Isn't the principal of a diet to break away from what you normally eat and control (set rules) what you intake? Is that being accomplished by these people who decide to take the route of "clean eating"? Then what is the problem to you? Do you give anyone who diets the same types of responses?
  • CrittaHipHop
    CrittaHipHop Posts: 17 Member

    SezxyStef wrote: »
    bagge72 wrote: »
    Wow ladies and gentlemen, the whole "if you cant pronounce it" rule is meant to say about chemicals added to products because some are pretty difficult to pronounce. Its not meant to say if you are illiterate, you cant eat anything or if you are especially good with chemical terms you can eat everything...

    I'm also not looking to get ripped with this challenge. It's to look outside the box (pun) and realize the different "Clean" ways of eating food. If you were to actually take a look at the things added to products for all types of reasons that are not to the benefit of the human body. Doing this challenge has opened my eyes to all the chemicals and additives because I look at EVERY ingredient list I can. The end game for my weight loss is 80 lbs, this is just a stepping stone.

    Remain calm, it will all be ok.

    You look outside the box except for the things you "break" the rules with, those are ok. That's what kills me about this diets people call cleaning eating, the people who do always need to break their own rules to do it, so what is the point of that? If you can break the food for two foods you use why can't you break it for the rest? Probably because then they would realize that they are actually losing weight from a calorie deficit, and not because they left a hard to pronounce word out of some of their foods.

    Isn't the principal of a diet to break away from what you normally eat and control (set rules) what you intake? Is that being accomplished by these people who decide to take the route of "clean eating"? Then what is the problem to you? Do you give anyone who diets the same types of responses?

    no that is not the principal I follow for weight loss.

    I eat all the foods I love and want and plan on eating forever but in reasonable portions.

    Putting rules and labels on foods is what typically causes the yo yo dieting most people experience.

    If you wish to call what you are doing clean eating, continue but there will be consequences to that choice. Good and bad.

    If you want to call it healthy eating of whole nutrient dense foods less consequences....;)

    By containing that very food you in reasonable portions, isn't that in fact creating a rule? You are not allowing yourself to go more than a certain point.

    I also dont fear the forum consequences of the diet nazis that I didnt know existed until today. Call it what ever makes anyone feel happy. Im still smiling about the results.
  • hmltwin
    hmltwin Posts: 116 Member
    I have to say: I'm not against reading labels. I read the label of everything I eat or drink, because I have to watch out for Red 40 (which they sneak into everything these days) and asparatame. Both are migraine triggers for me, so it's important that I avoid them.

    Although I don't call it "clean eating" - mostly because that has a specific, religious meaning to me - I have been working on making more meals at home, rather than pulling something out of my freezer and popping it in the oven. For me, it's a way to keep better track of what I'm actually eating. It gives me more control - I can avoid a lot of garlic (a migraine trigger for my sister) and the artificial things that trigger migraines for me. I can avoid the added sugars and salt and use spices instead. Preparing dinner is also a social activity that I can engage in with my sister, rather than popping something in the oven and going to watch tv or play on the computer.
  • smurfette54
    smurfette54 Posts: 23 Member
    CrittaHipHop I justed read this forum and I am actually appalled by some of the responses you have received. There is a lot of negativity here, enough to make me want to rethink MFP. To me, "eating clean" is not so much a way of losing weight (although I think it helps) but a way of trying to stay away from artificial things that should not go into my body which I can control. I can not control so many harmful things in the environment, so I choose to try and limit potentially harmful substances that I ingest. I also do not look everything up to decide whether it is harmful or not I just try to use logic. Do I consider myself a "clean eater"? Not really. I try my best to stick to meats I cook myself at home, and fruits and vegetable including stuff I grow at home. I have 5 chicken and I would prefer to eat their eggs over store bought etc.... Do I eat processed foods? Yes, but I try to pick the ones I feel comfortable with (ie. I have a salad dressing with 3-4 ingredients instead of 20). I spend a lot of time prepping meals, but I feel best when I eat "cleaner" rather than when I am eating out a lot.
    I get where you are coming from. It seems to me like people are being really defensive here and are just trying to pick something apart that they disagree with. Go with your logical instincts.

    PS. For those who may get on me for this, as far as weight loss goes I am a firm believer in CICO no matter what the food, but we also need to think about how many metabolic things our body has to do everyday, and what is going to help us stay actually healthy in the long run. There are more than enough sickly skinny people in this world who do not actually feed their body with proper usable nutrients.
  • MelissaPhippsFeagins
    MelissaPhippsFeagins Posts: 8,063 Member
    I try to eat mostly food my grandparents would recognize. (Mom's parents were born in the 19th century and Dad's in the early 20th.) Past that, although I know how to can my own veggies and preserve my own meat and make my own bread (including grinding the grain) if it's necessary, I don't have the time or care if Libby's or DelMonte canned it for me or someone else baked the bread.

