What Is Clean Eating?

Clean eating is a concept and term that has been around for decades but has become fashionable in the last several years as health trends in general have gained popularity from being promoted in reality shows to fitness centers to tiny kitchens across the country. In its simplest form, clean eating is based on the basic premise that eating more natural, less-processed foods is not only good for one's health, but equally important for the environment. Food that crosses our table in a form closest to what it looked like coming out of the ground or off a tree has been considered to be the healthiest and the natural order of humankind's engagement with the environment. Free of chemicals, artificial ingredients, and other potentially toxic additives, clean food represents the best there is to nourish and fuel our bodies.

The clean-eating movement, like any other popular trend (paleo, gluten-free, raw) has not been immune to detractors who claim that it unfairly demonizes certain food groups, takes the concept of avoiding processed foods to the extreme, is too expensive, and is impractical for most people to follow for an extended period of time. It has given birth to many derivative programs that fall under the general category of clean eating but have subtle and sometimes major differences in philosophy and execution strategies. Ask fifteen nutritionists to define clean eating and you are likely to get fifteen different answers. But there is a theme that runs through most of these answers, a common core that gives form to the basic concept of eating foods in their most natural state with as little manipulation as possible.

In The Clean 20, I will set forth some basic clean-eating principals that will serve you well and help you make informed decisions when it comes to nourishing the world's most awesome machine — your body. Clean eating is not at all about perfection. It is not about a rigid, dense cadre of rules and penalties that must be strictly adhered to in order to benefit from the tremendous health value of food. Clean eating can benefit all of us and at the same time not be overly expensive, overly restrictive, or inaccessible. Remember that some of a good thing is still better than none of a good thing, and to think harshly of those who do not believe in austere eating principles is a misplaced judgment.

Reducing Processed Foods

Despite what some purists think, not all processed foods are bad for you and some processed foods still can fall under the category of clean foods. The term "processed" is considered to be the equivalent of unhealthy by many, and for good reason. Take grains, for example. In their processing methods, manufacturers will take the whole grain and refine, mill, or process it by taking away part or parts of the three-part grain (bran, endosperm, germ). This could mean losing as many as fifteen or more different nutrients. Once the manufacturers have stripped the grain, they then use a process to add some — but not all — of the nutrients back. This is where the word "enriched," which you may have seen on bread or cracker packaging, comes from. This is why it's better to choose an "unrefined" grain over a "refined" grain and it's important to pay attention to labels such as "100% whole grain" or "100% whole wheat." When it comes to bread, that 100% makes a big difference. Multigrain might seem like the same thing, but it's not: multigrain simply means many grains. This is not a guarantee that grains are whole. You could still be eating many grains that are refined.

There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to how many ingredients should be in a clean food, but many nutritionists suggest that if a product has more than five or six ingredients, then it's likely not to be very "clean." It's easy to look at the food label and check the ingredients list. If a package does not have a list of ingredients and you aren't certain of what it contains, it's prudent to either confirm the information or approach the product with a fair degree of caution.

Decreasing Added Sugars

Plenty of foods naturally contain sugar. Fruits, for example, should be part of the foundation of any good eating regimen, and many fruits contain lots of natural sugars. (Some have less sugar: apples, avocados, blackberries, grapefruit, peaches, oranges, raspberries, strawberries.) What a lot of people don't know is that many vegetables also naturally contain sugar. Peppers, carrots, parsnips, radishes, squash, potatoes, corn, and peas are just a few examples of sugar-containing vegetables. Demanding all clean foods be free of sugar is nonsensical, as that would mean eliminating fruits and vegetables that are the staples of any healthy diet.

But what does make sense is eliminating foods that have added sugars. In the course of processing foods, manufacturers are keen to add sugar to the mix. This makes complete sense from a business perspective, as sugar is highly satisfying to the palate and addictive. If people like the sugar and it will sell, then give them the sugar; health consequences typically take a back seat to the financial concerns. The major food and beverage sources that contain added sugars include candy, cakes, cookies, donuts, pastries, sweet rolls, pies, sodas or soft drinks, energy drinks, sports drinks, and fruit drinks such as fruitades and fruit punch.

A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that added sugars make up at least 10% of the calories the average American eats in a day. But approximately one in ten people get an enormous 25% of their calories from added sugar. Why does this matter? Because the findings of this study were earthshattering. Over the course of this fifteen-year study, participants who took in 25% or more of their daily calories as sugar were more than twice as likely to die from heart disease compared to those who included less than 10% added sugar in their diets. The study went one step further and concluded that the odds of dying from heart disease rose in tandem with the percentage of sugar in the diet, something that was true regardless of a person's age, sex, physical activity level, or body-mass index (BMI).

It's important when looking at labels to be able to identify these added sugars. The ingredients list is created in a specific way. Ingredients are listed in descending order, which means the closer it is to the front of the list the higher a percentage it is in the food. But you must be careful. Just because you might see sugar listed as the fifth ingredient doesn't mean it is not the ingredient with the highest percentage. Sugars have lots of different names, many of which you are not going to recognize. So, if the ingredients list has corn syrup as number three, dextrose as number five, cane sugar as number six,...