Clean eating; what is it really?

It means you freely admit you know next to nothing about nutrition, science is too hard and you'd rather just make stuff up as you go along.

Obviously, limiting processed food is a good idea for both health and weight management, but don't pretend it's something it's not. Demonising food often leads to an 'all or nothing' approach to diet.

It's a riddle wrapped up in a mystery and deep fried in enigma.

Pretty much. You won't find two people who agree about what it means.

clean eating = eatin all the foods that I think are healthy and avoiding all the foods that I think are bad. What I think must be correct whether I know anything about nutrition or not and includes all my irrational phobias about foods.

Not everyone who is into clean eating has a stupid definition of it though. For some it just means eating more fresh foods and less processed foods (and they're not phobic about processed foods either). But for others it includes all kinds of irrational beliefs about food. And when it comes to your question, the answer is unfortunately "whatever the person who's using the term happens to define as clean eating".

Clean eating seems to be about not eating anything that's been processed. "Nothing from a packet or can" is one slogan you'll hear. People will also talk about "chemicals". The problem is that everything is chemicals, even the organic stuff that's "clean".

I suspect what happened was this: long ago in ye olden times there was food and you ate it when it was fresh and if not you got sick and/or it tasted bad. Later we learnt to preserve things using simple things like cold, salt, drying, spices etc. Later still we learnt how to do so with additives. But we also learnt we could colour and flavour food that way too.

But then there's the profit motive. If you can make your food look nicer, taste better, last longer and/or make it more cheaply you can make more money. Which means there's a motive for cutting corners. Some, very important word so I'll repeat it, some of the things we add to food to achieve these ends weren't necessarily good for us. Or weren't good for us in the quantities we were consuming them. One answer to this is regulation. Food has to be checked for safety and authorised before it can be sold. But that's a slow process and it usually only gets rid of the big high impact items i.e. stuff that's definitely dangerous. Another answer on an individual level is to research for ourselves what may be harmful (or may be harmful to us specifically) and choose what we eat on that basis. (This still partly relies on regulation in the form of accurate labelling)

But this is hard and generally a lot of work. So we take a short cut. We say "anything in a packet or can". But that doesn't even necessarily rule out all additives never mind whether those particular additives are harmful or helpful. I mean if we're going to avoid say preservatives then we need to make sure we're well versed on older methods of how to make sure food is fresh and safe. I'm sure some clean eaters do try to do this. I'm equally sure that in many cases it's not necessary and they exchange one set of risks for another.

Since I've joined MFP I've noticed a lot of people talking about clean eating. I'm curious about what it's all about. I' think it has to do with removing processed foods from your diet but I know it's more then that. If you've adopted the clean eating lifestyle can you educate me? I'd like to learn about it and see if it's a fit for me.

honestly... it's a food phobia.

at it's core, that's what it is.

you'll hear all kinds of arguments claiming otherwise, but those are all specious arguments. the whole notion behind clean eating is that certain kinds of foods are inherently bad and should be feared and not be consumed. this is pretty much the definition of a phobia.

It seems to be a label used to justify not very well thought through and unscientific methodology towards food selection.
The selection of foods included I believe is purely down to the personal wants and desires of the person using it.

('From what I've read on here, anyway.")

Interpretation varies and clean eating will always start arguments I interpret it as whole food, whole grain and no processed junk, preferably organic. Food as it should be naturally.

I really like this article on clean eating

http://www.wannabebig.com/diet-and-nutrition/the-dirt-on-clean-eating/


tL;DR
There is no definition. It had varied greatly over the years.

Like beauty, clean eating means different things to different people. I try to get no more than 25% of my calories from junk food & processed foods. My favorite snacks are fresh fruit, nuts, or a small square of really good dark chocolate.

YMWDV (your mileage will definitely vary).

Like beauty, clean eating means different things to different people. I try to get no more than 25% of my calories from junk food & processed foods. My favorite snacks are fresh fruit, nuts, or a small square of really good dark chocolate.

YMWDV (your mileage will definitely vary).

Ahhhh. That makes perfect sense. :noway: