Orthorexia
Replies
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If you believe avoiding preservatives and GMOs, or that eating organic has nutritional value, you are delusional.Gianfranco_R wrote: »Do you think the likes of clean eating regimes and mfp can lead to an excessive preoccupation with avoiding foods perceived to be unhealthy, and/or an obsession with logging every calorie?
I have only recently come across the term 'orthorexia' and wonder what leads this fixation.
According to Steven Bratman, who is the one who "discovered" the orthorexia: The basic “clean eating” diet, which focuses on organic whole foods, free of preservatives, antibiotics and GMOs, barely qualifies as a restrictive theory of healthy eating and only occasionally leads to orthorexia. More risk accrues as increasingly practices related to the history of clean eating theories are added, such as detoxes, juice fasts and other “cleanses.”
In general:
Adopting a theory of healthy eating is NOT orthorexia
http://www.orthorexia.com/healthy-eating-vs-orthorexia/
The cleaning eating ideas he listed might not seem very restrictive, but they have the issue of being not grounded in reality, which I would say is just as big an issue. Anorexia has the diganostic restriction that it only applies to people underweight (eating too few calories while overweight is just unspecified eating disorder), in part because the anorexic holds delusional beliefs.
Focusing on nutrition is not delusional...0 -
MamaBirdBoss wrote: »I prefer to call it food fetishism. People falsely attribute magical qualities to food based on arbitrary standards to avoid the actual important things.
Most people who fetishize food are overweight. There are some who aren't, but for a lot of people, it's to avoid doing the things that actually work. They pretend their huge plat of food is okay because it's organic. Or there's no gluten. Or whatever.
Others are hypochondriacs who project weird powers onto what they eat as well as onto everything around them.
Still others are just completely neurotic about everything, with extreme obsessive mentalities. They won't give their kids plastic toys or sugar for the same reasons other people wash their hands eight times and flip light switches. Both come up with reasons. They're both CRAZY.
I remember one poor family we invited to our kid's birthday party who weren't allowed to have pizza, cake, or soft drinks. Not even for a day. It doesn't just make me sad to see that--it makes me ANGRY. No, your kids shouldn't be eating that every day. But there's no reason to shun it. NONE. And making your kids neurotic, too, is just a really crummy thing to do.
Cleanse, toxic, artificial, processed, organic, chemical, preservative, dye--when referring to the NUTRITIONAL content of anything, those words are 100% meaningless.
This is my Star of the Day quote. Summarised perfectly!
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Gianfranco_R wrote: »Do you think the likes of clean eating regimes and mfp can lead to an excessive preoccupation with avoiding foods perceived to be unhealthy, and/or an obsession with logging every calorie?
I have only recently come across the term 'orthorexia' and wonder what leads this fixation.
According to Steven Bratman, who is the one who "discovered" the orthorexia: The basic “clean eating” diet, which focuses on organic whole foods, free of preservatives, antibiotics and GMOs, barely qualifies as a restrictive theory of healthy eating and only occasionally leads to orthorexia. More risk accrues as increasingly practices related to the history of clean eating theories are added, such as detoxes, juice fasts and other “cleanses.”
In general:
Adopting a theory of healthy eating is NOT orthorexia
http://www.orthorexia.com/healthy-eating-vs-orthorexia/
Thanks for that link. My mother has focused on "organic whole foods, free of preservatives, antibiotics and GMOs*" for decades without any of this (also from your link):
"Orthorexia is an emotionally disturbed, self-punishing relationship with food that involves a progressively shrinking universe of foods deemed acceptable. A gradual constriction of many other dimensions of life occurs so that thinking about healthy food can becomes the central theme of almost every moment of the day, the sword and shield against every kind of anxiety, and the primary source of self-esteem, value and meaning. This may result in social isolation, psychological disturbance and even, possibly, physical harm."
*not sure exactly when GMOs became a concern, but she's certainly been interested in healthy food since she became a mother. If only I had never strayed from the example she set...
