Eating clean

2

Replies

  • galgenstrick
    galgenstrick Posts: 2,086 Member
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    I think people truly are failing to understand what moderation means, if they think those saying "anything can be healthy in moderation" is synonymous with, "nutrition isn't important" or "eat anything you want as long as you are under your calories". A moderate amount of any calorie dense food, it stands to reason, if not by definition, would be mixed in with other foods. Otherwise it isn't moderation, it is a diet of exclusively calorie dense "junk" food.

    Yes. I think that's what I was trying to get at. People are failing to see what moderation means because of blanket statements like eat whatever you want as long as it's under your calories
  • SymbolismNZ
    SymbolismNZ Posts: 190 Member
    edited January 2017
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    I think people truly are failing to understand what moderation means, if they think those saying "anything can be healthy in moderation" is synonymous with, "nutrition isn't important" or "eat anything you want as long as you are under your calories". A moderate amount of any calorie dense food, it stands to reason, if not by definition, would be mixed in with other foods. Otherwise it isn't moderation, it is a diet of exclusively calorie dense "junk" food.

    Maybe, but even in moderation certain food groups put you at a higher risk of damage in parts of your body/brain, not to mention skew your micronutrient levels.

    But in saying that, it's a tradeoff.... it's kind of similar to drug use in my view, if you want to indulge moderately in a drug (alcohol, cannabis, DMT/hallucinogenics, nicotine) for the entertainment/mood benefits and don't mind the risks, that's all good.
  • galgenstrick
    galgenstrick Posts: 2,086 Member
    SymbolismNZ wrote: »
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    I think people truly are failing to understand what moderation means, if they think those saying "anything can be healthy in moderation" is synonymous with, "nutrition isn't important" or "eat anything you want as long as you are under your calories". A moderate amount of any calorie dense food, it stands to reason, if not by definition, would be mixed in with other foods. Otherwise it isn't moderation, it is a diet of exclusively calorie dense "junk" food.

    Maybe, but even in moderation certain food groups put you at a higher risk of damage in parts of your body/brain, not to mention skew your micronutrient levels.

    But in saying that, it's a tradeoff.... it's kind of similar to drug use in my view, if you want to indulge moderately in a drug (alcohol, cannabis, DMT/hallucinogenics, nicotine) for the entertainment/mood benefits and don't mind the risks, that's all good.

    Which food groups are those?
  • SymbolismNZ
    SymbolismNZ Posts: 190 Member
    galgenstrick wrote: »
    SymbolismNZ wrote: »
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    I think people truly are failing to understand what moderation means, if they think those saying "anything can be healthy in moderation" is synonymous with, "nutrition isn't important" or "eat anything you want as long as you are under your calories". A moderate amount of any calorie dense food, it stands to reason, if not by definition, would be mixed in with other foods. Otherwise it isn't moderation, it is a diet of exclusively calorie dense "junk" food.

    Maybe, but even in moderation certain food groups put you at a higher risk of damage in parts of your body/brain, not to mention skew your micronutrient levels.

    But in saying that, it's a tradeoff.... it's kind of similar to drug use in my view, if you want to indulge moderately in a drug (alcohol, cannabis, DMT/hallucinogenics, nicotine) for the entertainment/mood benefits and don't mind the risks, that's all good.

    Which food groups are those?

    Most of them can be seen in the post I made a page back, including research indicating the risks.
  • jenilla1
    jenilla1 Posts: 11,118 Member
    illyasHodrick wrote: »
    ...Cut out oils...

    Oils (and other healthy fats) help us absorb many of the nutrients in our foods - think of the fat-soluble vitamins like vitamin A. For example, you absorb hardly any beta-carotene if there is no fat consumed along with it. It would be a mistake to eliminate all fats. :)

    Olive oil, nuts, and other nutritious fat sources are NOT unclean foods. They are part of a healthy, balanced diet.
  • SymbolismNZ
    SymbolismNZ Posts: 190 Member
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    Just want to make sure I am understanding you. You are comparing the recommendation of those advocating for eating a variety of foods in moderation with similar risks of recreational drug use?

    Were the studies you posted done on humans and were the substances you consider to be dangerous consumed in moderation? The title of one of the articles is "excess sugar consumption". If it's in excess, it is hardly moderation, is it?

    Considering both have risk factors of neurological and physiological impacts on your system, then from purely a biomedical standpoint, it's a reasonable enough comparison.

