The only difference between a "clean" and "dirty" food is...

Elizabeth_C34

Listen I'm not one of those serious forum people who eats clean like a freak everyday of my life and lectures people.

DrG3n3

Everything causes cancer -.-

katcod1522

hmm...hot dogs are only dirty if youre camping and you dont clean the stick youre roasting it on first

Acg67

Listen I'm not one of those serious forum people who eats clean like a freak everyday of my life and lectures people. I'm just saying, you do people a disservice by saying that it's okay to eat certain types of known "dirty" foods on a regular basis that medical studies are showing to be terrible for us. You can go have your hay day, I'm not going to get my panties all tied in a wad over the stupid retorts people are making about a "Dirty" food, everyone should know.

the issue is, how do you label a single food in an isocaloric amount either clean/dirty, good/bad, when in the context of a full and varied diet it might not be bad at all. the key is context

Ebbykins

So you don't consider meats with cancer causing nitrates and obscene amounts of sodium dirty? It's within portion control then? Did you know eating deli meats/hot dogs, one serving per day, has shown an increased risk of colon cancer by 21-25 (varying studies)%? http://planetgreen.discovery.com/food-health/a-hot-dog-a-day-increases-your-risk-of-colorectal-cancer-by-21-percent.html

Did you really just post that??? Who eats a hot dog EVERY SINGLE DAY??? Well, I guess if you look at it over the course of relatively short time spans, like 1 day, then I do.... but really?

ok... so common sense + portion control.

A lot of peoples kids are picky eaters and many parents still feed their kids these types of food as "real food" on a daily basis, which becomes habit forming for them later on in life. If parents ate "clean" foods with their kids over time, this might not be an issue, but for lots of the population who do not care about what they are consuming... just eat within calorie control for "weight management" which is very sad. If it's too easy to eat, requires little cooking, takes forever to spoil and comes from a package, it probably isn't all that great for you.

I'm not sure I agree with that absolutely, but I'll concede the general point you are making.

However, those people probably don't much care about the quality of food, never mind their overall health, so they aren't on this site, so the OP's post has little bearing on them.

Furthermore, the whole point to his post was *how much you eat*. It's reasonable to assume that eating highly processed, highly preserved foods every single day over a long period of time is "eating too much", thus making it dirty.

What do you think the rough guesstimate on how much of a % of people on this forum, eat like this to get their "nutrition" on a daily basis. Come on now, we all know we look at peoples diaries. I'm leaning towards 70% of the people here eat this as "real food" every day to meet their calorie/macro targets, and I'm being nice with that %.

Shanna_Inc86

You and I both know those are different types of nitrates. As well as in different amounts. There are nitrates in soil that help plants grow... not the same, but good try.

This....celery is added to organic hot dogs b/c it has natural nitrates...

UponThisRock

So you don't consider meats with cancer causing nitrates and obscene amounts of sodium dirty? It's within portion control then? Did you know eating deli meats/hot dogs, one serving per day, has shown an increased risk of colon cancer by 21-25 (varying studies)%? http://planetgreen.discovery.com/food-health/a-hot-dog-a-day-increases-your-risk-of-colorectal-cancer-by-21-percent.html

Did you really just post that??? Who eats a hot dog EVERY SINGLE DAY??? Well, I guess if you look at it over the course of relatively short time spans, like 1 day, then I do.... but really?

ok... so common sense + portion control.

This. If you're eating enough processed crap to worry about this, you've likely got bigger problems.

krypt5

Listen I'm not one of those serious forum people who eats clean like a freak everyday of my life and lectures people. I'm just saying, you do people a disservice by saying that it's okay to eat certain types of known "dirty" foods on a regular basis that medical studies are showing to be terrible for us. You can go have your hay day, I'm not going to get my panties all tied in a wad over the stupid retorts people are making about a "Dirty" food, everyone should know.

Well gee. Cool story. Such a riveting tale

Ebbykins

You guys are funny. Once your parents start dying of cancer you'll see "everyone gets cancer" isn't such a lax term. It's worth knowing.

Ebbykins

Listen I'm not one of those serious forum people who eats clean like a freak everyday of my life and lectures people. I'm just saying, you do people a disservice by saying that it's okay to eat certain types of known "dirty" foods on a regular basis that medical studies are showing to be terrible for us. You can go have your hay day, I'm not going to get my panties all tied in a wad over the stupid retorts people are making about a "Dirty" food, everyone should know.