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The challenge with anyone who has had an unhealthy relationship with food that lead to obesity is that the fix can often be swapping one unhealthy behavior for another.
Ah, I see you're saying the issue is with those previously obese people who did have an unhealthy relationship with food, not with all previously obese people.
Still, I think it's possible for orthorexic behaviours to creep in, for the reasons I mentioned.
Yep, you got it.
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Gianfranco_R wrote: »Do you think the likes of clean eating regimes and mfp can lead to an excessive preoccupation with avoiding foods perceived to be unhealthy, and/or an obsession with logging every calorie?
I have only recently come across the term 'orthorexia' and wonder what leads this fixation.
According to Steven Bratman, who is the one who "discovered" the orthorexia: The basic “clean eating” diet, which focuses on organic whole foods, free of preservatives, antibiotics and GMOs, barely qualifies as a restrictive theory of healthy eating and only occasionally leads to orthorexia. More risk accrues as increasingly practices related to the history of clean eating theories are added, such as detoxes, juice fasts and other “cleanses.”
In general:
Adopting a theory of healthy eating is NOT orthorexia
http://www.orthorexia.com/healthy-eating-vs-orthorexia/
Bad relationships often have baggage.
People relationships or even food relationships
I like healthy food choices and organic and antibiotic free. Clean eating works pretty easy.
Cleanses scare me with so many warnings against them. I have not read all the articles but feel good passing...
There is a causality to most things. And no doubt to me about cause and effect relationships in food, drugs, pesticides and health.
Too much is too much.
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Gianfranco_R wrote: »Do you think the likes of clean eating regimes and mfp can lead to an excessive preoccupation with avoiding foods perceived to be unhealthy, and/or an obsession with logging every calorie?
I have only recently come across the term 'orthorexia' and wonder what leads this fixation.
According to Steven Bratman, who is the one who "discovered" the orthorexia: The basic “clean eating” diet, which focuses on organic whole foods, free of preservatives, antibiotics and GMOs, barely qualifies as a restrictive theory of healthy eating and only occasionally leads to orthorexia. More risk accrues as increasingly practices related to the history of clean eating theories are added, such as detoxes, juice fasts and other “cleanses.”
In general:
Adopting a theory of healthy eating is NOT orthorexia
http://www.orthorexia.com/healthy-eating-vs-orthorexia/
The cleaning eating ideas he listed might not seem very restrictive, but they have the issue of being not grounded in reality, which I would say is just as big an issue. Anorexia has the diganostic restriction that it only applies to people underweight (eating too few calories while overweight is just unspecified eating disorder), in part because the anorexic holds delusional beliefs.
Focusing on nutrition is not delusional...
Focusing on nutrition and "clean eating" are not at all the same thing.
Often the essence of "clean eating" is that there are foods that are pure and foods that are impure and which will make you sick or fat even in small amounts, that they are disgusting and make those who eat them disgusting.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Gianfranco_R wrote: »Do you think the likes of clean eating regimes and mfp can lead to an excessive preoccupation with avoiding foods perceived to be unhealthy, and/or an obsession with logging every calorie?
I have only recently come across the term 'orthorexia' and wonder what leads this fixation.
According to Steven Bratman, who is the one who "discovered" the orthorexia: The basic “clean eating” diet, which focuses on organic whole foods, free of preservatives, antibiotics and GMOs, barely qualifies as a restrictive theory of healthy eating and only occasionally leads to orthorexia. More risk accrues as increasingly practices related to the history of clean eating theories are added, such as detoxes, juice fasts and other “cleanses.”
In general:
Adopting a theory of healthy eating is NOT orthorexia
http://www.orthorexia.com/healthy-eating-vs-orthorexia/
The cleaning eating ideas he listed might not seem very restrictive, but they have the issue of being not grounded in reality, which I would say is just as big an issue. Anorexia has the diganostic restriction that it only applies to people underweight (eating too few calories while overweight is just unspecified eating disorder), in part because the anorexic holds delusional beliefs.
Focusing on nutrition is not delusional...