    Due to the nature of research and the usual deadline/time critical element of trials, you'll generally find the majority of trials deal in "excess" in order to create the response more quickly and therefore within the confines of their trial, however if you look at refined sugar causing higher risk of damaged cells becoming cancerous, they indicate that while excess sugar in all formats (fructose, (ga)lactose, dextrose/glucose, sucrose) causes damage, refined sugar, in particular sucrose in table granulated form carries risk factors regardless of the amount of consumption.
  • kayemme
    kayemme Posts: 1,782 Member
    jenilla1 wrote: »
    illyasHodrick wrote: »
    ...Cut out oils...

    Oils (and other healthy fats) help us absorb many of the nutrients in our foods - think of the fat-soluble vitamins like vitamin A. For example, you absorb hardly any beta-carotene if there is no fat consumed along with it. It would be a mistake to eliminate all fats. :)

    Olive oil, nuts, and other nutritious fat sources are NOT unclean foods. They are part of a healthy, balanced diet.

    This is why this argument gets so hairy; see, I disagree. Isolated oils are not (in my reasonably-researched opinion) exactly healthy. Eating olives, sure. Avocados? Hells yes! Food already has all the fats you need packed right in them, but extracting them is not the same as eating them within their natural state.

    You can look at my diary if you like. I still acquired 11g of fat (so far) without a drop of extracted oil.

    So I agree with "cutting out oils" because they're so easy to overdo at 9.5 cals/gram.

    I'm not at all hating on your answer. I actually agree with you on the level that the body needs some fats; I just think that we don't need extracted oils.

    Bests, always.
  • SymbolismNZ
    SymbolismNZ Posts: 190 Member
    edited January 2017
    Show me the evidence that consumption of marijuana in moderation has any health impacts, or psilocybin, or amphetamines.

    You won't be able to, because ultimately all it does is create risk factors that you may become more than a moderate user.... those same risk factors are often quoted when comparing the impact of refined sugar to your neurology. In fact, several of the research papers I posted above did exactly that.
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,942 Member
    galgenstrick wrote: »
    SLLRunner wrote: »
    galgenstrick wrote: »
    everher wrote: »
    galgenstrick wrote: »
    "Everything in moderation" is just as vague as "clean eating"...

    I don't feel everything in moderation is vague at all. Moderation is something most people here have yet to learn.

    I also think it's an especially important idea for some people who seem to think just because they don't consume sweets or soda or "junk" food they are going to lose weight or become "healthier".

    I can't tell you how many posts I've read in the couple months I've been here that say, "I cut out all soda, candy, etc. but still haven't lost any weight".

    Because people just start overeating on other things.

    Eating anything in moderation is misleading and leads people to believe they can just forget about micronutrients as long as it fits their macros. You still need to eat primarily nutritionally dense foods in order to stay healthy. Most importantly, you can't quantify "moderation" so it's a pretty worthless term for trying to help people decide how to eat.

    In the context of postings that promote cutting out certain foods to lose weight, moderation is not at all vague and/or misleading, and it does not imply that you don't pay attention to macros/micro nutrients.

    How to eat has nothing to do with he actual loss of pounds, how much you eat does.

    In other words, everything in moderation means to eat whatever you've been eating, just less of it.

    Understood. I never advocate cutting out foods completely. However the term is still vague for someone that doesn't understand how weight loss works and how to stay healthy. Exactly how much chocolate cake is a moderate amount? How about carrots? I think telling someone to just eat exactly the same foods but less of them is bad advice. It will work for weight loss, no doubt -- but depending on what they're eating and what their background is it's probably not the healthiest lifestyle. People blow IIFYM way out of proportion. No, you shouldn't just eat whatever you want if it fits your macros and completely ignore the other nutritional aspects of your health. That's probably not what your advocating either, but that's what the term "moderation" implies which is why it's vague and misleading

    Nowhere do I advocate not paying attention to your macros/micros/nutrition, so you are right- that's not what I'm advocating at all. ;)

    No, telling someone to eat what they've been eating just less of it is not bad advice in the context of weight loss because the only requirement to lose weight is to eat less calories than you burn. Hence, eat what you normally eat, just less of it.

    Now, if someone were to ask about nutrition and said what types of foods they were eating, the answer may be a whole lot different because nutrition does not have anything to do with weight loss.

