What counts as clean eating?
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Yes, thank you.This is what I am trying to say.
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SoleTrainer60 wrote: »I don't understand clean eating. My idea of clean eating would be perhaps no junk food, salty or fattening foods. Just healthy lean meats, fruits and veggies.
Since you can gain fat with them healthy lean meats, fruits, and veggies are all fattening foods.
I think you might be trying to say to cut out high sodium, high saturated fat, and high sugar foods.
All foods are "fattening foods" if you eat them while in a caloric surplus. Just sayin'.6 -
Clean eating to me is using the 5 second rule when an m&m drops on the floor.
There's no way I'd waste one of those delicious, heavily processed, added sugared beauties.8 -
concordancia wrote: »For me clean eating is eating as little processed food as possible and very little added sugar. It looks like it means different things to different people though.
It might depend on where your starting from. For me, I had a very high processed, high sugar diet, so reducing these significantly is clean eating for me.
Good luck
I am not even sure what you mean by processed. Have you cut dairy and meat?
As I understand it processed means the food was preserved or cooked. Preserved by canning, freezing, chemicals, drying, salt-curing, etc. Cooked is kind of self-explanatory. Cheese falls in there somewhere. I think there are some things allowed and others are not but I am no psycho processed food expert.
Meat goes to a processor. Things like boneless, skinless chicken breast is processed more than that.
Is that what normally gets called processed food? No, and I wouldn't, but worth noting.
Some things that ARE processed in the more traditional sense are smoked salmon, greek yogurt (plain), cottage cheese, and any restaurant meal, including the ones that involve cooking from whole ingredients where they tell you the local farms the various ingredients came from.
Since whether it's processed or not doesn't tell you about the nutritional content of the food, and since I was a whole foods fanatic who rarely ate packaged junk food before losing weight, the whole "clean eating" thing strikes me as generally useless and unnecessarily confusing or, in some case, like a brag or claim of superiority.
I think cutting back on foods that are high cal/low nutrient is usually helpful when reducing calories (I cut back on olive oil, which of course is processed, among other things), and of course improving the nutritional content of one's diet can be a good thing, but I don't get the appeal of the "clean eating" thing.
Not saying you are defending the use of "clean eating" (and not slamming OP, who was just asking a question), but this seemed a decent place to add my little rant.
I always find it odd that lots of the people who seem most dug into claiming that clean eating is better tend to eat diets that are no better (and sometimes have a lot more packaged stuff) than many of the people who reject the term. And yet they often take the rejection of the term to mean people are saying "don't care about nutrition," which is insulting. I do think it depends on where one starts and my impression from MFP is that some of the people most attracted to the term or likely to describe themselves as "eating clean" are people who very recently ate the poorest diets and merely took the sensible step of improving the nutritional content and cutting back on so called junk food. Which is great, but not all of us ate lots of so called junk food or packaged things -- different people have different reasons for wanting or needing to lose weight.
Oops, slipped into my rant again, again not directed at you!8 -
If someone is starting cold and their first foray into changing their lifestyle is "clean eating" which I still don't completely understand then at least it is a start.
You'd like for everyone to skip all the mistakes that many of us made getting here but some people learn best from failure. I am not saying "clean eating" is a path for failure for everyone, again, I don't really understand the "rules" but like all diets failure will claim a percentage of participants. It does seem complex though.
The most important thing for me is that I make the rules not blindly follow some other plan. If I want to eat things like bacon and doritos I do it in moderation. I have decided not to eat things that has a ridiculous number of ingredients I don't recognize. I have decided that since I don't have that much of a sweet tooth anyway to stick to a much smaller list of treats. I am mindful to eat heart healthy foods on a regular basis and avoid regular sugar spikes. My rules are entirely reasonable to me and I don't feel deprived so that is all I care about.3 -
Lol, maybe forums aren't for you then. Sarcasm is a staple in practically any public forum. Your question was answered. You responded to the one you WANTED to hear.Jayfeather15 wrote: »There are dozens of definitions of clean eating: no processed foods, no added sugar, paleo, keto, vegan...you name it. Your best bet is to drop the idea of defining clean eating and focus on primarily eating nutrient-dense foods.
Thanks for giving me a sensible answer. I don't why some people on here are so freaking snarky and sarcastic. Here you are using some app to help you lose weight and then got the nerve to be acting stupid to others when they're seeking help...
Edit: Saw that OP replied with understanding the sarcasm.
