First of all, let me say that clean eating is not a diet. It is a lifestyle. Clean eating is not something that you do for a few days to drop some weight and then go back to eating "normally."
To me, clean eating means that you eat food that comes from nature and the food needs to be as close to it's natural state as possible. In other words, you should eat food that looks the same as it did when it came from nature. When people interfere with food, adding chemicals to improve taste or to prolong shelf-life, the food is not clean anymore.
The problem is that we, as a culture, have been on a quest for convenience foods for so long that now we except that our food contains more of what Michael Pollan calls "edible food-like substances" than actual food.
So, let's look at label that might be found in your kitchen...cornbread mix. The ingredients in this stuff are: enriched bleached flour and degerminated yellow cornmeal, sugar, partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oils, dextrose, baking powder, contains 2% or less of: salt, nonfat milk, polyglycerol esters, monoglycerides, egg yolks with sodium silicoaluminate added as an anticaking agent, TBHQ, egg whites.
Whew! That took forever! What the heck is polyglycerol ester? I don't know and it doesn't sound appetizing! So you can easily see why this is not a clean food. If there are ingredients listed that you don't understand, can't pronounce, and wouldn't find in your great-grandmother's pantry, then it's not a clean food.
Let's break down this label a bit.
- ENRICHED= To be called enriched flour, processors must reintroduce vitamins that were lost during the processing. Wait! Why do they have to add something that they stripped out? This just means more processing!
- BLEACHED= This means that a chemical food additive (yes, bleach!) has been added to the flour to take away the slight yellow color. Bleach is not approved as a food additive in Europe.
- DEGERMINATED=This means that the germ, or the seed, of the plant has been removed. The germ contains the omega fatty acids which are notorious for turning rancid quickly. By removing the germ before they grind the flour, food processors can greatly lengthen the shelf-life of the flour. Unfortunately, by doing this they also remove much of the nutrition. Degerminated is a keyword that should scream to you THIS FLOUR IS NOT A WHOLE GRAIN!
- PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED OIL= By now I hope you have heard that trans fat is bad for you. However, you may not know that partially or fully hydrogenated oil is trans fat. So, even if the label says 0 trans fat, if this is listed in the ingredients list then they are lying to you! No amount of trans fat is safe. Do not eat anything with this ingredient on the label.
So, you can see that this product is far from clean. It is as highly processed as a food can be.
If you are just getting started cleaning up your cupboards you may need a little help at first. Here are some simple rules to follow when grocery shopping from Clean Eating Magazine. - Try to eat five to six times a day - three meals plus snacks in between. Include a variety of lean protein, fruits, vegetables and complex carbs. Eating like this will help keep you full of energy and satisfied all day long!
- Drink water. Don't drink products with artificial sweeteners and other chemical ingredients. Avoid sugary drinks like sweet tea. And for the love of Pete, no high fructose corn syrup! (a.k.a. no soda. Don't hate me.)
- Know your labels - Read the ingredient list, making sure you eliminate products that contain man made ingredients. Don’t know what it is? Can't pronounce it? Not found in Great-Grandma's kitchen? Don’t eat it!
- Avoid processed and refined foods - White flour, sugar, bread and pasta. Look for alternatives that taste better and are healthier. My favorite Michael Pollan food rule is "If it comes from a plant, eat it. If it was made in a plant, don't."
- Consume healthy fats - Fatty acids are essential to our bodies. Avocados, nuts, olive oil, and flax contain healthy fats.
- Slow down and savor - Embrace the goodness of whole foods, savor every bite and eat slowly. Make your meal an experience with fellowship. Try not to eat alone.