    However, I advocate a diet that meets your calorie goals and is nutritionally balanced. Still, the nutritional balance has nothing to do with the actual mechanics of losing weight.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    kayemme wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    Hmm, related to the above, because I'm interested in the whole "eating in an old-fashioned way" thing, in part just as an exercise or out of interest,* I've thought a lot about the differences between how I eat and how ancestors of mine would have eaten. (I know a pretty good amount about family history on some sides of my family.) What always strikes me is how much more nutritious food I have available consistently, as well as ingredients and preparations that can be delicious and healthful that they wouldn't have known about or had available (that weren't known to me as a kid even -- Chicago in the 2010s is a lot more varied in the food choices than where and when I grew up). Yes, it's also harder because of all the choices and how easy and cheap it is, even if one cooks from whole foods, mostly, but it's healthier to have processed and "unnatural" things like frozen fish, produce easily available in January, etc. And that I can also have really good coffee and go out for Ethiopian, well, bonus!

    *I'm always mad at those dress up and live like it's the 17th century (or whatever era) shows because they don't take it seriously enough. I'm always like "I'd be much better and really get into the exercise." Not that I've ever applied! ;-)

    Between this and the post above, I think we'd get along pretty well!

    I eat clean, but now I focus on lean. That's why sometimes I write it like (c)lean. I don't eat meat (incl. fish) nor dairy, and I keep all isolated fats to a minimum. I can see how a person could eat "clean" and still gain weight, especially if fats, meats, dairy & eggs are included in that definition (because they can be "clean" but they are not necessarily "lean").

    I'm not a hater on meats/eggs/whatever, but I just don't eat them myself any more.

    Thanks for all your elaboration. It was very insightful!

    Ah. People use "clean" so differently. I am used to it meaning "no processed" (although people saying that always eat processed food IME, usually as much or even much more than me, now).

    I actually don't particularly think I could gain on WFPB, which is what it seems you are. Some can, but I would find it hard. I just don't think I could sustain it long-term (I've done similar things for shorter periods) without being ethically committed and/or convinced it was the only way to have a healthy diet, which I'm not. I'm reasonably interested in it, though, and am glad it's working for you.
  • SymbolismNZ
    SymbolismNZ Posts: 190 Member
    Cool; someone up for reasonable debate.
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    Let's focus on body composition first. What happens to the body composition of someone who eats maintenance calories (he or she doesn't need to lose) of a primarily nutrition-dense diet, that meets micro needs, more than adequate protein (let's say about 1 g / lb of LBM), includes sufficient healthy fats, fiber, etc., but also includes a little something extra every day -- sometimes ice cream (about 200-250 calories), sometimes high quality cheese, sometimes a glass of wine or beer, sometimes dark chocolate, sometimes a restaurant meal or homemade pulled pork, it varies? The person also has a good progressive lifting program.

    The key things you mention are "adequate protein, maintenance calorie level, progressive lifting program" - the person will slowly change their body composition over time; they won't gain the same level of muscle mass as someone eating with a calorie abundance but due to the protein, calorie level and exercise, they will of course drop body fat.

    Nothing wrong with high quality cheese, nothing wrong with wine either as very few wines add any refined sugar, they're relying on the natural sugars within the grapes (fructose) to aid in the process of fermentation and eventually the creation of alcohols, nothing wrong with pulled pork and the bulk of fine dining restaurant meals ( up until dessert) don't actually include too much refined sugar, as they're relying on caramelisation and other methods to provide the sweetness in the meal....

    Ice Cream, Beer, Dark Chocolate (with sugar added) and say a BBQ sauce with sugar? It won't impact their muscle growth, it won't impact their calories, due to oncogenes however, it does place them at a higher risk that the cells they're damaging ( be it weight lifting, or sun bathing, or general aging) could become cancerous. It also places them at higher risk of accelerated neurodegenerative diseases and in the case of alcohol, if they weren't consuming enough water, could cause toxicity and damage to their liver.

    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    No, that is not what anyone is saying. Absolutely no one is saying that nutrition should be ignored if we are talking about what's healthy.

    No one says this either. CICO just means that calories in vs. calories out determine what happens to weight. No one claims it says what you should do (it applies whether you gaining, losing, or maintaining, after all) in terms of nutrition or health (other than being overweight being unhealthy of course).

    The majority of quotes I've seen so far in the "losing weight" or "food and nutrition" threads are in effect, "You can eat anything so long as it's inside your calorie boundaries" - now of course, people like yourself and quite a few others point out balanced nutrition as being key, but take for example the current discussion around a teacher sending a kid home, telling the mother that she shouldn't send him in with a poptart due to it being unhealthy; the validation there is "As long as it fits within the calorie goals, what harm does it do" - quite a bit actually, especially in the development of a child's brain.