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A few concrete examples that have me curious:
Olive oil
Pasteurized milk
Packaged herbs and spices
Roasted nuts
Perhaps this is why some people focus on the number of ingredients?3 -
If someone is starting cold and their first foray into changing their lifestyle is "clean eating" which I still don't completely understand then at least it is a start.
Why?
Improving the nutritional content of your diet is a start. Reducing calories, especially from low nutrient foods, is a start. Eating vegetables, if you don't much, is a start. Why is it meaningful or a step for someone to start worrying about processing rather than learning about nutrition (which is really not that complicated and most likely know what a healthy diet is without all this clean nonsense)? Why is it a step for someone to make a big thing about how their diet is "clean." That's a distraction from understanding how nutrition works, IMO, and usually just a way to claim that your diet is somehow better than others (even though processed foods aren't inherently bad, many are nutritionally dense and make things easier for some).The most important thing for me is that I make the rules not blindly follow some other plan. If I want to eat things like bacon and doritos I do it in moderation.
This seems great, not sure what it has to do with clean eating.I have decided not to eat things that has a ridiculous number of ingredients I don't recognize.
I never actually did this (eat foods with a long list of ingredients I didn't understand -- I was never that into packaged stuff, always read labels when I bought something), so it seems a pointless rule to me. I'd personally prefer just to make sure I do understand what I'm eating, and base choices on taste and what it contributes nutritionally (and what the rest of my diet is).
I think most people who care about nutrition do this (i.e., understand what they are eating), including the many who don't get the whole "clean eating" thing and/or who may understand what some ingredients are that you haven't learned about yet.I have decided that since I don't have that much of a sweet tooth anyway to stick to a much smaller list of treats. I am mindful to eat heart healthy foods on a regular basis and avoid regular sugar spikes. My rules are entirely reasonable to me and I don't feel deprived so that is all I care about.
Yeah, having your own rules makes sense. I avoid snacking and treat foods that aren't worth the calories to me (which are most of the sweet things that appear at my office, and most packaged junk foods). I try to make sure all meals have lots of vegetables and some protein, and like to aim for at least 10 servings of veg and fruit per day (mostly veg, usually more). I like to cook most meals at home from whole foods (since I enjoy cooking). I also like to save room for some restaurant meals since I live in a city with lots of great restaurants and my friends and I like trying new ones and getting dinner before a play or the symphony. These are rules that work for me, and other rules work for other people. I don't see the benefit of claiming my way of eating is superior (clean) and others are unclean.
I can't think of a reason to focus on the term "clean" except to try and present your (hypothetical your) way of eating as superior or purer or some such, and it rubs me the wrong way. Why not just talk about nutrition and realize there are many different ways to have a nutritionally sufficient and beneficial diet? This is again not aimed at you, but the "clean" thing.2 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »
Why?
Improving the nutritional content of your diet is a start. Reducing calories, especially from low nutrient foods, is a start. Eating vegetables, if you don't much, is a start. Why is it meaningful or a step for someone to start worrying about processing rather than learning about nutrition (which is really not that complicated and most likely know what a healthy diet is without all this clean nonsense)? Why is it a step for someone to make a big thing about how their diet is "clean." That's a distraction from understanding how nutrition works, IMO, and usually just a way to claim that your diet is somehow better than others (even though processed foods aren't inherently bad, many are nutritionally dense and make things easier for some).
Not everyone is going to wake up one day and just get it. I certainly didn't. I made many of the classic mistakes. Sure they delayed my progress but I did finally figure it out. This isn't Star Trek and we can't mind meld good eating habits into people. My point was a step away from nothing towards something shows at least someone might be open to change even if that change starts kind of ridiculous. Again, not saying the "Clean Diet" is ridiculous I still know next to nothing about it.
Besides, there is no reason to be mad at what someone else is doing. It has nothing to do with you and your journey, wherever you might be in it. If the "Clean" people annoy you ignore them.2 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »
Why?
Improving the nutritional content of your diet is a start. Reducing calories, especially from low nutrient foods, is a start. Eating vegetables, if you don't much, is a start. Why is it meaningful or a step for someone to start worrying about processing rather than learning about nutrition (which is really not that complicated and most likely know what a healthy diet is without all this clean nonsense)? Why is it a step for someone to make a big thing about how their diet is "clean." That's a distraction from understanding how nutrition works, IMO, and usually just a way to claim that your diet is somehow better than others (even though processed foods aren't inherently bad, many are nutritionally dense and make things easier for some).