Focusing on nutrition and "clean eating" are not at all the same thing.
Often the essence of "clean eating" is that there are foods that are pure and foods that are impure and which will make you sick or fat even in small amounts, that they are disgusting and make those who eat them disgusting.
To add on to this, we're not talking about focusing on nutrition and choosing to bring a bowl of fruit to a Super Bowl party. We're talking about obsessing over the perceived nutritional value of the foods that may or may not be at said party and becoming paralyzed with fear over their uncleanness, resulting in shunning the social activity.
When "clean eating" begins to become the focus so much that you stop engaging in normal, social behaviors, it is time to step away and/or get some help.
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lemurcat12 wrote: »Gianfranco_R wrote: »Do you think the likes of clean eating regimes and mfp can lead to an excessive preoccupation with avoiding foods perceived to be unhealthy, and/or an obsession with logging every calorie?
I have only recently come across the term 'orthorexia' and wonder what leads this fixation.
According to Steven Bratman, who is the one who "discovered" the orthorexia: The basic “clean eating” diet, which focuses on organic whole foods, free of preservatives, antibiotics and GMOs, barely qualifies as a restrictive theory of healthy eating and only occasionally leads to orthorexia. More risk accrues as increasingly practices related to the history of clean eating theories are added, such as detoxes, juice fasts and other “cleanses.”
In general:
Adopting a theory of healthy eating is NOT orthorexia
http://www.orthorexia.com/healthy-eating-vs-orthorexia/
The cleaning eating ideas he listed might not seem very restrictive, but they have the issue of being not grounded in reality, which I would say is just as big an issue. Anorexia has the diganostic restriction that it only applies to people underweight (eating too few calories while overweight is just unspecified eating disorder), in part because the anorexic holds delusional beliefs.
Focusing on nutrition is not delusional...
Focusing on nutrition and "clean eating" are not at all the same thing.
Often the essence of "clean eating" is that there are foods that are pure and foods that are impure and which will make you sick or fat even in small amounts, that they are disgusting and make those who eat them disgusting.
To add on to this, we're not talking about focusing on nutrition and choosing to bring a bowl of fruit to a Super Bowl party. We're talking about obsessing over the perceived nutritional value of the foods that may or may not be at said party and becoming paralyzed with fear over their uncleanness, resulting in shunning the social activity.
When "clean eating" begins to become the focus so much that you stop engaging in normal, social behaviors, it is time to step away and/or get some help.
Which is seldom the case, as stated above and on the link:
The basic “clean eating” diet, which focuses on organic whole foods, free of preservatives, antibiotics and GMOs, barely qualifies as a restrictive theory of healthy eating and only occasionally leads to orthorexia.
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lemurcat12 wrote: »Gianfranco_R wrote: »Do you think the likes of clean eating regimes and mfp can lead to an excessive preoccupation with avoiding foods perceived to be unhealthy, and/or an obsession with logging every calorie?
I have only recently come across the term 'orthorexia' and wonder what leads this fixation.
According to Steven Bratman, who is the one who "discovered" the orthorexia: The basic “clean eating” diet, which focuses on organic whole foods, free of preservatives, antibiotics and GMOs, barely qualifies as a restrictive theory of healthy eating and only occasionally leads to orthorexia. More risk accrues as increasingly practices related to the history of clean eating theories are added, such as detoxes, juice fasts and other “cleanses.”
In general:
Adopting a theory of healthy eating is NOT orthorexia
http://www.orthorexia.com/healthy-eating-vs-orthorexia/
The cleaning eating ideas he listed might not seem very restrictive, but they have the issue of being not grounded in reality, which I would say is just as big an issue. Anorexia has the diganostic restriction that it only applies to people underweight (eating too few calories while overweight is just unspecified eating disorder), in part because the anorexic holds delusional beliefs.
Focusing on nutrition is not delusional...
Focusing on nutrition and "clean eating" are not at all the same thing.
Often the essence of "clean eating" is that there are foods that are pure and foods that are impure and which will make you sick or fat even in small amounts, that they are disgusting and make those who eat them disgusting.