    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    I see that you are a study collector and like to cherry pick those that deal with your pet issues and cite them as if a study proved anything. I prefer to discuss individual studies, since anyone can post a list of things and claim a point is made. But let's proceed to the studies.

    You continue with this "cherry pick" ideal, but you'll notice in this thread I didn't bother bringing up the known fact that nutritional scientists have been bought off to give favourable trial results by the food industry, in particular confectionary and soda makers, hence "Refined Sugar isn't bad for you" being a prevalent "fact" of the industry.

    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    No, the studies are all over the place. I note that you seem to really enjoy the latest fads, which I recognize because I listen to lots of the kinds of nutrition podcasts that jump on them (it's a weakness).

    Again - studies are all over the place when it comes to the impact of meal timing on weight loss/weight gain and while there are points of evidence that would indicate fasting does have benefits for weight loss, that's not the point I made, the point I made was that food timing had impacts on gene activation, on the restoration you get while being asleep, on the efficacy your body has to repair cells, and in the case of chemotherapy, to boost not only the efficacy of the treatment, but also reduce the damage to your immune system while undertaking chemotherapy..

    There are a lot of people who believe intermittent fasting helps with weight loss; I'm not one of them, I believe in essence intermittent fasting is giving people a smaller window to consume their calories and therefore they're consuming a small total number of calories on average, hence correlation != causation.

    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    To post this as if it were consensus that sugar has an addictive effect seems dishonest to me when you must know there is not. Avena, the lead person on the study, is a proponent of highly palatable foods in general being addictive (although she doesn't think abstinence is possible or realistic, so it's clearly different than other sorts of addictions, probably just "kind of.") Anyway, this one is a rat study (rats react to sugar differently from humans) and also intermittent/excessive, so no, it does not indicate that some moderate sugar consumption in humans is going to injure your neurology, as you are claiming.

    So, in order to believe that refined sugar doesn't actually have a damaging impact on neural receptors, some of which for controlling appetite/feeling satiated, you have to ignore all of the mice/rat work studies that have been conducted and state that humans are different and that the same responses are not seen.

    To do this, you also have to ignore the fact that in almost any other example of mice/rat work studies involving nutrition, neural receptors and cell reproduction, the evidence of responses almost always remain the same when human trials are conducted.

    You also have to ignore that certain studies have been commissioned and paid for by people within the nutrition industry; just take a look at the RDI labelling on our food products ( mostly based out of research in the 50s and 60s with a few updates) versus now what most nutritional scientists would indicate to be RDI....

    That's as close to "conspiracy theory" as I get; but I've seen enough information with the conclusion that refined sugar (not sugar in general) has a number of risk factors related to the above, in terms of "being addictive", I didn't make that claim, I did make the claim that it can inhibit the neural receptors responsible for appetite, and I've also made the claim that the more sugar you have in the diet, the more your brain tells you to consume.

    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    Both animal studies, but pigs and primates at least. Anyway, high sucrose/high fat diets. I didn't get the specifics since they were animal studies, but not moderation or comparable -- are you trying to avoid the topic or do you not see that these are irrelevant?

    If you read what I wrote in relationship, I used the example of high sucrose/high fat because it had references and experiments where it substituted a mixture (i.e high sugar, low fat, high fat, low sugar, etcetera) and it's findings had been interesting.

    Also, writing off animal studies, pigs, primates - I mean I get that we dislike the fact that our inner mechanics are much the same as most other mammalian species; as I cited, most of the work done around cancer protein research, stem cell, cell regrowth, neural disorder and degeneration have all been conducted with mice and rats due to the fact that their responses are usually similar to what would be seen in humans. If this wasn't the case, why do you think the science industry still continues to murder (in the name of science) billions of rodents every year? Why would they waste their time?

    Now just to clarify something, all sugars are not equal, (ga)lactose, fructose, dextrose are all required in our diets, the granulated table sugar form of sucrose however is not.
  • illyasHodrick
    illyasHodrick Posts: 33 Member
    jenilla1 wrote: »
    illyasHodrick wrote: »
    ...Cut out oils...

    Oils (and other healthy fats) help us absorb many of the nutrients in our foods - think of the fat-soluble vitamins like vitamin A. For example, you absorb hardly any beta-carotene if there is no fat consumed along with it. It would be a mistake to eliminate all fats. :)

    Olive oil, nuts, and other nutritious fat sources are NOT unclean foods. They are part of a healthy, balanced diet.

    http://ucdintegrativemedicine.com/2015/04/the-good-bad-and-ugly-about-oils/#gs.r=F=XDY

    It also oxidizes when you cook it, releasing cancer causing free radicals.

