What is the deal with clean eating?
Clean eating. That's when you eat a pizza and don't get your hands dirty right?
Your best friend just told you that they’re going to start eating clean. A chef that you follow on social media is making a clean recipe for the holidays. In fact, looking up the term clean eating, will bring up many varying results that you might be wondering what the exact definition and meaning is. Here’s the interesting part of this concept, clean eating is just a buzzword and it’s not actually defined by the nutrition space or government. This means your favorite influencer or blogger can slap the word "clean" in front of an ingredient, recipe, or food, and call it a day.
Personally speaking, it’s not my favorite term but it is one that has become popular, with many using clean as a way to describe how they eat. In 2022, 52% of Americans reported that they followed some sort of diet or eating pattern, with one of the most common including clean eating (16%). When surveyed on shopping habits, a preference for products labeled “natural” and “clean” also increased in 2022, with 39% of people looking for labels that contained “natural ingredients” and 27% looking for labels that contained “clean ingredients”.
What exactly does this term mean to people? Nearly half of “clean eaters” define it as eating foods that are not highly processed; fresh produce, organic, and simple ingredient lists. I will say this now, there is nothing inherently wrong about wanting to find a way to eat that works for you individually or that will make you feel better, whether that’s giving you more energy or maybe helping you stay, ahem, regular. All of that is well and good, but this is also where I get picky and remind people that the words we use are important. If some foods are clean, then are others dirty and impure? Is someone morally superior for eating clean? Is everyone else inferior?
“Clean eating is a term that has been used a lot over the past year or two. But what it actually means is not very clear. It is used to mean anything from making simple, healthy changes to your existing diet, to adopting a rigid diet that excludes whole food groups.” - Victoria Taylor, registered dietitian with British Heart Foundation.
Clean (adj) - free from dirt, marks, or stains. morally uncontaminated; pure; innocent.
When looking at the definition of clean I find it odd that we attach food to this meaning. Free from dirt. Many of us wash our produce before consuming. Many of us don’t eat off floors (things drop and we can enlist the 5 second rule). Pure. Innocent. I’m assuming this is a nod at processed foods. The word processed is another word that puts the fear in people even though everything we eat is processed to some degree. Unless you go to an apple orchard and pick the apple off of the tree and consume it right then and there, your food is processed in some capacity. There are multiple versions of processed foods of course, but at the end of the day, many processed foods are incredibly helpful and even life saving, so it shouldn’t be a dirty word. Being a dietitian, I think of the processed foods such as meal replacement shakes that are used in nursing homes or that some cancer patients on chemotherapy purchase, because they are the only foods that can be tolerated. This is an important part of these populations getting in nutrients. Those shakes are processed with vitamins and minerals as well as calories, and are life saving to many. I think about snacks that we deem “garbage” such as chips, and know that they can bring joy to someone’s life for a short while. So because these foods are more heavily processed, does that make them impure? Dirty?
At the end of the day, eating clean can come off as an incredibly elitist term that plays into the idea of putting food on a hierarchy. I write about this constantly, but I will say it again, that different foods have different meanings. I can’t help but notice that most of the same folks who are promoting "clean" foods are the same ones denouncing processed foods and anything with a shelf life, while simultaneously eating (and selling) their protein powders, supplements and bars (all processed FYI). These “clean foods” aren't superior just because someone says so and because they might be more expensive and harder to access. We can't ignore the fact that something that isn't easily attainable, is more attractive to the wellness industry. We also can't ignore that the clean food lists usually aren't culturally inclusive. Many cultural foods aren't deemed as healthy, nutritious or acceptable until they become mainstream enough, to be seen as profitable.
In conclusion, the notion of superiority that's implied when discussing how someone chooses to eat or not to eat, needs to stop. We all make choices for a variety of reasons that are individual. So no, your food isn't dirty unless it's unwashed produce or if it dropped on the floor, and even that's debatable. Clean eating will personally never be a term in my vocabulary because it reeks of not only diet culture (under the guise of wellness) but also it’s super elitist. Again, I implore you to truly think about the words that we use and their meaning and implication. It seems nonsensical because we are so used to seeing the word clean and I know that many just ignore it when they see it, however, it’s still important to recognize how words are used in marketing and their meaning. It is more than okay to eat in a way that is healthy for you personally, keyword is personally, but that method will not work for every other person.
So I say this with all seriousness, this is a dirty eating promoting account.
Thank you for this thoughtful essay. Your post brings to mind the word "orthorexia," a word I ruminate on as I examine what I believe is my disordered eating. More than 15 years ago I crafted a diet made up largely of whole foods. Along the way, decidedly after being diagnosed with genetic heart disease, I tweaked my eating habits into what I termed a heart health diet, one resembling the Mediterranean diet with fish and plant based protein. Because I hadn't consumed red meat in nearly 45 years and lost my taste for poultry in more recent years, this wasn't a giant step. But something happened. I begin to fear certain foods, removing whole categories of foods from my diet. White foods. White pasta, rice, potatoes, bread, flour. The exception was when I went to restaurants were I relished the bread on the cheese board as much as the cheese, as if it was so precious that it required inhaling. Something is clearly wrong with this picture. Eating whole foods has morphed into making judgments about all food, and yes, although I don't use the term "clean food" as intellectually I know that it means nothing and everything in terms of how we create unhealthy categorizations, I do categorize in this manner and I do make judgments about others who don't. Reading your post helps me own all of that, so thank you. I have language to take to therapy this afternoon. Glad I found you.