The Clean Eating Cult

Our modern way of eating certainly necessitates criticism. But the once harmless suggestion of "eating clean" has now been tarnished thanks to a takeover by food-shaming influencers. In the clean eating world the rules of what’s good and bad aren’t well defined, and can even change depending on who’s giving the instructions. So it’s about time we untangle this powerfully branded dietary approach, and determine how holy clean eating really is. Tune in to find out more!

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Transcript

Welcome to Nutrition  Bites. The no nonsense podcast where you get the truth about food so you can eat what you want and be healthy. I’m your host Maggie and welcome to the series! Over the past twenty years, the clean eating movement has gained a substantial following. But while it may have started with good intentions, the modern day approach is seeming more and more like a food-shaming cult. On the menu today, clean eating. 

Back in the early days of my nutritional sciences education, I became interested in the concept of clean foods. Now as an aside, whenever I say the word clean in this episode, know it’s wrapped in giant quotation marks. University students are known snackheads. And whenever my classmates would munch on their big-brand, sugar-laden, granola bars I internally scoffed. Did they not know they were eating processed garbage? I, on the other hand, ate an organic, 2 ingredients only, date and nut bar - clearly a cleaner choice. But this air of superiority only lasted until Friday night when I was bound to throw down a toxifying and intoxicating jager-red bull. Back in class I was learning that our average Western diets were contributing to higher rates of chronic diseases like obesity and Type 2 Diabetes. Takeout was replacing home cooking, and we consumed more highly processed foods than whole fruits and veg. The volume of calories, added sugar, salt and fat, were simply far higher than what we needed. So finding “cleaner” alternatives to everyday items in the grocery store helped me feel like I was gaming the system. But other than a short ingredients list though, I couldn’t explain why. And herein lies the issue with clean eating. The rules of what’s good and bad aren’t well defined, and can even change depending on who’s giving the instructions. So it’s about time we untangle this powerfully branded dietary approach, and determine how holy clean eating really is.

To start off - what does it mean to eat clean? Well there’s actually no one definition or set of rules that everyone agrees upon. At its foundation, it describes a dietary approach that mostly consists of consuming whole foods and predominantly cooking meals at home. Which is…pretty good advice! In fact, this way of eating is recommended by a lot of health experts and scientists. Unfortunately, it’s just not what most modern clean eating influencers subscribe to.

Since its introduction in the early 2000s, eating clean has morphed from a gentle Little House on the Prairie style recommendation to a skinny- rich- mean girl -acai -bowl - or- die way of life. The moral branding and lack of a unified definition, has made clean eating the perfect vessel for restrictive food rules. For example, some versions of this dietary approach restrict all packaged foods, while others allow it, so long as they are additive-free and have short ingredient lists. Other clean eating regimes restrict animal products entirely, while some allow for their inclusion but only if they are grass-fed or free-range. Sometimes clean eating means organic and GMO-free. Other times it means a complete elimination of sugar and gluten. But most of the time, eating clean means some sort of combo of many of these rules. And layered on top, is the intimidating principle that not eating this way is somehow dirty and toxic. 

Now before bashing the Mean Girl version of clean eating that is now the norm, let’s understand how we got here in the first place. Back when JT and Britney were still dating, Survivor dominated TV, and the first iPod was about to debut, alternative health trends were picking up steam. Around this time the public felt misled by both health experts and food corporations. The blame for obesity seemed to change from one day to the next, and conspiracy-theory-esque documentaries like Super Size Me revealed just how much money, power, and influence food corporations had on our lives and health. This distrust, combined with increased access to the internet, was the ideal storm for a well branded wellness trend to flourish. Pseudoscience websites like Gwenyth Paltrow’s Goop, and armies of young and good-looking social media influencers become hugely popular promoting all kinds of well-photographed dietary quick fixes. Detox juice cleanses, the gluten free craze, keto diet, paleo diet, and clean eating were all the result of the same environment. Now I don’t fault anyone for critically evaluating the way we eat, and wanting an alternative. But when trust in how to eat healthier switches from professional experts to internet strangers whose only qualifications are a low BMI and good photography skills. Well…that’s when a good idea can go bad.