Ya? Not for me. I'm with the "discoverer" of orthorexia:
"...If you prefer to eat mostly organic, preservative- chemical- and antiobiotic-free foods (as I do!) and think that many overly processed foods are not foods at all (as I do!) it still doesn’t mean you have to follow those principles 100% of the time."
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kshama2001 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Gianfranco_R wrote: »Do you think the likes of clean eating regimes and mfp can lead to an excessive preoccupation with avoiding foods perceived to be unhealthy, and/or an obsession with logging every calorie?
I have only recently come across the term 'orthorexia' and wonder what leads this fixation.
According to Steven Bratman, who is the one who "discovered" the orthorexia: The basic “clean eating” diet, which focuses on organic whole foods, free of preservatives, antibiotics and GMOs, barely qualifies as a restrictive theory of healthy eating and only occasionally leads to orthorexia. More risk accrues as increasingly practices related to the history of clean eating theories are added, such as detoxes, juice fasts and other “cleanses.”
In general:
Adopting a theory of healthy eating is NOT orthorexia
http://www.orthorexia.com/healthy-eating-vs-orthorexia/
The cleaning eating ideas he listed might not seem very restrictive, but they have the issue of being not grounded in reality, which I would say is just as big an issue. Anorexia has the diganostic restriction that it only applies to people underweight (eating too few calories while overweight is just unspecified eating disorder), in part because the anorexic holds delusional beliefs.
Focusing on nutrition is not delusional...
Focusing on nutrition and "clean eating" are not at all the same thing.
Often the essence of "clean eating" is that there are foods that are pure and foods that are impure and which will make you sick or fat even in small amounts, that they are disgusting and make those who eat them disgusting.
To add on to this, we're not talking about focusing on nutrition and choosing to bring a bowl of fruit to a Super Bowl party. We're talking about obsessing over the perceived nutritional value of the foods that may or may not be at said party and becoming paralyzed with fear over their uncleanness, resulting in shunning the social activity.
When "clean eating" begins to become the focus so much that you stop engaging in normal, social behaviors, it is time to step away and/or get some help.
Which is seldom the case, as stated above and on the link:
The basic “clean eating” diet, which focuses on organic whole foods, free of preservatives, antibiotics and GMOs, barely qualifies as a restrictive theory of healthy eating and only occasionally leads to orthorexia.
I'm unsure why you're trying to make this an argument? You're making it sound like we're in disagreement. I never said that if you were going to eat clean, you're an orthorexic or even at risk of it, which seems to be what you're trying to imply I said with your quote from the article and bolding of the part you've deemed most relevant.
Often in these threads, it gets muddled that clean eating = orthorexia (see the "Focusing on nutrition is not delusional" comment and the previous comments that drove it). I'm pointing out that that's not what is meant by the possibility of this eating disorder existing. Just as everyone who calorie restricts isn't anorexic, not everyone who "eats clean" is orthorexic. It is the anxiety and fear of the "unclean" foods that separates a potential orthorexic from someone focusing on nutrition.
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kshama2001 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Gianfranco_R wrote: »Do you think the likes of clean eating regimes and mfp can lead to an excessive preoccupation with avoiding foods perceived to be unhealthy, and/or an obsession with logging every calorie?
I have only recently come across the term 'orthorexia' and wonder what leads this fixation.
According to Steven Bratman, who is the one who "discovered" the orthorexia: The basic “clean eating” diet, which focuses on organic whole foods, free of preservatives, antibiotics and GMOs, barely qualifies as a restrictive theory of healthy eating and only occasionally leads to orthorexia. More risk accrues as increasingly practices related to the history of clean eating theories are added, such as detoxes, juice fasts and other “cleanses.”
In general:
Adopting a theory of healthy eating is NOT orthorexia
http://www.orthorexia.com/healthy-eating-vs-orthorexia/
The cleaning eating ideas he listed might not seem very restrictive, but they have the issue of being not grounded in reality, which I would say is just as big an issue. Anorexia has the diganostic restriction that it only applies to people underweight (eating too few calories while overweight is just unspecified eating disorder), in part because the anorexic holds delusional beliefs.
