Clean eating?

bethfartman

Clean eating: Does it grow from the ground or come from a mother. If so, its clean.

Fruits, veggies, beans (they all grow from the ground) meat and eggs (comes from a mother)
Nothing processed

As whole as you can eat.

So butter, cooking oils etc are all out?

What about bacon grease?

70davis

Bump

jrbb03092

When I think of clean eating, I take it to mean choosing foods that are as "pure" as possible. Something can be processed like olive oil but when you look at the ingredients, it reads olives and the only processing is the pressing done to extract the oil from the olives. Whereas, if I look at a container of Becel light margaine, the ingredients are:

Water 58%, canola and sunflower oils 35%, modified palm and palm kernel oils 3%, salt 1.5%, gelatin 1%, whey protein concentrate 0.5%, soy lecithin 0.2%, vegetable monoglycerides 0.2%, potassium sorbate 0.1%, lactic acid, beta carotene, artificial flavour, citric acid, vitamin A palmitate, vitamin D3, alpha-tocopherol acetate (vitamin E).

Clean eating to me means making sure you can pronounce the ingredients and that the ingredients consist of "whole" food and not chemicals.

My family reads all our ingredient/nutritions labels and when choosing something that's processed - like a cracker or chip - we choose the one with the fewest and simplest whole ingredients.

bethfartman

My family reads all our ingredient/nutritions labels and when choosing something that's processed - like a cracker or chip - we choose the one with the fewest and simplest whole ingredients.

That's a terrific rule of thumb to use even if you aren't necessarily focused on 'clean' eating- great advice!

Amberonamission

My version
No sugar
No fake sweetener
No white carbs
No fast food or restaurant food
No dairy with fat and very limited fat free dairy

As much from the Farmers Market as I can get

Where I fail
Deli meat. Too much sodium and way over processed
I have a weakness for skinny cow Ice cream sammiches

They don't mess up my food but I don't consider them clean

californiagirl2012

I think Clean Eating is a kind of silly term. Unprocessed is too. All food is processed.

I used eat 100% organic. I was a fanatic. In fact when I was at my heaviest weight I was an organic fanatic to the extreme. Too much food makes you fat, no matter how "clean" it is.

I'm much healthier now that I'm not obese.

That said, I try to eat as healthy as I can. I pretty much "process" all my own food if I can, if I have time. I try to avoid as much of the chemically processed foods but at the same time it's not going to kill me to have it on occasion if it helps me remain within my calorie budget and not go insane.

Which is healthier, to be obese or fit and healthy with less stress on the body and joints and not carrying around a 60lb pack of fat around with me 24 hours a day but having a few unclean items on occasion?

bethfartman

I think Clean Eating is a kind of silly term. Unprocessed is too. All food is processed.

I used eat 100% organic. I was a fanatic. In fact when I was at my heaviest weight I was an organic fanatic to the extreme. Too much food makes you fat, no matter how "clean" it is.

I'm much healthier now that I'm not obese.

That said, I try to eat as healthy as I can. I pretty much "process" all my own food if I can, if I have time. I try to avoid as much of the chemically processed foods but at the same time it's not going to kill me to have it on occasion if it helps me remain within my calorie budget and not go insane.

Which is healthier, to be obese or fit and healthy with less stress on the body and joints and not carrying around a 60lb pack of fat around with me 24 hours a day but having a few unclean items on occasion?

I totally agree with you, I think it's kind of silly too. I think it helps some people to have 'rules' about what they eat and I can't knock that if it's what keeps them on the right track, but by far focusing on just being healthy is always best IMO. BTW, I looked at your profile and you are in incredible shape! Wowza!

Awkward30

Even the clean eaters don't all agree on what clean eating means. I'm starting to clean up the way I eat, and what it means to me is what someone else said, I try to do as much of the process myself as I can. In my ideal definition, I would buy products that contain only a single ingredient and then make those ingredients into something. That said, there are some things that I just like too much to give up without a justification. And also, there are times like today where I ended up at work later than planned, so I had a slim fast bar.