Not everyone is going to wake up one day and just get it. I certainly didn't. I made many of the classic mistakes. Sure they delayed my progress but I did finally figure it out. This isn't Star Trek and we can't mind meld good eating habits into people. My point was a step away from nothing towards something shows at least someone might be open to change even if that change starts kind of ridiculous. Again, not saying the "Clean Diet" is ridiculous I still know next to nothing about it.
Besides, there is no reason to be mad at what someone else is doing. It has nothing to do with you and your journey, wherever you might be in it. If the "Clean" people annoy you ignore them.
For many long-term posters, I think it is less being "annoyed" than feeling empathy and concern for the people who are spending time and energy adopting habits that aren't really relevant to weight loss/sustainable weight management. To speak just for myself, I'm not annoyed with clean eaters, I just wish I could have back all the time I spent in my 20s doing things like detoxing and clean eating and eliminating certain foods when all I needed was a calorie deficit. If others can save that wasted time and effort, I'd love to play a part in that.6 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »
Why?
Improving the nutritional content of your diet is a start. Reducing calories, especially from low nutrient foods, is a start. Eating vegetables, if you don't much, is a start. Why is it meaningful or a step for someone to start worrying about processing rather than learning about nutrition (which is really not that complicated and most likely know what a healthy diet is without all this clean nonsense)? Why is it a step for someone to make a big thing about how their diet is "clean." That's a distraction from understanding how nutrition works, IMO, and usually just a way to claim that your diet is somehow better than others (even though processed foods aren't inherently bad, many are nutritionally dense and make things easier for some).
Not everyone is going to wake up one day and just get it.
Agree, but not sure what this has to do with the concept of "clean eating." I think detouring people into "clean eating" is focusing their attention AWAY from what's important, not a helpful thing to do.
OP asked about clean eating and seemed to have no idea what it was. I don't think it's helpful to encourage her to focus on whether or not foods are "clean" (under a variety of different and contradictory definitions). I think it's much more genuinely helpful to find out what she's really after and give her advice on that.
Usually (not always) people interested in "clean eating" either want weight loss or a better diet or both, so why not point out that clean eating isn't really a consistent thing and not particularly relevant to either, and then give advice on whatever the poster is confused about re weight loss or improving the diet.
Again, I actually think what a nutritious diet is, IS really obvious (which doesn't mean improving your diet is always easy and quick -- habits come into play, taste, cooking skills). Why people think it's hard is they assume they are supposed to do something extreme or think it's boring or must be more complicated or get into the weeds with all the different fad diets out there, or diet wars.Besides, there is no reason to be mad at what someone else is doing. It has nothing to do with you and your journey, wherever you might be in it. If the "Clean" people annoy you ignore them.
Um, thanks, but I'm not annoyed at what anyone is doing, if you mean eating, when it comes to dieting.* I do think it's important to counter false claims, however, and that "clean eating" is the best way to eat a nutrient-dense diet or the only way to care about nutrition is, IMO, inaccurate and probably a harmful claim, or at least one that makes things harder and more complicated than they need to be.
*For example, to move away from the "clean eating" thing, Freelee's way of eating for herself does not annoy me in the least. Some of the claims she makes do, and I think they should be countered because truth matters.6 -
janejellyroll wrote: »For many long-term posters, I think it is less being "annoyed" than feeling empathy and concern for the people who are spending time and energy adopting habits that aren't really relevant to weight loss/sustainable weight management. To speak just for myself, I'm not annoyed with clean eaters, I just wish I could have back all the time I spent in my 20s doing things like detoxing and clean eating and eliminating certain foods when all I needed was a calorie deficit. If others can save that wasted time and effort, I'd love to play a part in that.
I kind of feel the same way about being worked up on a message board. It is a waste of time and effort. When doctors are out there publishing their impressive sounding research on a new diet how do we compare as an authority? We probably come across as the masses doing things the wrong, hard, or dirty way that have not been enlightened yet. That is probably why I made some of the mistakes I did and maybe it accounts for a few of yours too. It is what you learn after you "know it all" that counts.