Well gee. Cool story. Such a riveting tale

LOL I'm curious to know what your IQ level is, but I won't ask because that would embarrass you and also be somewhat rude.

UponThisRock

Ok, I'm on the fence....haha

I do agree with ebbykins...however I've developed an issue with all non organic meat and its spreading to dairy, eggs, all other foods...and quickly discovering, organic food tastes better

On the other side...I think everyone will end up with some form of cancer, no matter HOW healthy they are

Organic might be slightly healthier, but it isn't worth the extra cost to me.

lakersfan4life

So you don't consider meats with cancer causing nitrates and obscene amounts of sodium dirty? It's within portion control then? Did you know eating deli meats/hot dogs, one serving per day, has shown an increased risk of colon cancer by 21-25 (varying studies)%? http://planetgreen.discovery.com/food-health/a-hot-dog-a-day-increases-your-risk-of-colorectal-cancer-by-21-percent.html

That Kobayashi guy is seriously scr*wed!!!

questionablemethods

Micronutrients?

engineman312

Listen I'm not one of those serious forum people who eats clean like a freak everyday of my life and lectures people. I'm just saying, you do people a disservice by saying that it's okay to eat certain types of known "dirty" foods on a regular basis that medical studies are showing to be terrible for us. You can go have your hay day, I'm not going to get my panties all tied in a wad over the stupid retorts people are making about a "Dirty" food, everyone should know.

Well gee. Cool story. Such a riveting tale

LOL I'm curious to know what your IQ level is, but I won't ask because that would embarrass you and also be somewhat rude.

ZING!! wicked burn!!! oh man, that guy is hurt!!

bry_all01

and if you wash it, duh.

I wash my pop tarts. With bleach.

you're doing it all wrong. Its supposed to be Windex.

myofibril

Listen I'm not one of those serious forum people who eats clean like a freak everyday of my life and lectures people. I'm just saying, you do people a disservice by saying that it's okay to eat certain types of known "dirty" foods on a regular basis that medical studies are showing to be terrible for us. You can go have your hay day, I'm not going to get my panties all tied in a wad over the stupid retorts people are making about a "Dirty" food, everyone should know.

I agree with you in a sense.

Health and body composition (ratio of fat to muscle) are not one and the same thing.

Anyone who says you must eat clean exclusively whatever that means to achieve a decent body composition or level of health is misguided. By the same token anyone who really recommends a "Twinkie" style diet as a legitimate strategy for the average dieter is equally misguided. Most people will do far better on a diet high in lean protein, fibrous veg and a few portions of fruit with some calorie dense foods (chocolate, cake etc) thrown in for good measure than a diet high in calorie dense food with only a few items of fresh food thrown into the mix.

DrG3n3

Wow. 70% huh? Must have missed some of those. Have yet to see a diary with hotdogs on it constantly

krypt5

Listen I'm not one of those serious forum people who eats clean like a freak everyday of my life and lectures people. I'm just saying, you do people a disservice by saying that it's okay to eat certain types of known "dirty" foods on a regular basis that medical studies are showing to be terrible for us. You can go have your hay day, I'm not going to get my panties all tied in a wad over the stupid retorts people are making about a "Dirty" food, everyone should know.

Well gee. Cool story. Such a riveting tale

LOL I'm curious to know what your IQ level is, but I won't ask because that would embarrass you and also be somewhat rude.

Thank for not embarrassing me. You obviously did a good job doing it to yourself. Good luck with your clean eating goals of 2011. Please stay safe.

jacksonpt

So you don't consider meats with cancer causing nitrates and obscene amounts of sodium dirty? It's within portion control then? Did you know eating deli meats/hot dogs, one serving per day, has shown an increased risk of colon cancer by 21-25 (varying studies)%? http://planetgreen.discovery.com/food-health/a-hot-dog-a-day-increases-your-risk-of-colorectal-cancer-by-21-percent.html

Did you really just post that??? Who eats a hot dog EVERY SINGLE DAY??? Well, I guess if you look at it over the course of relatively short time spans, like 1 day, then I do.... but really?

ok... so common sense + portion control.

A lot of peoples kids are picky eaters and many parents still feed their kids these types of food as "real food" on a daily basis, which becomes habit forming for them later on in life. If parents ate "clean" foods with their kids over time, this might not be an issue, but for lots of the population who do not care about what they are consuming... just eat within calorie control for "weight management" which is very sad. If it's too easy to eat, requires little cooking, takes forever to spoil and comes from a package, it probably isn't all that great for you.