Focusing on nutrition is not delusional...
Focusing on nutrition and "clean eating" are not at all the same thing.
Often the essence of "clean eating" is that there are foods that are pure and foods that are impure and which will make you sick or fat even in small amounts, that they are disgusting and make those who eat them disgusting.
To add on to this, we're not talking about focusing on nutrition and choosing to bring a bowl of fruit to a Super Bowl party. We're talking about obsessing over the perceived nutritional value of the foods that may or may not be at said party and becoming paralyzed with fear over their uncleanness, resulting in shunning the social activity.
When "clean eating" begins to become the focus so much that you stop engaging in normal, social behaviors, it is time to step away and/or get some help.
Which is seldom the case, as stated above and on the link:
The basic “clean eating” diet, which focuses on organic whole foods, free of preservatives, antibiotics and GMOs, barely qualifies as a restrictive theory of healthy eating and only occasionally leads to orthorexia.
Yes, I agree that "clean eating" usually does not become orthorexia. (I agree with snikkins that the essence is severe anxiety connected with normal life events that involve food.) My point was that it also isn't simply focusing on nutrition (which many or most of us dirty eaters also do). It does seem to me that there's a subset on MFP who are attracted to various ways of eating (including but not limited to clean eating) because of a view that those ways of eating make super low calories "healthy," which is a somewhat different issue, but also suggestive of a messed up relationship to food.
But a tendency toward a messed up relationship toward food is probably not at all uncommon on MFP. I recognize such tendencies in myself, which is why I think I try to fight against ideas (like bad and good foods, like the association between eating habits and "being bad") that I see that encourage the things that have messed me up or messed up people I know.0 -
kshama2001 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Gianfranco_R wrote: »Do you think the likes of clean eating regimes and mfp can lead to an excessive preoccupation with avoiding foods perceived to be unhealthy, and/or an obsession with logging every calorie?
I have only recently come across the term 'orthorexia' and wonder what leads this fixation.
According to Steven Bratman, who is the one who "discovered" the orthorexia: The basic “clean eating” diet, which focuses on organic whole foods, free of preservatives, antibiotics and GMOs, barely qualifies as a restrictive theory of healthy eating and only occasionally leads to orthorexia. More risk accrues as increasingly practices related to the history of clean eating theories are added, such as detoxes, juice fasts and other “cleanses.”
In general:
Adopting a theory of healthy eating is NOT orthorexia
http://www.orthorexia.com/healthy-eating-vs-orthorexia/
The cleaning eating ideas he listed might not seem very restrictive, but they have the issue of being not grounded in reality, which I would say is just as big an issue. Anorexia has the diganostic restriction that it only applies to people underweight (eating too few calories while overweight is just unspecified eating disorder), in part because the anorexic holds delusional beliefs.
Focusing on nutrition is not delusional...
Focusing on nutrition and "clean eating" are not at all the same thing.
Often the essence of "clean eating" is that there are foods that are pure and foods that are impure and which will make you sick or fat even in small amounts, that they are disgusting and make those who eat them disgusting.
Ya? Not for me. I'm with the "discoverer" of orthorexia:
"...If you prefer to eat mostly organic, preservative- chemical- and antiobiotic-free foods (as I do!) and think that many overly processed foods are not foods at all (as I do!) it still doesn’t mean you have to follow those principles 100% of the time."
Eh. I think it's dumb to say Lean Cuisine isn't food, but I also eat mostly farm-sourced whole foods and simply don't find most of the super processed foods that people are usually talking about tasty. That doesn't make me a "clean eater." Similarly, to restate my point, caring about nutrition is not what "clean eating" is.
