General Article A dietitian puts extreme ‘clean eating’ claims to the test – and the results aren’t pretty

Topic Selected: Eating Disorders
This article is 7 years old. Click here to view the latest articles for this topic.
Image 20160819 30377 ll7b6n.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1
Shutterstock

Sophie Medlin, King's College London

“Clean eating” is associated with the healthy lifestyle and body beautiful that is promoted by many online bloggers. While the term is heavily used in social media, there has never been any agreement on what it really means or any comprehensive studies examining the potential benefits of a clean eating lifestyle as a whole.

However, the core principles that the big names in this movement champion appear to be: eliminate processed food; reduce salt intake; eat more vegetables; choose whole grains; eliminate refined sugar; reduce alcohol. For some, you also need to be gluten, dairy, and soya free and to eat raw (depending on how militant you are, food has to be entirely uncooked or only mildly heated). And if you want to be completely “clean” you should probably be vegan, too. Quite a list, then.

And there are also some big players online – including Food Babe, who was voted by Time Magazine as one of the 30 most influential people ...

Would you like to see the rest of this article and all the other benefits that Issues Online can provide with?

Sign up now for an immediate no obligation FREE TRIAL and view the entire collection