I'm not sure I agree with that absolutely, but I'll concede the general point you are making.

However, those people probably don't much care about the quality of food, never mind their overall health, so they aren't on this site, so the OP's post has little bearing on them.

Furthermore, the whole point to his post was *how much you eat*. It's reasonable to assume that eating highly processed, highly preserved foods every single day over a long period of time is "eating too much", thus making it dirty.

What do you think the rough guesstimate on how much of a % of people on this forum, eat like this to get their "nutrition" on a daily basis. Come on now, we all know we look at peoples diaries. I'm leaning towards 70% of the people here eat this as "real food" every day to meet their calorie/macro targets, and I'm being nice with that %.

OK, lets assume that's the case (though god I hope it's not). The OP's point still holds. If you're eating those foods in mass, then they are dirty... if you're having them on occasion, then don't sweat it.

I'm a single dad, and sure, every once in a while we have frozen chicken nuggets for dinner, or hot dogs and boxed mac and cheese (oh the horror!!!!), but we balance that "crappy" food out with good food the rest of the time so it's not a big deal.

But I do see you're point about the post being a disservice to some people. My feeling is that those who it disserves (for lack of a better word) are looking for an excuse, or at the very least an easy way out, of having to improve their diet and work out and everythign else that goes into being healthy.

The post also does a big SERVICE to all those people who freak out over every gram they consume. "OMG, I just ate a strawberry, the sugar is going to give me diabetes, what do I do???"

CMmrsfloyd

'Clean' vs. 'not' is totally one of the reasons my diary is 'friends only.' LOL No matter how bad someone might think some of my choices are, it is still lightyears better than what I was doing before I discovered MFP. I'm happy with what I'm doing currently, but admit I may change things in the future. For now, I'm content with the progress I've made in food choices and don't have the energy to worry about much else.

questionablemethods

Health and body composition (ratio of fat to muscle) are not one and the same thing.

Worthy of repeating.

Ebbykins

Listen I'm not one of those serious forum people who eats clean like a freak everyday of my life and lectures people. I'm just saying, you do people a disservice by saying that it's okay to eat certain types of known "dirty" foods on a regular basis that medical studies are showing to be terrible for us. You can go have your hay day, I'm not going to get my panties all tied in a wad over the stupid retorts people are making about a "Dirty" food, everyone should know.

Well gee. Cool story. Such a riveting tale

LOL I'm curious to know what your IQ level is, but I won't ask because that would embarrass you and also be somewhat rude.

Thank for not embarrassing me. You obviously did a good job doing it to yourself. Good luck with your clean eating goals of 2011. Please stay safe.

Thanks. I think my over all health, endurance abilities and physique pretty much speaks for itself, no need for me to be embarrassed of my sports nutrition experience/knowledge and my passion so share straight up facts with people to better their health as well. Everything within reason, and moderation.

neanderthin

Making sure you got all the feces out of the intestines before you make sausage.:devil:

Shanna_Inc86

Ok, I'm on the fence....haha

I do agree with ebbykins...however I've developed an issue with all non organic meat and its spreading to dairy, eggs, all other foods...and quickly discovering, organic food tastes better

On the other side...I think everyone will end up with some form of cancer, no matter HOW healthy they are

Organic might be slightly healthier, but it isn't worth the extra cost to me.

Actually, I've found its not that much more expensive....and really what's the trade off? We don't know what its doing to us to be eating all these foods with fillers and GMO's

I will say to each their own...I'm not all organic and there are some things that don't bother me...mostly its meat and dairy that bothers me. However, I won't tell someone else how to eat and there are still things I'm a sucker for...ie Brownies, chocolate, ok all sweets lol I have a terrible sweet tooth, its awful. Also, I drink protein shakes...I can't say all the ingredients in them ya'know...so I'm NOT going to say "Oh you're bad for eating this or that and you're going to get cancer."
UM NO!
I still believe everyone will end up with some form of cancer....No matter HOW healthy you are

kit_katty

Common sense + portion control = relatively healthy, what else is really needed?

Faintgreeneyes

You guys are funny. Once your parents start dying of cancer you'll see "everyone gets cancer" isn't such a lax term. It's worth knowing.

I am not one to get uppity- but perhaps you should watch what you say about peoples parents and getting cancer, seeing as mine did. AND oh wait she ate CLEAN her entire life. So really, what do you have to say about that?? You won't get cancer simply from eating "dirty" processed foods, nor is eating CLEANLY going to guarentee that you won't.