I think if you feel compelled to refer to yourself as a "clean eater" or your food (or some subset of your food) as "clean" there is something else going on. Not claiming that something else is orthorexia, though--instead, as I stated above or, often, a desire to claim superiority or put down others (or else why refer to foods as "clean" and "unclean" when there's nothing "unclean" about some packaged smoked salmon or even a turkey sandwich purchased from a local lunch place or whatever). This is, I think, why people who claim to "eat clean" are often so anxious to assert (falsely, of course) that those who do not eat Twinkies or donuts 24/7. Because how special would they be if they just ate basically like the rest of us.0 -
MamaBirdBoss wrote: »I prefer to call it food fetishism. People falsely attribute magical qualities to food based on arbitrary standards to avoid the actual important things.
Most people who fetishize food are overweight. There are some who aren't, but for a lot of people, it's to avoid doing the things that actually work. They pretend their huge plat of food is okay because it's organic. Or there's no gluten. Or whatever.
Others are hypochondriacs who project weird powers onto what they eat as well as onto everything around them.
Still others are just completely neurotic about everything, with extreme obsessive mentalities. They won't give their kids plastic toys or sugar for the same reasons other people wash their hands eight times and flip light switches. Both come up with reasons. They're both CRAZY.
I remember one poor family we invited to our kid's birthday party who weren't allowed to have pizza, cake, or soft drinks. Not even for a day. It doesn't just make me sad to see that--it makes me ANGRY. No, your kids shouldn't be eating that every day. But there's no reason to shun it. NONE. And making your kids neurotic, too, is just a really crummy thing to do.
Cleanse, toxic, artificial, processed, organic, chemical, preservative, dye--when referring to the NUTRITIONAL content of anything, those words are 100% meaningless.
I'm amazed how many people are cheering this train of thought on...
It was 6 paragraphs of pure judgmental opinion...
Yes, people should exercise moderation in every aspect of life, but holy cow that's some high horse there. Calling people crazy for having opinions or beliefs that differ to yours is a bit much, don't you think?
Btw... The word "toxic" is actually kinda important when it comes to nutrition, in my opinion anyway
perhaps you got it a little mixed up with "toxin" whilst you were all caught up in your anger. 0 -
MonsoonStorm wrote: »MamaBirdBoss wrote: »I prefer to call it food fetishism. People falsely attribute magical qualities to food based on arbitrary standards to avoid the actual important things.
Most people who fetishize food are overweight. There are some who aren't, but for a lot of people, it's to avoid doing the things that actually work. They pretend their huge plat of food is okay because it's organic. Or there's no gluten. Or whatever.
Others are hypochondriacs who project weird powers onto what they eat as well as onto everything around them.
Still others are just completely neurotic about everything, with extreme obsessive mentalities. They won't give their kids plastic toys or sugar for the same reasons other people wash their hands eight times and flip light switches. Both come up with reasons. They're both CRAZY.
I remember one poor family we invited to our kid's birthday party who weren't allowed to have pizza, cake, or soft drinks. Not even for a day. It doesn't just make me sad to see that--it makes me ANGRY. No, your kids shouldn't be eating that every day. But there's no reason to shun it. NONE. And making your kids neurotic, too, is just a really crummy thing to do.
Cleanse, toxic, artificial, processed, organic, chemical, preservative, dye--when referring to the NUTRITIONAL content of anything, those words are 100% meaningless.
I'm amazed how many people are cheering this train of thought on...
It was 6 paragraphs of pure judgmental opinion...
Yes, people should exercise moderation in every aspect of life, but holy cow that's some high horse there. Calling people crazy for having opinions or beliefs that differ to yours is a bit much, don't you think?
Btw... The word "toxic" is actually kinda important when it comes to nutrition, in my opinion anyway perhaps you got it a little mixed up with "toxin" whilst you were all caught up in your anger.
Wait, what? You're defending "food fetishism"?0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Gianfranco_R wrote: »Do you think the likes of clean eating regimes and mfp can lead to an excessive preoccupation with avoiding foods perceived to be unhealthy, and/or an obsession with logging every calorie?
I have only recently come across the term 'orthorexia' and wonder what leads this fixation.