Anyway, I am not smart enough to know what will work for the next person just because it didn't work for me. Eating what you want in smaller portions goes against all of the low fat, low carb, eat healthy, vegetarian based, check yourself into a monastery diets that have been preached all my life now. Making it harder on yourself may not be necessary but it is what apparently many people believe and that once included a younger me.2 -
janejellyroll wrote: »For many long-term posters, I think it is less being "annoyed" than feeling empathy and concern for the people who are spending time and energy adopting habits that aren't really relevant to weight loss/sustainable weight management. To speak just for myself, I'm not annoyed with clean eaters, I just wish I could have back all the time I spent in my 20s doing things like detoxing and clean eating and eliminating certain foods when all I needed was a calorie deficit. If others can save that wasted time and effort, I'd love to play a part in that.
I kind of feel the same way about being worked up on a message board. It is a waste of time and effort. When doctors are out there publishing their impressive sounding research on a new diet how do we compare as an authority? We probably come across as the masses doing things the wrong, hard, or dirty way that have not been enlightened yet. That is probably why I made some of the mistakes I did and maybe it accounts for a few of yours too. It is what you learn after you "know it all" that counts.
Anyway, I am not smart enough to know what will work for the next person just because it didn't work for me. Eating what you want in smaller portions goes against all of the low fat, low carb, eat healthy, vegetarian based, check yourself into a monastery diets that have been preached all my life now. Making it harder on yourself may not be necessary but it is what apparently many people believe and that includes a younger me.
If you feel that way, I'd advise against becoming worked up on a message board. I don't like being worked up on message boards myself.
Do you perceive those discussing it here to be "worked up" though? These sorts of discussions are interesting for me -- I find the topic interesting and I don't find it stressful or agitating to discuss (I'm going to go out on a limb and say that @lemurcat12, who I "know" from many previous threads here, feels the same way I do).
Adopting some of the principles of "clean eating" may indeed "work" to help someone control their weight (I don't think anyone could adopt all of them because some are inherently contradictory and some are virtually impossible to apply in the real world), but they work because they limit the number of calories consumed. I don't think anyone here is saying that "clean eating" won't work for anyone (just like nobody would say that limiting, say, fat or carbohydrates wouldn't work for anyone). Clearly these various methods work for some individuals -- that is why they gain traction. The question that is more interesting to me is *why* do they work. Do they work because eating foods with more than five ingredients (to pick a random "clean eating" rule) make you fat? Or do they work because for some people they trigger another -- more essential -- mechanism?
My younger self believed a lot of things that I know now to be untrue (or partially untrue). I have no duty to refrain from questioning a concept just because I once believed in it.2 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Agree, but not sure what this has to do with the concept of "clean eating." I think detouring people into "clean eating" is focusing their attention AWAY from what's important, not a helpful thing to do.
OP asked about clean eating and seemed to have no idea what it was. I don't think it's helpful to encourage her to focus on whether or not foods are "clean" (under a variety of different and contradictory definitions). I think it's much more genuinely helpful to find out what she's really after and give her advice on that.
I don't think anyone here got detoured towards whatever "clean eating" is. Certainly not by me. I have made it clear on multiple occasions that I have no idea what it means except some broad definition I found online. Also, I don't think she enjoyed her reception so her being open to advice was always going to be limited.
I opened this thread originally to see what was being talked about. Then I kind of got swept along with some of the humor and now we are back to serious again.
I remember reading about a guy that tried to live on chicken nuggets exclusively. Now granted he ended up in the hospital but didn't he go over 10 years or something? How long does the average diet last? A couple of months? Let's not pretend we are trying to pull people out of the ocean. If we can help a few people, great, others may need to learn by failing and won't care about anything we say.
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janejellyroll wrote: »For many long-term posters, I think it is less being "annoyed" than feeling empathy and concern for the people who are spending time and energy adopting habits that aren't really relevant to weight loss/sustainable weight management. To speak just for myself, I'm not annoyed with clean eaters, I just wish I could have back all the time I spent in my 20s doing things like detoxing and clean eating and eliminating certain foods when all I needed was a calorie deficit. If others can save that wasted time and effort, I'd love to play a part in that.
I kind of feel the same way about being worked up on a message board. It is a waste of time and effort. When doctors are out there publishing their impressive sounding research on a new diet how do we compare as an authority?
Who are these doctors who publish "impressive sounding research" on new diets? Most reputable doctors don't recommend fad diets. Some will recommend something like DASH for specific purposes, but DASH is just basically a lower sodium (for blood pressure) version of a traditional healthy eating pattern.
