BBC iPlayer "Clean Eating's Dirty Secrets"

CattOfTheGarage

Just watching this show, in which a health-and-beauty YouTuber tries out various permutations of clean eating and consults dietitians about them. Pretty interesting, just putting it up here in case anyone else is interested. I'm afraid I think you can only get it in the UK.

Tallawah_

Thanks! That was an interesting watch! The key take for me was that nutritionist and dietitian are not the same thing. People need to be very careful who they take their advice from...

minniestar55

Thanks for posting, will check it out.

35dollars

CattOfTheGarage wrote: »

I'm afraid I think you can only get it in the UK.

Unless of course you use a VPN with a UK point of presence. ;-)

RoxieDawn

Nope can't see it.. get message BBC iPlayer only works in the UK.

rainbowbow

i just love that they bash freelee and her pseudoscience in this documentary.

terricherry2

Saw it. Really liked it. Would've been good if it was longer and a bit more in depth though. I think it'll take more than a 30 minute doc to convince people that have really bought into that stuff. The interview with the acid/alkaline diet woman was so awkward to watch, especially when she refused to talk about certain things.

fr33sia12

It is interesting how some people just blindly believe everything You Tubers tell them. I watched a video by Madeleine Shaw where she says you shouldn't eat late in the day as if you go to bed on a full stomach the food just sits there in your stomach and rots. I left a comment saying that was wrong as did a few others, but she never replied. She's supposed to be a health coach?!?!?

lizzynose

I watched the programme and didn't really know what to think. It seemed like the programme was very negative about clean eating from the outset. Nothing what they said was a surprise or a 'secret' Everybody knows that people on the internet talk rubbish and it has long been common knowledge that nutritionist is a meaningless term. Taking clean eating to an extreme can be a bad thing if you aren't eating enough calories or prone to disordered eating, but generally eating more fruit and veg and less processed stuff is good thing.... The programme had a bit of a ' yuck vegetables ' vibe to it.

I am not a 'clean eater' but I quite like some clean eating websites for the recipes for smoothies and stuff. I think that is how most people use them. I wouldn't expect them to have any knowledge of nutrition anymore than I would expect Gordon Ramsay or Nigella Lawson to!

In some ways I think the clean eating bloggers are doing a lot to advertise healthier foods and make it seem more appealing when usually you just see ads for junk food or cooking shows that make dishes swimming in butter and cream.

lemurcat12

lizzynose wrote: »

In some ways I think the clean eating bloggers are doing a lot to advertise healthier foods and make it seem more appealing when usually you just see ads for junk food or cooking shows that make dishes swimming in butter and cream.

Eh, there are tons of recipe blogs with foods I'd call healthy (with the understanding that the overall diet is what's really healthy or not, of course).

I like lots of vegan and vegetarian blogs, and I also really like 101cookbooks. epicurious will give you what you ask for, and lots of ideas, and there are numerous others. I don't think I use any self-proclaimed "clean" blogs, and I don't see how they'd be that different from normal recipes. IMO, the dirty secret of clean eating is they call themselves "clean" as a self-congratulatory thing while not eating much differently from anyone else who is health conscious.

I'd watch the video if it were available where I am, however.

cecsav1

You can find it in the US. I watched it on YouTube

CattOfTheGarage

lizzynose wrote: »

Nothing what they said was a surprise or a 'secret' Everybody knows that people on the internet talk rubbish and it has long been common knowledge that nutritionist is a meaningless term.

But that's exactly the point. It's NOT common knowledge. Nowhere near.

I am a pretty knowledgeable, scientifically-minded person, but I had no idea that "nutritionist" was not a real profession until I read Ben Goldacre's book "Bad Science". I was gobsmacked. iI reckon the vast majority of the general public do think that nutritionists are real scientists and that what they say is worth listening to. Lies and half-truths about health and fitness are so pervasive, and our press is so eager to perpetuate them, that people in general are very vulnerable to charlatans who pretend to be qualified and lie to them about nutrition. Saying "everybody knows they're lying so that makes it okay" is not much of a defence, especially because plenty of people don't.

Qskim

I found the dietician's take on how it can veil an eating disorder interesting. My kids are vulnerable to the misinformation and that bothers me.

Christine_72

rainbowbow wrote: »

i just love that they bash freelee and her pseudoscience in this documentary.

Just this alone would make it worth watching

Carnhot

We on MFP are a more educated audience than most, so maybe things which didn't surprise you, lizzynose, are not generally known. I didn't find her negative about clean eating - she gave it a thorough go - but negative about excess. She checked with real scientists and actual dieticians, and her interviewing of the alkaline blogger was open and respectful; it was the blogger herself, and her refusal to answer reasonable questions, which garnered my disrespect. I don't think this has been on mainstream BBC, just iplayer, which is a shame in terms of potential audience.

Strawblackcat

Can someone explain to me why she couldn't eat eggs? I thought eggs were one of the "cleanest" foods that you could eat, provided that they come from a good source. They have one ingredient: egg.

fr33sia12

In the first sentence she's already going into it negatively saying "joy free" and yes it might be to some people and it might not be to others, but she assumes it is before even trying it.

Sued0nim

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jCQFz89F5Vw

Sued0nim

Is that it ...I couldn't get past the first 10 mins ....there's just opinion and bad camera work IMO

I'd have liked science ...

I don't disagree that clean eating is faddish and a catch all for loads of approaches ..some of which are inherent unhealthy

fbmandy55

lizzynose wrote: »

In some ways I think the clean eating bloggers are doing a lot to advertise healthier foods and make it seem more appealing when usually you just see ads for junk food or cooking shows that make dishes swimming in butter and cream.

And what is wrong with butter and cream?

lemurcat12

That's the thing--it can be done so many different ways, how can you generalize?

I used to be overly neurotic about eating "naturally" (which to me meant a bunch of different things, including some degree of seasonality and a focus on local, within reason -- whenever I threatened to go truly overboard I remembered that I love coffee and vegetables in the winter and salmon), but I wasn't orthorexic at all, and it wasn't joyless -- to me it was pleasurable for the most part, which was the point. The health rationale was bogus, but eh. Clearly people can do such things in an unhealthy way (I got to the point where it was making my life harder, not easier, for no actual benefit, so had a reality check with myself about why I was doing it), but that doesn't mean they are.

Like I said in the other thread (there are two of these, right?), I think the real dirty secret of "clean" eating is that most self-proclaimed "clean eaters" eat basically like most people who are vaguely health conscious and just feel extra special good using the term clean for some reason.