According to Steven Bratman, who is the one who "discovered" the orthorexia: The basic “clean eating” diet, which focuses on organic whole foods, free of preservatives, antibiotics and GMOs, barely qualifies as a restrictive theory of healthy eating and only occasionally leads to orthorexia. More risk accrues as increasingly practices related to the history of clean eating theories are added, such as detoxes, juice fasts and other “cleanses.”
In general:
Adopting a theory of healthy eating is NOT orthorexia
http://www.orthorexia.com/healthy-eating-vs-orthorexia/
The cleaning eating ideas he listed might not seem very restrictive, but they have the issue of being not grounded in reality, which I would say is just as big an issue. Anorexia has the diganostic restriction that it only applies to people underweight (eating too few calories while overweight is just unspecified eating disorder), in part because the anorexic holds delusional beliefs.
Focusing on nutrition is not delusional...
Focusing on nutrition and "clean eating" are not at all the same thing.
Often the essence of "clean eating" is that there are foods that are pure and foods that are impure and which will make you sick or fat even in small amounts, that they are disgusting and make those who eat them disgusting.
Ya? Not for me. I'm with the "discoverer" of orthorexia:
"...If you prefer to eat mostly organic, preservative- chemical- and antiobiotic-free foods (as I do!) and think that many overly processed foods are not foods at all (as I do!) it still doesn’t mean you have to follow those principles 100% of the time."
Eh. I think it's dumb to say Lean Cuisine isn't food, but I also eat mostly farm-sourced whole foods and simply don't find most of the super processed foods that people are usually talking about tasty. That doesn't make me a "clean eater." Similarly, to restate my point, caring about nutrition is not what "clean eating" is.
I think if you feel compelled to refer to yourself as a "clean eater" or your food (or some subset of your food) as "clean" there is something else going on. Not claiming that something else is orthorexia, though--instead, as I stated above or, often, a desire to claim superiority or put down others (or else why refer to foods as "clean" and "unclean" when there's nothing "unclean" about some packaged smoked salmon or even a turkey sandwich purchased from a local lunch place or whatever). This is, I think, why people who claim to "eat clean" are often so anxious to assert (falsely, of course) that those who do not eat Twinkies or donuts 24/7. Because how special would they be if they just ate basically like the rest of us.
Since I tend to avoid black and white statements like "I am a clean eater," I assume you are using "you" in the general sense. I will talk about things like "cleaning up my diet" and "strive to be a humane-itarian" and the preferences expressed above.
I would prefer to only eat meat that was humanely raised, and that's what I buy at supermarkets, but unfortunately this is not widely available when eating out in my area, but that doesn't cause me to refuse to eat out. I just make the choice I am most comfortable with. I don't proselytize or judge my dining companion's menu selections.
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If you want an example of eating (reasonably) healthy without being "clean", take a look at my food diary. It's open.
I'm eating BOOOOOORING right now because it's easy to measure and the kids are out of town. In a couple of weeks, I'll get off my rear and actually enter some recipes into the sucker and it won't be all chicken breast and broccoli. LOL.
But I eat PROCESSED CHOCOLATE, margarine, and more. I don't track sodium. Let me tell you, though, that I dump a ton of salt on everything and don't record it--there is absolutely no point in a woman with below normal to normal BP to restrict sodium. NONE. (I also don't bother to record herbs on the chicken because it's like 1 TSP for 3 lbs, which starts getting silly.)
I also drink most Diet Coke. It's only downside it that the caffeine can demineralize my bones. You'll see an uptick in calcium as soon as I lose most of this weight (in a few months) to counteract that--right now I don't have the calories.
I realize that I can lose weight on KitKats. But I'd be REALLY, REALLY hungry on 1200 cals of KitKats. So I'm mostly eating for bulk and satiation right now.
I also only eat things I like. Broccoli is pretty much my favorite veg. I don't eat apples because I don't like them.