    I'll drink protein powder because Dad's mom taught me to make cottage cheese and she kept the whey to cook with or even just drink. I don't think drying it for storage is any different than drying fruit.

    That does mean that I don't drink milk that isn't actually from a domesticated mammal or eat tofu. I put half and half in my coffee WAY more often than Coffemate (Dad's mother did know what that was and liked it.) and choose butter over margarine, but don't eat either very often.
  • J72FIT
    J72FIT Posts: 6,008 Member
    CrittaHipHop I justed read this forum and I am actually appalled by some of the responses you have received. There is a lot of negativity here, enough to make me want to rethink MFP. To me, "eating clean" is not so much a way of losing weight (although I think it helps) but a way of trying to stay away from artificial things that should not go into my body which I can control. I can not control so many harmful things in the environment, so I choose to try and limit potentially harmful substances that I ingest. I also do not look everything up to decide whether it is harmful or not I just try to use logic. Do I consider myself a "clean eater"? Not really. I try my best to stick to meats I cook myself at home, and fruits and vegetable including stuff I grow at home. I have 5 chicken and I would prefer to eat their eggs over store bought etc.... Do I eat processed foods? Yes, but I try to pick the ones I feel comfortable with (ie. I have a salad dressing with 3-4 ingredients instead of 20). I spend a lot of time prepping meals, but I feel best when I eat "cleaner" rather than when I am eating out a lot.
    I get where you are coming from. It seems to me like people are being really defensive here and are just trying to pick something apart that they disagree with. Go with your logical instincts.

    PS. For those who may get on me for this, as far as weight loss goes I am a firm believer in CICO no matter what the food, but we also need to think about how many metabolic things our body has to do everyday, and what is going to help us stay actually healthy in the long run. There are more than enough sickly skinny people in this world who do not actually feed their body with proper usable nutrients.

    I get what you're saying and I respect your decision to eat the way you want to eat, to each his or her own. I personally just think the clean eating thing is over-hyped...
  • bagge72
    bagge72 Posts: 1,377 Member
    bagge72 wrote: »
    Wow ladies and gentlemen, the whole "if you cant pronounce it" rule is meant to say about chemicals added to products because some are pretty difficult to pronounce. Its not meant to say if you are illiterate, you cant eat anything or if you are especially good with chemical terms you can eat everything...

    I'm also not looking to get ripped with this challenge. It's to look outside the box (pun) and realize the different "Clean" ways of eating food. If you were to actually take a look at the things added to products for all types of reasons that are not to the benefit of the human body. Doing this challenge has opened my eyes to all the chemicals and additives because I look at EVERY ingredient list I can. The end game for my weight loss is 80 lbs, this is just a stepping stone.

    Remain calm, it will all be ok.

    You look outside the box except for the things you "break" the rules with, those are ok. That's what kills me about this diets people call cleaning eating, the people who do always need to break their own rules to do it, so what is the point of that? If you can break the food for two foods you use why can't you break it for the rest? Probably because then they would realize that they are actually losing weight from a calorie deficit, and not because they left a hard to pronounce word out of some of their foods.

    Isn't the principal of a diet to break away from what you normally eat and control (set rules) what you intake? Is that being accomplished by these people who decide to take the route of "clean eating"? Then what is the problem to you? Do you give anyone who diets the same types of responses?

    I personally don't have a problem with making rules, I have a problem with creates a specific set of rules, and then specifically breaks them because it suits their needs, and also somebody who creates a set of rules, but doesn't do any research as to why they have those rules, IE reading lables for ingredients, but not wanting to know what those ingredients are for.

  • Raptor2763
    Raptor2763 Posts: 387 Member
    Clean eating works. Period. End of discussion
  • bagge72
    bagge72 Posts: 1,377 Member
    CrittaHipHop I justed read this forum and I am actually appalled by some of the responses you have received. There is a lot of negativity here, enough to make me want to rethink MFP. To me, "eating clean" is not so much a way of losing weight (although I think it helps) but a way of trying to stay away from artificial things that should not go into my body which I can control. I can not control so many harmful things in the environment, so I choose to try and limit potentially harmful substances that I ingest. I also do not look everything up to decide whether it is harmful or not I just try to use logic. Do I consider myself a "clean eater"? Not really. I try my best to stick to meats I cook myself at home, and fruits and vegetable including stuff I grow at home. I have 5 chicken and I would prefer to eat their eggs over store bought etc.... Do I eat processed foods? Yes, but I try to pick the ones I feel comfortable with (ie. I have a salad dressing with 3-4 ingredients instead of 20). I spend a lot of time prepping meals, but I feel best when I eat "cleaner" rather than when I am eating out a lot.
    I get where you are coming from. It seems to me like people are being really defensive here and are just trying to pick something apart that they disagree with. Go with your logical instincts.

    PS. For those who may get on me for this, as far as weight loss goes I am a firm believer in CICO no matter what the food, but we also need to think about how many metabolic things our body has to do everyday, and what is going to help us stay actually healthy in the long run. There are more than enough sickly skinny people in this world who do not actually feed their body with proper usable nutrients.

