Earlier this year, Cooking Light magazine sported a cover line that read āHow to Eat Clean in 2015.ā Martha Stewart has a new clean-eating book out, titled āClean Slate.ā BuzzFeed, Slate and The Guardian all did articles about clean eating within the past 12 months. Check the bookshelves at Sacramento Natural Foods Co-Op or tune into āGood Day Sacramentoā and youāll see clean eating up front. Celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Jessica Alba have been proponents of clean-eating diets. Although the term has been around for years, the concept of clean eating has broken through the noise of diet fads and fad diets to become a top catchphrase in the food lexicon.
So just what is clean eating? Well, it depends on whom you ask.
According to the magazine Clean Eating, āThe soul of clean eating is consuming food in its most natural state, or as close to it as possible. It is not a diet; itās a lifestyle approach to food and its preparation, leading to an improved lifeāone meal at a time.ā
Despite the fact that āa lifestyle approach to foodā is an inane phrase devoid of meaning, the rest of the sentiment seems definable and approachable.
Ā The magazine Fitness does a commendable job with its definition: āAt its simplest, clean eating is about eating whole foods, or ārealā foods āthose that are un- or minimally processed, refined, and handled, making them as close to their natural form as possible.ā
Other publications, including cookbooks, magazines and websites, have expanded the definition to include organic-only, gluten-free, meat-free and raw foods as being truly āclean.āĀ
So, with these wide-open and loose definitions, I set out to ask some experts what clean eating means to them. I spoke with doctors, nutritionists, chefs, food advocates and folks who like to cook. What I learned was a host of useful information that helped reinforce some longstanding beliefs and provided me with some good, simple advice with which to make eating decisions.
Ā SOUND ADVICE, NO MATTER WHAT YOU CALL IT
Rajiv Misquitta, M.D. is passionate about nutrition. You can hear it in his voice, strong and confident, words tumbling out faster than you can register them.Ā
āI have no issues with the term āclean eating,āā he told me. āThe tenets seem just like a textbook definition of healthy eating. And it seems much more sound than most of the diets out there.ā
Throughout his medical career and at his current practice at Kaiser Permanenteās South Sacramento Medical Center, heās seen the benefits of healthful eating and lifestyle choices for both himself and his patients.
As we spoke about basic nutrition and food choices, he remarked that the ācleanā philosophy sounds very similar to that of one of his heroes, author Michael Pollan. Itās true. Pollan, author of āThe Omnivoreās Dilemmaā and other books about food, science and culture, sums it up simply this way: āDonāt eat anything your great-great-great-grandmother wouldnāt recognize as food.ā
Misquitta takes it a step further. āIf more Americans ate more wholeĀ foods,ā he told me, āespecially plant-based whole foods, weād definitely see less heart disease and cancer in the population.ā
He also commended Raleyās and Bel Air for their adoption of the NuVal Nutritional Scoring System. Most foods in the store, including meats and produce, are given a rating, 1ā100, of their total nutrition. The number takes into account fat, sodium, fiber, vitamins, minerals, protein and more than 30 other criteria. The higher the score, the more nutritious the food.Ā
āWhatever we can do to help people make healthier choices,ā he says, āwill help in the long run.āĀ
Renee Angus, a clinical dietitian with Sutter Roseville Medical Center, shares the sentiment. āClean eatingĀ means choosing to eat whole, natural foods that are unprocessed or minimally processed,ā she says.
Asked if we might miss some of the ingredients in modern foods, like vitamins and other nutritional additives, Angus is blunt. āIn my opinion, reducing or eliminating processed foods will reduce our exposure to chemicals, GMOs, colorings, flavorings, preservatives and additives,ā she replies. āI donāt believe we will miss any of those ingredients.ā
EATING CLEAN DOESNāT HAVE TO MEAN EATING FRESH
The first roadblock most people encounter when making food decisions is cost. The best organic fruits and vegetables are usually the most costly. Itās difficult to rationalize buying $10 worth of organic vegetables when you know your money will stretch much farther in the frozen-foods section.
Home food preserving expert Rick Boyd agrees that sometimes the frozen section is exactly where you need to be. āIād rather a family buy a $1 bag of frozen broccoli and cauliflower,ā he says, āthan buy no produce at all.ā
He and Misquitta both impressed on me the value of frozen foods when other options are not available, in season or affordable. Frozen produce contains most of the nutrients of its fresh counterparts. But, they both emphasized, you need to buy plain frozen fruits and vegetables without added sugar, salt or other extras. Plain frozen produce is about as minimally processed as you can get.Ā
Boyd is also a passionate advocate of home canning. As a former member of the University of Californiaās Master Preserver program, he well knows the trade-offs that come with trying to lock in flavor when canning, jarring and pickling at home.Ā
āSure,ā he says, āpreserving foods is the textbook definition of āprocessingā whole foods. However, if I have a treeĀ full of pears and canāt possibly eat all of them in season, Iāll get much more nutrition out of those pears in the off-season by throwing in a little sugar and a little acid and canning them than I would by letting them rot on the ground. And if I compare these home-processed goods to industrially processed foods at the supermarket, itās not even a contest.ā
THE DIRTY TRUTH
āFirst of all, I donāt like the label āclean eatingā because it judges those who donāt follow the rules as ādirty.āāĀ
Amber Stott is the founder and āChief Food Geniusā at Food Literacy Center, a Sacramento-based nonprofit group that educates low-income families on healthful food choices. Despite her disdain for the ācleanā label, her tone is infectiously positive.