While the original concept of a mostly whole-foods and home-cooked diet is healthy science-backed and achievable guidance, clean eating today is no longer associated with this relaxed take on feeding yourself. It’s gone extreme. And not in a fun Xtremely cheesy pizza kind of way. Rejuvenated health, boosted energy and return to purity, are the lofty and unquantifiable claims of clean eating. But this can only happen if you follow a strict set of rules made up by some skinny, pretty and likely blonde woman. More often than not, these restrictions lead to the unnecessary removal of foods, and can create an unbalanced intake of nutrients. Take for example the 2019 cookbook “The Clean Plate”, authored by my most frequently referenced wellness guru - Ms. Gwenyth Paltrow. Within her book Gwenyth advises readers to exclude all dairy, gluten, peanuts, processed foods, added sugars, red meat and soy, and even certain vegetables such as eggplant, tomatoes, potatoes, and red peppers. Such a big reduction in allowable foods can quite easily lead to a nutritional deficiency. Think about it. Instructing someone to remove all dairy, soy, and fortified beverages (because they are packaged) can quickly put them at risk for a calcium deficiency. But that kind of scientific criticism is not welcome in the clean eating space. Which is why additional pseudoscience wellness routines like juice cleanses and detox fasts are also frequently recommended. 

These additional activities further emphasize the notion that your body is poisoned and dirty, and this type of framing can have really negative effects. Much of the scientific research on clean eating is not on physical health outcomes, it’s on mental health outcomes. Research has shown that people are more likely to associate this dietary approach with anxiety and other emotional distress - despite their desire to still participate in it. Sounds a bit like the emotional rollercoaster of trying to be cool in high school - it’s stressful but you still want the label. Studies have also shown that the prevalence of clean eating on social media can cause young people in particular to become unhealthily obsessed with food. This research further underscores the fear of a clean eating to eating disorder pipeline.
Orthorexia nervosa is an eating disorder defined by an extreme obsession with healthy eating. It’s driven less by a desire to change one’s physical appearance, and more by an anxiety-driven compulsion to reach internal optimal health. Although the motivation may be different from more familiar eating disorders, the outcomes are often the same. Orthorexic behavior can lead to weight loss, depression, weak bones, hair and muscle loss, and absent menstruation in women. Because orthorexia and clean eating are both rooted in restrictive eating and use language that assigns morality to food, health professionals warn of the detrimental effects of the trending diet. 

The most famous “I-told-you-so” tale comes from The Blonde Vegan. In the mid-2010s, Jordan Younger began blogging about her clean vegan lifestyle. To her sizable following Jordan promoted juice cleanses and encouraged restricting meat, dairy, fish, eggs, gluten, refined sugar, anything fried, and most dressings and sauces. What started out as a diet to help her feel better, soon turned into a lifestyle that caused extreme anxiety and obsessive behavior. Jordan panicked if she was forced to eat out, and couldn’t pursue social activities because she was too preoccupied with what to eat. After suffering from fatigue, weight loss, an absent menstrual cycle, and nutritional deficiencies, Jordan eventually followed her doctor’s advice to eat a more varied diet. When she revealed her new online persona as the Balanced Blonde, who now could eat fish, eggs, pizza and pasta, the blog post blew up. Many outside the clean eating world praised her new more flexible approach to eating. But despite her explanation of improved physical and mental health from this switch, Jordan still received immense backlash from her clean eating community and lost thousands of followers.

A similar negative response to clean eating criticism occurred when Cambridge University scientist Giles [Ji-ells] Yeo [Yo], debated a clean eating advocate for the BBC. After questioning the lack of evidence for this way of eating, Giles was viciously attacked by online trolls. They started rumors he was funded by big pharma and therefore blind to the benefits of their anti-corporation way of eating. While not everyone who follows a clean eating approach is bound to become a cyberbully, this and the Blond Vegan examples show just how cult-like the community can become. If you’ve ever read, listened, or watched stories about cults, which is nearly unavoidable in 2022, you’ll be familiar with one of the telltale signs of these communities. Say or do anything against the group or its rules, and you’ll be attacked.