    But don't you see it has nothing to do with "clean eating", it has to do with the term, and what people associate with it. Instead of making up these rules that only fit a definition you make for them, why not just say that you are eating nutrient dense whole foods? Why try to make people think eating processed food, with crazy ingredients in it are bad, and then say that you have done no research on if those things are bad?

    As for the bolded part, what kind of logic can you use if you don't look things up?
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,267 Member
    Raptor2763 wrote: »
    Clean eating works. Period. End of discussion

    works for what? and what is clean eating?
    SezxyStef wrote: »
    bagge72 wrote: »
    Wow ladies and gentlemen, the whole "if you cant pronounce it" rule is meant to say about chemicals added to products because some are pretty difficult to pronounce. Its not meant to say if you are illiterate, you cant eat anything or if you are especially good with chemical terms you can eat everything...

    I'm also not looking to get ripped with this challenge. It's to look outside the box (pun) and realize the different "Clean" ways of eating food. If you were to actually take a look at the things added to products for all types of reasons that are not to the benefit of the human body. Doing this challenge has opened my eyes to all the chemicals and additives because I look at EVERY ingredient list I can. The end game for my weight loss is 80 lbs, this is just a stepping stone.

    Remain calm, it will all be ok.

    You look outside the box except for the things you "break" the rules with, those are ok. That's what kills me about this diets people call cleaning eating, the people who do always need to break their own rules to do it, so what is the point of that? If you can break the food for two foods you use why can't you break it for the rest? Probably because then they would realize that they are actually losing weight from a calorie deficit, and not because they left a hard to pronounce word out of some of their foods.

    Isn't the principal of a diet to break away from what you normally eat and control (set rules) what you intake? Is that being accomplished by these people who decide to take the route of "clean eating"? Then what is the problem to you? Do you give anyone who diets the same types of responses?

    no that is not the principal I follow for weight loss.

    I eat all the foods I love and want and plan on eating forever but in reasonable portions.

    Putting rules and labels on foods is what typically causes the yo yo dieting most people experience.

    If you wish to call what you are doing clean eating, continue but there will be consequences to that choice. Good and bad.

    If you want to call it healthy eating of whole nutrient dense foods less consequences....;)

    By containing that very food you in reasonable portions, isn't that in fact creating a rule? You are not allowing yourself to go more than a certain point.

    I also dont fear the forum consequences of the diet nazis that I didnt know existed until today. Call it what ever makes anyone feel happy. Im still smiling about the results.

    I don't consider it a rule no. I may eat it in a smaller than reasonable portion or a larger portion and cut back on something else.

    And I am glad you are getting good results with your food choices...please ensure tho you don't take it too far and allow for some fun and some treats in your life...because a life without treats is very sad.
  • kdav88
    kdav88 Posts: 44 Member
    edited July 2016
    Oh man, are people ever on the defensive about the terminology "clean eating"! Personally, I like the idea of it (although not bound by specific rules such as whether or not it's pronounceable) because typically foods that are considered clean (whole foods, not processed with significant additional sodium/fat/sugar added, etc. although everyone's definition varies... like I wouldn't consider frozen vegetables "processed", they're just... frozen) are more nutrient-dense than foods thought of as "dirty" (e.g. processed, sodium/fat/sugar-filled foods). I definitely live by "All things in moderation" because 1) it's more sustainable and 2) some "dirty" foods are scrumptious and life isn't worth living if you can't enjoy things you'd like to once in a while!

    That said, especially for people who don't typically eat nutrient-dense food, trying to incorporate more "clean eating" can do a better job of fueling your body and ensuring you're getting the vitamins and minerals your body needs, which is harder when eating food processed with significant additives and filler.

    Long story short, focusing on "clean", nutrient-dense foods as a means of fueling your body is never a bad thing as far as I'm concerned (particularly when focused on meeting your nutrition needs and not just weight loss, + these foods tend to keep you full longer and with less highs/crashes), but eating only those foods to the exclusion of all else sounds miserable, unsustainable, and unnecessary.
  • J72FIT
    J72FIT Posts: 6,008 Member
    kdav88 wrote: »
    Oh man, are people ever on the defensive about the terminology "clean eating"!

    I don't see it as being defensive. It just doesn't make any sense...
  • CrittaHipHop
    CrittaHipHop Posts: 17 Member
    Its a forum where everyone gets to have an opinion and I respect that.

    I have read up on the "clean eating" principal and while some "rules" I choose to not follow from the beginning, the rules I did set for MYSELF in the beginning have been followed to the T throughout this challenge. It is worth it for anyone who would like to see different ways of thinking about the things they eat.

    Again, I don't particularly care about how others feel about the term "clean eating". Call it whatever you would like. It worked so far for me and can work for others. That's all that matters. Good luck to everyone.
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