Others (like Dr. Katz or Dr. Willett -- neither of whom is agreed with by everyone, of course) recommend broad principles, the basic healthy eating pattern again, and NOT some specific named diet (while recognizing that if a named diet helps you follow these principles, fine). Here's an example: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/science-compared-every-diet-and-the-winner-is-real-food/284595/
The point is, though, that OP didn't pop in and say that clean eating was helping her improve her diet (and of course "clean eating" has no actual definition and is based on false and simplistic claims, like that being processed = bad, and not being processed = good, and that elimination is more important than what you include in your diet or learning moderation). She just asked, basically, what it was. Pointing out that it's not really anything and that if her interest is, in fact, in learning healthy eating, clean eating isn't really useful is IMO helpful.Making it harder on yourself may not be necessary but it is what apparently many people believe and that once included a younger me.
Me too. It wasn't helpful.1 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Agree, but not sure what this has to do with the concept of "clean eating." I think detouring people into "clean eating" is focusing their attention AWAY from what's important, not a helpful thing to do.
OP asked about clean eating and seemed to have no idea what it was. I don't think it's helpful to encourage her to focus on whether or not foods are "clean" (under a variety of different and contradictory definitions). I think it's much more genuinely helpful to find out what she's really after and give her advice on that.
I don't think anyone here got detoured towards whatever "clean eating" is.
Nor do I, but you introduced the idea that clean eating might be a good start, as if it would be better than just focusing on weight loss or (since I'm assuming we are talking about improving one's diet) nutrition. If you aren't making that claim, then I'm not even sure what we are talking about.
OP didn't seem to be doing "clean eating" as she didn't even know what it was, and was asking. So the idea that it was helping her and people were discouraging her doesn't even seem applicable.I remember reading about a guy that tried to live on chicken nuggets exclusively. Now granted he ended up in the hospital but didn't he go over 10 years or something? How long does the average diet last? A couple of months? Let's not pretend we are trying to pull people out of the ocean. If we can help a few people, great, others may need to learn by failing and won't care about anything we say.
Why would you assume that OP wouldn't care about anything we say? She asked what clean eating was, didn't say "no matter what it is I'm doing it!" Also, I don't think it hurts to do it (I did at one point, although I called it "eating naturally" or some idiocy since I didn't know about clean eating when I was into it). I do think if someone asks about it, she's probably really asking something else, either (1) is it helpful for weight loss (and explaining how weight loss works is likely useful), or (2) (which is what I assumed) how do I improve my diet? IMO, improving your diet really isn't that complicated, why not just explain the real facts?
Not sure what the chicken nugget guy has to do with it, as I seriously doubt he thought that was an optimal diet. Lots of people eat poorly, but I don't think this is because they don't realize what a better diet would be. (For example, pretty sure chicken nugget guy--who I'd never heard of before--knew that he should probably eat some vegetables.)0 -
@lemurcat12 Ok. Maybe I have read more sensational diet plans endorsed and explained by doctors than you have. Honestly I am tired of talking about what the OP got or didn't get from this thread. I can't imagine why someone would make an important life decision based on what some anonymous people said on a message board anyway. At best we should be a hint of what research they should do on their own before making a decision.2
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lemurcat12 wrote: »Nor do I, but you introduced the idea that clean eating might be a good start,
No, I didn't. You just took it that way.
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janejellyroll wrote: »If you feel that way, I'd advise against becoming worked up on a message board. I don't like being worked up on message boards myself.
Do you perceive those discussing it here to be "worked up" though?
I don't think either of us is worked up. I can't speak for Lemur who keeps typing these really long posts about my supposed transgressions.
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I'm not worked up at all. I just enjoy these kinds of discussions. I also don't think you committed any "transgressions"--look back at my first post about "processed food" to see all my disclaimers.
It's also entirely possible I misunderstood you, and since I was a little confused about what you were trying to say I'd love a clarification if you think I did. My response that started the current side conversation was to this comment: "If someone is starting cold and their first foray into changing their lifestyle is "clean eating" which I still don't completely understand then at least it is a start."
I couldn't figure out what you were saying unless you were suggesting that we should have encouraged OP to start "clean eating."
IMO, the idea that it's too hard to understand what healthy eating is without thinking you need to do a fad diet is too prevalent, and it's why it's worth pointing out that it's actually pretty simple and the idea that you need to pick the right named diet is confusing and harmful (which is what the Atlantic article I posted elaborates on). Sure, people will still do fad diets or believe silly things, but hearing other ideas might be something that helps them at some point. It did me.4
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