    All processed foods are bad news. You'd have to eat 20 olives for one tsblespoon of olive oil. It still wouldn't be the, same either because the olives have fiber and more nutrients.

  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    natashab61 wrote: »
    Hi all,
    I am no perfect clean eater but as I enter my mid 20s I would really like to make my diet to be predominantly healthy. I have a HUGE sweet tooth and I am aware sugar is an addiction. So any help or suggestions as to how to do this?

    Focus on balance and nutrition. I think of balancing my diet in the same way I think of balancing other parts of my life such as work and play. I do the work that needs done, but I always allow time for play/relaxation.

    Get the nutrients your body needs, but also allow for treats now and then, even if they are nutrient poor.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    I don't know if OP is still around or scared off, but trying to get this thread back to what she initially inquired about...

    @natashab61 you said you are looking to make your diet more healthy. That's fantastic, there are lots of ways to do that. What does a typical day look like for you today? Are there particular areas you feel like you are lacking? Are there any dietary restrictions that you have for either medical reasons or preference?

    You brought up "Clean Eating" and as you can see, that tends to be a bit of a hot topic around here, since the definitions vary so greatly and are so subjective. You also said that you believe sugar is addictive, and well, that's a whole other thread/topic but if you search the forums you'll find plenty of prior discussions on that one.

    If you are still interested in continuing the discussion, maybe let us know what your specific questions or areas of need are so that people can offer some suggestions on how to incorporate more nutrient dense foods into an overall healthy diet.

    Good points -- think there were some on topic responses early on, but yeah the debate-y stuff should be kicked off. It doesn't actually even have anything to do with clean eating (I think the posts specifically on that were more on topic--the study stuff seems kind of out of the blue).
  • Carlos_421
    Carlos_421 Posts: 5,132 Member
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    natashab61 wrote: »
    Hi all,
    I am no perfect clean eater but as I enter my mid 20s I would really like to make my diet to be predominantly healthy. I have a HUGE sweet tooth and I am aware sugar is an addiction. So any help or suggestions as to how to do this?

    Getting this thread back to addressing your question.

    I think a good first step would be to learn about nutrition (reading the stickied threads would be a good start).
    In learning about nutrition, you'll learn what your body needs (macronutrients (protein, fat, carbs (including fiber)), micronutrients (vitamins, minerals) and energy (calories)).
    You'll also learn that all foods are essentially just varying assortments of the macronutrients, micronutrients and energy your body needs. Some foods have more energy than others (calorie dense) and some have more nutrients than others (nutrient dense).
    Many of the foods deemed "unclean" are simply calorie dense or just aren't very nutrient dense. The incorrect concept behind clean eating is that these foods need to be avoided. The truth, rather, is that maintaining a nutrient dense diet overall (rather than worrying about individual foods) is what matters for health and maintaining a calorie deficit is what matters for weight loss.

    It's also worth noting that sugar is not actually an addictive substance. There are mice studies which show that sugar causes a dopamine release just like everything else that makes us happy (including foot rubs, back massages, running, a clean house...) and that mice prefer sugar (food) over drugs (not food) but there are no studies that show sugar overrides the neurological processes in the way that drugs like cocaine do or that it causes a chemical dependency.

    This is one of the best and most succinct explanations of nutrition I have seen, as well as a great way of summarizing one of the key arguments of why sugar is not actually chemically addictive.

    Well Done Carlos! Oreo for you!

    Thanks. Hopefully OP comes back to see it.
  • natashab61
    natashab61 Posts: 103 Member
    Thank you all for the amazing responses :)
  • SymbolismNZ
    SymbolismNZ Posts: 190 Member
    I'd go through and collect all of the "Yeah, eat that ice cream, as long as you're under your calories" but I really can't be bothered.

    The reality is most of you are working off of opinions and insights that were formed in the 50s and 60s around RDI, micro nutrient level and the impact of certain foods on your diet; a small example "Yeah, they use lots of butter to make it taste good" - yet ingesting butter (so long as you're not also pounding a ton of carbs at the same time) and being within your calorie limit is absolutely fine.

    I'll leave you guys in the 50s and 60s, I'll continue to work off of the realities of the 00s and 10s.
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