Now this scary picture of the clean eating movement isn’t everyone’s experience when they dip their toes in the virtuous waters. For many people, eating clean is a casual goal. They simply want more transparent options at the grocery store. Or to cook better recipes for weeknight dinners. And while this more moderate approach isn’t necessarily unhealthy or dangerous, it can wind up being a giant waste of time and money. 

Food companies are always scouring the market for trends, trying to create products that capitalize on consumer desires. Take pumpkin space for example. What began as a flavored latte from Starbucks quickly became memeified on the internet, and inspired dozens of similarly flavoured products over from hummus, to oreos to dog treats. Needless to say, the clean label has been used in similar marketing tactics. Because the word “clean” isn’t regulated by governments, if you see it on a label, or ad campaign, it’s essentially meaningless. Now whether or not a company actually uses the phrase “clean”, a lot of current marketing lingo implies a clean-er food. Around 2015 McDonald’s launched a massive campaign highlighting the freshly cracked real eggs in all their breakfast sandwiches. And in 2016 A&W Canada shifted their entire brand to a “good food” focus highlighting the natural origins of their products. More transparency from restaurants and manufacturers about what’s in our food is definitely something we should encourage. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that the food is any better, or healthier. Take Kraft Mac and Cheese for example.

This nostalgic boxed noodle delight (also known as KD to my fellow Canadians) underwent a clean-re-brand. In 2015 Kraft announced that they were removing all artificial preservatives, flavours and dyes from this broke-college-student staple. The artificial dyes used to create the fluorescent, almost nuclear, orange cheese sauce, were now replaced with a blend of turmeric, annatto and paprika. This kind of change is what I think a lot of consumers want to see - including myself! But while it gives KD the appearance of being a better-for-you choice, it’s really just better-than-before. For a seemingly simple recipe it contains 15 ingredients, and one serving is still packed with sodium. And this kind of bait and switch tactic is really popular with clean re-brands, especially because nutrition is rarely at the center of the conversation. Just because a food product is made with agave syrup instead of corn syrup, or coconut oil over canola oil, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any healthier. This same logic applies to recipes too. A 2018 study out of Australia compared “clean eating” recipes with an equivalent number of control recipes without the branding. What they discovered was no significant difference in calories, carbs, sugar or sodium between the two groups.

Accessibility is another clue as to how this trend is less about your health and perhaps more about your social status. Many of the at-home clean ingredient staples, like coconut sugar, cocoa nibs and organic produce, are simply not affordable to many people. And clean recipes are often labour intensive - necessitating that someone have a lot of extra time to shred cauliflower or spiralize zucchini instead of boiling water and chucking in rice or pasta. Rarely do I see a clean-eating recipe that encourages a simple tinned-bean salad without remarking how every ingredient should be organic, non-GMO, or straight from the farmers market. Even packaged goods that advertise a clean ingredients list, can be out of reach for many. Simply put, clean eating now seems more like an elitist lifestyle brand instead of a dietary approach focused on consuming more nutritious foods.

Our modern, Western, way of eating certainly necessitates criticism. But the once harmless suggestion of a “cleaner” diet has now been tarnished thanks to a takeover by food-shaming influencers. A “clean” ingredient, meal, or product is meaningless, and there’s no evidence that eating this way will make you any healthier. In fact, blindly subscribing to this restrictive dietary approach is more likely to cause you emotional distress, or at the very least, waste your money and time. If you really jive with the message of clean eating - focus on the original guidance: whole foods and home-cooked meals. And if you want to make better choices at the grocery store or a restaurant, evaluate all the info. Does the nutrition facts table line up with your personal needs? Is the ingredients list what you’d expect from this food? And are there other markers of transparency that can help you make an informed decision? Navigating our fast-paced food environment is not easy, but taking the time to truly understand what you’re eating is well worth it. Yes food is fuel, but it’s also hella fun and we shouldn’t turn eating into an anxiety-induced morality exercise. There’s enough chaos in the world for that already.

That’s been the bite for today, stay hungry.