āLook,ā she says. āEating should be fun. Food should be fun. Sure, there are foods that arenāt great for you: anything fried, processed foods made of mostly sugar, stuff filled with trans fats. But weād probably be better off dropping the judgmental labels and, instead, educating people better on making lifelong changes in their habits.ā
Misquitta isnāt quite so down on the label. āIf the label helps people make simple decisions, Iām all for it,ā he says.Ā
When asked if there are any foods he thinks of as ādirty,ā he doesnāt hesitate: āCold cuts and processed meats in general have been shown, again and again, to greatly increase the risk of heart disease and cancer. If you must eat meat, try to stay away from processed beef especially.ā
Being an unabashed cold cut consumer for quite some years, I blanched a bit. Yet, almost immediately after chatting with Misquitta, I started making changes in what I purchase at the store and what I order when dining out.
When cooking at home, I now make more poultry, pork or beef thanĀ I know we need for dinner and use the leftoversĀ for sandwiches. When dining out, I look for restaurants that cook their meats in-house. For example, The Shack in East Sacramento roasts seven 22-pound turkeys a week just for sandwiches. And carveries like Jackās Urban Eats and Samās Hof Brau offer a wide selection of meats cooked on-site for sandwiches.
āOn a lesser level,ā says Misquitta, ālook out for foods that claim to be ālite,ā ālow fat,ā or ālow calorie.ā These foods are often more processed than other foods and frequently replace fat or calories with processed sugars and extra sodium.ā
BAD ADVICE
Almost all the experts I talked with mentioned that there has been some advice lumped in with clean eating that doesnāt hold water.Ā
āDonāt get me started,ā says Boyd.
āI have seen no proof of its effectiveness,ā says Misquitta.
āWhat a waste,ā says Stott.
What are they talking about? Something called cleansing.
Many clean diets are associated with cleanses or detoxifying regimens. Neither one of these dubious terms has anything to do with good, basic nutrition. Not one of the people I talked to had anything good to say about the concept.
Whether weāre talking about a juice cleanse or a 48-hour weekend fast or a lemon-water detox, thereās no empirical, scientifically rigorous study to show any efficacy.Ā
For the vast majority of humans, our livers, kidneys and other organs do a commendable job of absorbing the parts of the foods we need (nutrients) while discarding the materials we donāt (stuff we leave in the septic system). āFlushing,ā ācleansingā or ādetoxifyingā the system is simply unnecessary and, in some instances, harmful.
Also, the whole idea behind clean eating is that the consumption of whole foods, especially whole grains and produce, performs a natural and gentle scrubbing of the digestive system without having to resort to fasts, extreme diets and bizarre concoctions. Basically, a sustained routine of healthy eating, even with an occasional slip-up, will keep you feeling better than any shock-to-the-system cleanse on the market.
āYou canāt just juice and be better,ā says Stott. āYou have to make choices that lead to a lifestyle of healthy habits.āĀ
āRULESā
Each person I spoke with had a unique perspective on the concept of clean eating. Their passions and experiences led them on different paths, but they all wound up at the same destination. From them, I gleaned some basic rules:
Eating whole foods is better for you than eating processed foods.Ā
Eating plantsāvegetables, fruits and whole grainsāis better for you than eating dairy and meat, even if those plants are minimally processed.
Eating home-cooked meals is more nutritious than heating up prepared and processed foods.Ā
And finally, eating should be a pleasure.
āLook,ā says Boyd. āIf your goal is to be a martyr, you can surround yourself with so many rules about eating that itās no longer enjoyable. But for most of us, room has to be made for living life.ā
āShaming and fear,ā says Stott, āis overwhelming and turns folks off. Eating should be fun; it shouldnāt feel like cleaning your house.ā
āSpend some time looking at the labels of the food you buy,ā says Misquitta. āIf you canāt pronounce the ingredients, itās probably not very good for you.ā
āIf I could sum it up in one rule,ā says Boyd, āyou should try to make the best food decision possible at a particular moment given whatās available to you. When youāre done making the decision, move on and donāt let regret rob you of flavor.āĀ
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