What is Eating Clean?

So "eating clean" gets thrown around a lot, especially in the weight loss blogging world. It's almost become a sort of buzz word that has a lost a lot of meaning.

I ran into this article looking at the good and bad of Tosca Reno's eating clean diet plans: Should You Be Eating Clean?

I like Tosca Reno - she's got a lot better ideas than a ton of weight loss industry writers/speakers/trainers/hacks out there. It seems to me like the author of the article has a stick in their butt about clean eating to begin with and so looks a little too harshly at Reno in response.

The article goes point by point through the diet and talks about it. For example:

"Avoid chemicals, preservatives, and artificial sugar. This simply an appeal to the naturalistic fallacy. It’s not possible to avoid “chemicals” in your diet; chemicals ARE your diet. The same can be said for preservatives. Salt is a preservative. Added ingredients need to be evaluated on their own merits, not avoided wholesale. The same can be said for artificial sweeteners. Reno demonizes sugar substitutes claiming they “work against you just as much as white sugar does.” Yet there is no persuasive evidence to demonstrate that artificial sweeteners are harmful, or will compromise dietary goals. The same cannot be said for sugar."

Um. A naturalistic fallacy?

They are playing dumb.

People who are trying to eat clean are NOT freaking concerned about salt preserving their food. I'd be delighted if the preserved food I wanted to eat just had salt in it. I'm trying to avoid dangerous food additives (and these were only the most dangerous in 2008... I shudder to think what is dangerous now), not SALT, for god's sake.

No persuasive evidence that sugar substitutes harm you? I don't give a rat's ass. I really don't. I don't eat crap developed in a lab somewhere and made in a factory.

I eat things that grow on trees or in the dirt or have faces (and have been fed the food THEY are supposed to eat).

THAT is clean eating.

Aspartame has no part in that.

Clean eating to me is so simple. It looks like that paleo flowchart I posted about a week ago, except I add in the rule that everything that CAN be has to be fresh. And if it has a label (like a pack of nuts), then the only ingredient can be NUTS - no oils, no preservatives, etc. For example, I do buy ketchup, but I buy Annie's Organic ketchup so I know there are no pesticides on my tomatoes and the ingredients are: "INGREDIENTS: *TOMATO PASTE, *DISTILLED WHITE VINEGAR, WATER, *CANE SUGAR, SEA SALT, *ONION, *ALLSPICE, *CLOVE. *ORGANIC INGREDIENTS"

Easy as pie, my friends - but lay off the pie ;)

Putting actual food in your body, clean food, will benefits your health, energy, and metabolism SO MUCH MORE than you could ever have imagined. It's been the best change I've ever made for myself.

I leave you with another silly but true flow chart :)



Namaste :)