Blog for all health-conscious: Fooducate Blog - Clean Eating

Friday, 27 July 2012

Fooducate Blog - Clean Eating – What is It?

Posted: 27 Jul 2012 06:29 AM PDT

photo: quizzle.com

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Are you familiar with the term Clean Eating? We’re beginning to hear more and more people talk about the clean eating movement and decided to take a minute to take a look.

Clean eating is all about eating healthfully. Contrary to the standard American diet which is “dirty”, clean eating means food that is less processed, has traveled less, and is more ethical. But what exactly does that mean? Less processed means more home cooking, something many of us would like to do, but our modern lifestyle and marketing pressure reduces. It also means less additives and fake ingredients. Diet Cola is dirty – it has artificial sweeteners. Many kids’ cereals are dirty – they have artificial colorings. Various pasties and snacks are dirty – they have partially hydrogenated oils. But what about orange juice? Freshly squeezed might be minimally processed, but a carton of Minute Maid or Tropicana OJ may have gone through many steps (concentration, flavor enhancements, addition of vitamin C) to get to your local supermarket fridge.

Local food is great in theory, but in many parts of the country, dining during winter time would become quite a boring routine. That’s not to say we shouldn’t try to eat more seasonally to enjoy fresh produce from a local farm. But for many it is simply not practical all the time.

Ethical eating is also a challenge because each one of us has a different set of yardsticks to measure ethics. To a vegan, honey is an abomination. To a vegetarian, beef from a grass fed cow is still a cow murdered for meat. And for most Americans, organic and local food simply means too expensive.

How do you define clean eating?

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