#Clean Eating and me…
Clean eating is tricky because frankly there is no set definition and it’s just another label to possibly create eating disorders. I wrote in my ‘confessions of a yo-yo dieter’ how sick and tired I was from trying endless diets, only to endlessly ‘fail’ and blame myself for setting unrealistic targets. I’m not alone.
Rather than focusing on making up trendy diets with no definition, maybe there should be more structured and reliable articles issued about ‘how the diet industry is trying to keep us fat’. For year’s people have brought into ‘low fat, low calorie’ being the holy grail of sensible choices. When actually there’s more sugar, salt, chemicals and calories in the ‘low fat’ version than just making it from scratch or even just buying the ‘full fat’ version in some cases. The same applies to low-calorie diets, let’s be frank, 1,200 calories is not sensible, healthy for sustainable for most adults and in the end most folk return to previous habits.
I don’t know, maybe the above paragraph is why #cleaneating was born? But there’s no formal definition, how can we ever know what it really means? Do I even care? Yes. I care about the fact crazy diets and claims make people seriously ill.
I’m going to stand up for a few people and say I genuinely believe that their only intention was to help others from sharing the positive side of ‘clean eating’ and maybe it escalated. On the other hand; if it’s become a business and you’re impacting on people’s everyday lives then you do have a responsibility, whether you like it or not. It’s not good enough to avoid confrontation about it, or pretend you’re fit and well, some of these people are NOT well and are concealing serious eating disorders.
The expensive side of clean eating, there’s two sides to this story in my humble opinion. Of course, if you’re a higher earner or if you have low outgoings, the cost of organic and harder to source food or ‘super foods’ is more achievable. On the other hand, it shouldn’t be the only option in recipes books or blog posts. I strongly believe eating a healthy/balanced diet should be available to everyone and not everyone can budget for huge volumes of nuts, medjool dates, supplements, coyo or maca powder on a regular basis.
Yikes, don’t feel bad about buying ‘own brand’ oats, frozen fruit and veg and nip to Poundland for cost effective nuts/seeds, you don’t need to eat raw artisain chocolate.
Appearances are just that appearances- Forget ‘eat like me, be energised like me or look like me’! Just going to put it out there, just because someone is slim and pretty, it doesn’t mean they are a better person. I know, I’m a stuck record here but maybe we should just focus on the most content version of ourselves. It’s never really that simple though is it? When we were younger we looked up to pop stars and ‘celebs’ and now we look up to influencers, it’s just how we’ve evolved
As a blogger I feel that I should take more responsibility for researching any food products with ‘amazing’ claims and ask more questions before providing a view. This interesting post by ‘plant based pixie’ really struck a chord with me and made me question why on earth was I not asking more questions? I do think if a lot of us are REALLY honest with ourselves, we’ll feel the same when it comes to talking about food. I won’t claim that I’ve never followed a ‘fad’ or a ‘diet’ or believed ‘marketing’, because I have and I’m not particularly proud of it.
Moving onto the sad and very dangerous side of ‘clean eating‘ is the fact that Belle Gibson claimed that ‘clean eating cured her cancer‘.
She never had cancer to start with.
Now you’ve let the seriousness of that sink in, let’s take a moment to consider all the people that innocently believed this cruel and warped individual and the pain and suffering she caused by her lies. Sometimes we have to listen to science, to medical practitioners and the people who REALLY understand what they are talking about.
Please keep on thing in mind, it has not yet been scientifically proven that eating a certain diet can cure cancer.
If you watched the recent BBC 2 Documentary you’ll have seen the vast wealth accumulated by an Individual who claims his diet cures cancer. The same person who avoided confirming that a cancer patient had died at his ‘rehab’. He also avoided the fact a young lady called Naima Houder-Mohammed was so very desperate to cure her cancer and believed his claims. Her family parted with £77,000 and her health deteriorated whilst at his rehab, she returned to England and died a few weeks later, she was only 27.
Whilst (hopefully) none of the UK Bloggers mentioned are making such dangerous claims, it was hugely disappointing that the only person who would make an appearance and stand up for her brand was Deliciously Ella. Personally, I like her, I enjoy her recipes for when I fancy something different and I loved eating at her deli. Will eating a plant-based diet aid other people who have the same health condition as her? I’m not qualified to say…
Of course, none of us are perfect and no one can come up with a ‘one size fits all‘ plan and personally I just try various recipes that look good whilst I’m surfing the internet and see how they work for me.
If you are following a certain lifestyle and that makes you feel good, embrace that and enjoy it!
I’ll round this up with the fact I ate potato waffles, beans and cheese for dinner last night and it was so comforting. Tonight, I’ll eat courgette and pulled pork, for the simple reason I love courgette and I need to enjoy it before the courgette shortage hits Northampton. I won’t judge you for how you chose to eat, so please don’t judge me…
What are your views on this subject? Have you tried any influencer cookbooks or pop-ups?
Katie
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