My husband and I have been "Paleo' for a year and a half. Together we have lost almost 100 lbs. Over the past 6 mos I started eating more and more sweets and have gained about 15 lbs. I began using MFP to help me keep track of what I am eating. I have been sweet treat free for 6 days! I have lost 3 lbs. I still eat strict paleo also log everything that goes on my mouth. It is a real eye opener to see the nutritional value of some of the "clean" or borderline clean food I have been eating!

For me, clean eating is eating "real food". I like a quote I heard once, "Real food doesn't have ingredients, it is an ingredient." I also avoid dairy and minimize sugar and gluten, but those are things that I know my body does better without. Everyone has to find what they need.

For me clean eating is eating food as close as possible to how God created food to be.

No chemicals!!

lh3828 wrote: »

I have been looking around the web for a particular definition of what "clean eating" is and I have found different types of clean eating definitions depending on how the person in particular views it.

So, I was wondering how you all define clean eating?

For me it means eating minimally/unprocessed foods without chemicals added to it from humans. People in clean eating diets eat a lot of plants and fruits. Meats, nuts, legumes, and grains are also eaten in the diet.

I think that clean eating is a multiple discipline way of eating ... That includes

1 ... eliminating commercially processed foods in favor or food eaten whole ... like instead of lunch meat, have a piece of cooked meat. Instead of bread, cook the grain kernels whole and eat them as a side. Instead of fruit-flavored ice cream, eat the fruit plain.

2 ... Eat oganic where it counts to do so. For example, organic strawberries, grapes, spinach, apples, are better for you than non-organic.

3 ... stay hydrated with water instead of with soda pop.

4 ... cook your own meals. You then control what goes into the food you are eating.

I view, "clean eating", as consuming NO processed foods, that is, foods that are the way you'd find them in nature. Butchering does not prevent something from being, "clean", so salmon filets (NOT the ones that have been marinated in a sauce), and ground meats like turkey, I would consider to be, "clean." Lunch meats like sliced/packaged turkey, ham, bologna, roast beef, etc. contain a lot of chemicals that put a burden on the liver; not good. Vegetables can be clean or not also. Since hand washing fruits, vegetables, and nuts that don't have a skin or shell removes very few of the chemical and pesticides, this wouldn't be, "clean", either. Bananas, kiwifruit, oranges, and peeled apples don't have to be organic to be, "clean", since you're peeling the skin with the pesticides off but tomatoes, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, etc., should be. By the way, you wouldn't find broccoli growing in nature with a garlic butter sauce (or any other kind of sauce), so sauced vegetables would NOT be clean. I've also noticed that 95% (approximately) of processed foods contain vast amounts of processed sugar and salt. While some natural/clean foods like bananas and oranges contain natural sugars, and because the body handles natural and processed sugars the same way, it would still be considered clean since the natural sugar in a banana has a much lower glycemic index then, say candy and therefore presents a much lower load on the liver. Did you know that the liver performs at least 500 functions such as detoxification of the blood, production of bile, synthesis of cholesterol, storage of vitamins like A and B12, and synthesis of proteins? With the proliferation of processed sugar, sodium, preservatives, and other chemicals in the American diet it's no wonder why so many of us are overweight, undernourished, and suffering from things like hypertension. P.S. the CDC has now said that they've placed no upper limit cholesterol but the have lowered the limit for saturated fats. The two kinds of cholesterol are LDL (good) and HDL (bad) but what really happens is that LDL cholesterol pulls fat out of storage and into the blood stream to be used as energy and the HDL takes fat and stores it in fat cells. Cholesterol is really just a storage and retrieval system. It's the saturated fats that are not beneficial.

For me it is avoiding processed food as much as possible, and staying organic wherever possible.

tinascar2015 wrote: »

I am in horticulture. There are no more nutrients in organics than in non-organics. The science is very clear. The only difference is price, and even though I can afford organic, I never buy it. There are so many websites spreading hysterical misinformation about this.

Organically grown food is, ironically, the most recalled food. Manure used to fertilize it is often not fully composted, and pathogens like e.coli, salmonella and listeria are present on the food and not as readily washed off as the trace amounts of pesticides that might be on it. But even if the food is perfectly clean, there is zero difference between organic and non-organic. Because.....science.

Hrm...

In all honesty, the main reason I buy organic is because that's the market that the small local farmers seem to have been pushed in to in order to survive. Despite what my diary currently says (supermarket brands... I've just moved and am still finding my feet in this area) I prefer to source my food from local farmers. It isn't so much a 'carbon footprint' thing, it's more of a "supermarkets are killing farmers" thing. In all honesty, I see the adverts for the latest massive cheap supermarket advertising 2-for-1 on whatever, or 50% off or whatever and I just cringe. Someone has to pay for all of that, and the supermarkets will be sure to keep their profit margins up as much as possible...

I live in a big farming area, and I'd like to see the smaller farmers surviving. It's sad to see farmers having to sell off land that's been in their family for hundreds of years because they can no longer stay afloat.

Good point, Ang. 'Natural' and 'organic' are not interchangeable in the eyes of the US food labeling police. Any company can put the word 'natural' on a label. To say something 'organic' requires filling out paperwork and meeting some standards. And then there is 'certified organic' which is the real acid test.

Organic meats -- that's a conundrum. The public is wary of the hormones and antibiotics, yet the FDA (which is way more stringent than the public wants to believe) is monitoring and testing all the time, and as yet has not found cause to ban them. This is an interesting article on growth hormones in cattle. huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/31/hormones-in-food-should-y_n_815385.htmlhttp://

As for antibiotics, this is interesting information from our FDA:
http://fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm378100.htm

I never rely on any of the thousands of hysterical and fearmongering websites for this sort of information. Sure, this is a government website, but it bases its decisions on science, not public opinion.

My husband (a Brit) and I have noticed that the EU has had a rather kneejerk reaction to everything from pesticide use to hormones and antibiotics in livestock to GMOs. My two stepdaughters still have to come to America to get a T-bone steak and they're really frustrated that meat on the bone is still banned in England. The EU banned one class of pesticides because it prematurely decided that chemical was responsible for the bee decline. They acted too soon, as there are now several other factors that scientists have determined are combining to cause Colony Collapse Disorder. And after a couple years of not using these pesticides, what is the result? There has been no positive impact on the bee population, but farm yields have dropped by almost half. The rapeseed that's used to make canola oil is a huge problem, so you will see much higher prices for that now, plus those farmers are suffering huge financial losses. Many people think the pesticide ban will be lifted when it expires.

This morning on the news I saw a report on a frozen food line called Amy's. I see it in the shop all the time -- very expensive frozen pizzas, enchiladas and other foods -- all organic, all high-end processed foods. As many as 74,000 cases of these frozen foods have been recalled due to Listeria contamination concerns. I wish this were an isolated case, but almost exclusively, when I hear these reports, they're organic foods being recalled.

So I play it safe and never opt for organic. We can afford it, too. I'd rather take the savings and donate it to a food bank.