Not one thing I buy is organic because there is zero nutritional difference. Not one thing is specially non-GMO.0 -
There's nothing wrong with Lean Cuisine except that I have to eat 2 to make a meal. 0
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MamaBirdBoss wrote: »I prefer to call it food fetishism. People falsely attribute magical qualities to food based on arbitrary standards to avoid the actual important things.
Most people who fetishize food are overweight. There are some who aren't, but for a lot of people, it's to avoid doing the things that actually work. They pretend their huge plat of food is okay because it's organic. Or there's no gluten. Or whatever.
Others are hypochondriacs who project weird powers onto what they eat as well as onto everything around them.
Still others are just completely neurotic about everything, with extreme obsessive mentalities. They won't give their kids plastic toys or sugar for the same reasons other people wash their hands eight times and flip light switches. Both come up with reasons. They're both CRAZY.
I remember one poor family we invited to our kid's birthday party who weren't allowed to have pizza, cake, or soft drinks. Not even for a day. It doesn't just make me sad to see that--it makes me ANGRY. No, your kids shouldn't be eating that every day. But there's no reason to shun it. NONE. And making your kids neurotic, too, is just a really crummy thing to do.
Cleanse, toxic, artificial, processed, organic, chemical, preservative, dye--when referring to the NUTRITIONAL content of anything, those words are 100% meaningless.
Yeah. I absolutely agree with that. Poor kids. It's so unfair to them. I can imagine how they felt. Why their parents don't understand that nothing bad would happen because of a slice of pizza.
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MonsoonStorm wrote: »MamaBirdBoss wrote: »I prefer to call it food fetishism. People falsely attribute magical qualities to food based on arbitrary standards to avoid the actual important things.
Most people who fetishize food are overweight. There are some who aren't, but for a lot of people, it's to avoid doing the things that actually work. They pretend their huge plat of food is okay because it's organic. Or there's no gluten. Or whatever.
Others are hypochondriacs who project weird powers onto what they eat as well as onto everything around them.
Still others are just completely neurotic about everything, with extreme obsessive mentalities. They won't give their kids plastic toys or sugar for the same reasons other people wash their hands eight times and flip light switches. Both come up with reasons. They're both CRAZY.
I remember one poor family we invited to our kid's birthday party who weren't allowed to have pizza, cake, or soft drinks. Not even for a day. It doesn't just make me sad to see that--it makes me ANGRY. No, your kids shouldn't be eating that every day. But there's no reason to shun it. NONE. And making your kids neurotic, too, is just a really crummy thing to do.
Cleanse, toxic, artificial, processed, organic, chemical, preservative, dye--when referring to the NUTRITIONAL content of anything, those words are 100% meaningless.
I'm amazed how many people are cheering this train of thought on...
It was 6 paragraphs of pure judgmental opinion...
Yes, people should exercise moderation in every aspect of life, but holy cow that's some high horse there. Calling people crazy for having opinions or beliefs that differ to yours is a bit much, don't you think?
Btw... The word "toxic" is actually kinda important when it comes to nutrition, in my opinion anyway perhaps you got it a little mixed up with "toxin" whilst you were all caught up in your anger.
Wait, what? You're defending "food fetishism"?
Nope, I am simply saying that that was a whole post full of nothing but judgementalism and borderline anger.
Labelling people as "CRAZY" with caps because they have OCD, The kids thing... you have no idea WHY the parents are doing that, I've had two children in my class in the past with strict diets. One had retinal cancer and her mum was desperately trying to do anything to save her little girl's sight - she wants her to "eat clean" in the hope it will happen, that's her prerogative... the other kid was from a Mormon family. Their dietary limitations were due to religious reasons. Are they "CRAZY" too? That's excluding the kids with various allergies/issues.
To say that there is no reason to shun something is incredibly presumptuous.
Stop shoving everything into black and white. It's not.
(by the way, my kids never had various plastic toys... know why? I lived in China at the time and it's pretty well known that cheap chinese rubbish is full of all sorts of nastiness. Does that make me CRAZY too?)
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I don't buy into the stigma of the word "crazy". Meh, I've been crazy myself, and don't worry about admitting it.0
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