Even with my trying to eat cleaner, I'm only aiming for 90%. I don't plan on cutting anything out of my life permanently, and I don't believe that I need to, so long as I keep an overall balanced diet.

angelicasmommy

Clean eating is eating as close to nature as possible. Tosca's books list cheese and other dairy products that I don't consider clean, as well as soy sauce. I defenitely feel better when eating 100% clean and will continue to do so.
An example of a day of clean eating is:


Breakfast --> 1/2 cup oats, 1/2 cup berries, 2 tbsp ground flax, 2 boiled egg whites (or whole, whichever you prefer)
Snack --> Celery sticks w/ 2 tbsp nut butter
Lunch --> 4 oz chicken breast, 1/2 cup brown rice, 1 serving carrots
Snack --> Smoothie w/ 1 banana, 1 cup milk, 2 cups spinach, 2 tbsp ground flax
Dinner --> Fish filet seasoned with lemon and pepper, 1 potato, 100g broccoli

I use Almond milk, and am thining about starting to make my own.

bilberryjam

I think Clean Eating is a kind of silly term. Unprocessed is too. All food is processed.

I totally agree with you, I think it's kind of silly too. I think it helps some people to have 'rules' about what they eat and I can't knock that if it's what keeps them on the right track, but by far focusing on just being healthy is always best IMO.

I can totally understand the appeal of restrictive diets. When you take away choice, you take away the risk (and responsibility) of making poor choices. A while ago, a faddy doctor in Italy devised a method of consuming your daily calories intranasally. Yes, through the nose. I couldn't see any reason why his vitamin potion couldn't be swallowed, save that it spared his rich, silly patients the trouble of even having to think about eating.

But the responses here show that there are no hard and fast rules to eating 'clean' - just a general principle of minimising one's exposure to overly refined foods.

It's really just another way of saying 'healthy.' Of course, everyone has their own definition of 'healthy', too.

The turning point for me came when I was eating a 'healthy' organic, pro-biotic yoghurt, looked on the back, and discovered it contained 12 teaspoons of sugar. "[Bleep] that [bleep]!" was my response.

I started this journey, not to lose weight, but to help me to manage an existing medical condition. And it has. Weight loss is a wonderful motivator and it's much easier to measure pounds lost than it is to see the benefits of improved health, but primarily I'm doing this for my health.

When you say 'just focus on being healthy' - this is me focusing on being healthy.

karbar75

I completely agre that "clean" is an arbitrary term and means really different things to different people, but I think the gist is to go with as unprocessed, un-chemically altered foods as necessary and to choose whole grains over white flours and to steer away from sugars and other sweeteners that raise your blood sugar. That's my take on it anyway, in addition to making sure my caloric/nutrient/fitness habits make sense. I have been on mfp for a while, but just recently decided to try for a "cleaner" lifestyle and was hoping to friend some of the folks here that are doing the same so I can get as many ideas/meal plans/recipes as I can to help me along the way. As long as what you're doing is healthy, I think that is the important thing.

hopsonc24

Clean eating: Does it grow from the ground or come from a mother. If so, its clean.

Fruits, veggies, beans (they all grow from the ground) meat and eggs (comes from a mother)
Nothing processed

As whole as you can eat.

So butter, cooking oils etc are all out?

I can not speak for clean eating experts. For me personally butter is out, I use coconut oil or EVOO, its not processed and its as close to whole as you can get (being its just the pressed olive or coconut) and to me it the best option. It really depends on how strict you choose to be.

hopsonc24

Clean eating: Does it grow from the ground or come from a mother. If so, its clean.

Fruits, veggies, beans (they all grow from the ground) meat and eggs (comes from a mother)
Nothing processed

As whole as you can eat.

So butter, cooking oils etc are all out?

What about bacon grease?

I can not speak for clean eating experts, but for me, bacon grease in not an option. Cooking with animal fat is not a healthy option. and with bacon in general, I recommend oscar mayer uncured bacon. no artifical preservatives, no nitrates or nitrites.

bodyzen

For me, I'd call it "clean eating" if it can be eating in it's natural state: fruits, veggies, sprouts, leafy greens etc. I would not call anything processed (includes cooking) or animal products clean...