Perhaps you should think before you type, especially when you do not know who has been effected by cancer.

Ebbykins

So you don't consider meats with cancer causing nitrates and obscene amounts of sodium dirty? It's within portion control then? Did you know eating deli meats/hot dogs, one serving per day, has shown an increased risk of colon cancer by 21-25 (varying studies)%? http://planetgreen.discovery.com/food-health/a-hot-dog-a-day-increases-your-risk-of-colorectal-cancer-by-21-percent.html

Did you really just post that??? Who eats a hot dog EVERY SINGLE DAY??? Well, I guess if you look at it over the course of relatively short time spans, like 1 day, then I do.... but really?

ok... so common sense + portion control.

A lot of peoples kids are picky eaters and many parents still feed their kids these types of food as "real food" on a daily basis, which becomes habit forming for them later on in life. If parents ate "clean" foods with their kids over time, this might not be an issue, but for lots of the population who do not care about what they are consuming... just eat within calorie control for "weight management" which is very sad. If it's too easy to eat, requires little cooking, takes forever to spoil and comes from a package, it probably isn't all that great for you.

I'm not sure I agree with that absolutely, but I'll concede the general point you are making.

However, those people probably don't much care about the quality of food, never mind their overall health, so they aren't on this site, so the OP's post has little bearing on them.

Furthermore, the whole point to his post was *how much you eat*. It's reasonable to assume that eating highly processed, highly preserved foods every single day over a long period of time is "eating too much", thus making it dirty.

What do you think the rough guesstimate on how much of a % of people on this forum, eat like this to get their "nutrition" on a daily basis. Come on now, we all know we look at peoples diaries. I'm leaning towards 70% of the people here eat this as "real food" every day to meet their calorie/macro targets, and I'm being nice with that %.

OK, lets assume that's the case (though god I hope it's not). The OP's point still holds. If you're eating those foods in mass, then they are dirty... if you're having them on occasion, then don't sweat it.

I'm a single dad, and sure, every once in a while we have frozen chicken nuggets for dinner, or hot dogs and boxed mac and cheese (oh the horror!!!!), but we balance that "crappy" food out with good food the rest of the time so it's not a big deal.

But I do see you're point about the post being a disservice to some people. My feeling is that those who it disserves (for lack of a better word) are looking for an excuse, or at the very least an easy way out, of having to improve their diet and work out and everythign else that goes into being healthy.

The post also does a big SERVICE to all those people who freak out over every gram they consume. "OMG, I just ate a strawberry, the sugar is going to give me diabetes, what do I do???"

Exactly, knowledge is power, when you learn these things over time, it allows for people to make better, educated choices for themselves and their families. We do the same things you do, whole foods most of the time and the few times per month we'll do up the nuggets, etc. I know a lot of people who watched Food Inc and dove off into the deep end afterwards. This is not what I'm advising. I just think more people need to know a sandwich everyday with cold cuts, probably isn't a great plan to make it past 50 with all the extra toxins people are consuming in non dietary ways everyday of their lives. Small changes, can sometimes have big impacts.

questionablemethods

I think "clean" and "dirty" is a false dichotomy and the terms aren't very helpful even then. But I also think that there is a spectrum between "micronutrient-dense, whole foods" and "highly-refined, pretty much devoid of micronutrient foods."

Shanna_Inc86

You guys are funny. Once your parents start dying of cancer you'll see "everyone gets cancer" isn't such a lax term. It's worth knowing.

I am not one to get uppity- but perhaps you should watch what you say about peoples parents and getting cancer, seeing as mine did. AND oh wait she ate CLEAN her entire life. So really, what do you have to say about that?? You won't get cancer simply from eating "dirty" processed foods, nor is eating CLEANLY going to guarentee that you won't.

Perhaps you should think before you type, especially when you do not know who has been effected by cancer.

I'm sorry to see this...cancer is evil and recently had a close friend die at 32 from cancer...
My Aunt & Grandma are breast cancer survivors...
Also, explain to me how babies get cancer? Cancer is evil, horrible disease. \

How is she doing if you don't mind me asking

k2quiere

There was this girl in high school...something about a hot dog and a teddy bear. Anyway, when she came back to school, her nickname was teddy.

Moral to the story: There's more than one use for hotdogs, and the ending is not always pleasant.