Why we fell for clean eating | Hacker News Reader

Why we fell for clean eating

theguardian.com

56 pointsALee36 comments

The only qualification you need for food blogging is to be good looking (most important) and to be young. I don't understand how these people have the guts to tell other people how to live.

It will sound pat, but I think it mostly boils down to youth, inexperience, and privilege. When you're successful early, you don't learn some of the lessons that make you wiser.

When I was in my late teens and early 20s, I thought I knew best. I was arrogant far beyond my actual abilities and I hadn't stepped outside my comfort zone enough to realise it. It took me quite a few years, and quite a few setbacks, to realise how little I actually knew. I'm grateful for those knocks and those years; without them, I'm not sure I'd be the person I am today.

I hate to think what I'd have been like if I'd happened to be in the right place at the right time and had wild early success -- I'd probably have been unbearable.

I think another important factor for these clean eating bloggers is the echo-chamber they exist in. They're surrounded by people cheering them on and keeping out those who disagree. (Just look how the audience responded to the article's author and the sport nutritionist.) In that environment it must be very easy to believe what you're doing is absolutely right.

> I don't understand how these people have the guts to tell other people how to live.

They found something that works for them and decided to share it with others?

That would be fine. They are not sharing though. They claim to have absolute truths and they tell other people what to do.

And lack basic skills to know that a control group of one, in an experiment without a control, and with too many variables they don't account for, can be downright lethal to suggest to others...

> And lack basic skills to know that a control group of one, in an experiment without a control, and with too many variables they don't account for

To be fair, the reader of the blog is lacking basic skills in this situation as well.

I think this quote from the article is relevant, too:

to understand how clean eating took hold with such tenacity, it’s necessary first to consider just what a terrifying thing food has become for millions of people in the modern world.

Getting good information on what foods to eat is really, really hard. Everyone has an opinion, and the hard science hasn't quite solidified yet.

To understand how clean eating took hold with such tenacity, it’s necessary first to consider just what a terrifying thing food has become for millions of people in the modern world.

I get that feeling when I see entire aisles of chips at the 7-11.

It's only an issue because there's such a pervasive notion in our culture that an individual cannot trust themselves. If I believed everything I was told I would think that I'm incapable of feeding myself properly; dressing myself properly; communicating with anyone, even those closest to me; raising my children; even walking or running. "You need to defer to experts in order to conduct your daily life", is the mantra chanted in a thousand little ways.

How is this hard ? Go to your GP. He'll be glad to give you an introduction and he'll know where to send you for more details.

Who knew ... medical info ... from a doctor.

It won't be what you want to hear. They'll tell you, for instance, to eat meat or at least fish, and actively discourage vegetarianism, especially the more extreme forms, like the more extreme forms of veganism. Generally just don't go to extremes and VARY. And don't try to engineer yourself into a just-barely-not-deficient diet.

He'll also tell you that even a partial-vegetarian diet is nice for adults, but it won't do for kids. Otherwise, this can happen.

And here's the last bit of advice you'll get from them if they're up to date: if you don't like this advice DO NOT go to a homeopathic "doctor", DO NOT go to a "yogi", "guru", "blogger", magazine or whatever, NOT EVEN to actual medical sources of info (you're not equipped to properly interpret), go to another doctor (who will say the same as this one did of course). And before you say this is stupid, read [1].

(the general advice is, be a vegetarian, but have a sin day where you have a steak, or a fish, or chicken, and don't eliminate dairy (as in COW dairy, of if you must goat) ...)

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/baby-dies-die... (note: google something like "diet infant" or some such and you'll quickly realize that this is in fact a pretty common occurrence)

Doctors (at least, in the US...) actually get relatively little nutrition training, compared to the actual experts, registered dietitians. You can find one near you one their association web site: http://www.eatright.org/find-an-expert

or i could just eat food and skip the trip to the doctor. i haven't been tripped up yet by eating.

>In the spring of 2014, Jordan Younger noticed that her hair was falling out in clumps. “Not cool” was her reaction. At the time, Younger, 23, believed herself to be eating the healthiest of all possible diets. She was a “gluten-free, sugar-free, oil-free, grain-free, legume-free, plant-based raw vegan”

Sounds like the unhealthiest, most stupid diet you could have.

And why is it you think that?

Well, for one, vegan without legumes or grains basically means zero protein. Your body cannot survive on zero protein, as there are no amino acids available to replace cells that die via their normal lifecycle.

The article first starts with:

> At its simplest, clean eating is about ingesting nothing but “whole” or “unprocessed” foods (whatever is meant by these deeply ambiguous terms).

Then despite acknowledging the definition is "deeply ambiguous" goes to great lengths to prove it is wrong. It cites as evidence some very niche diets, but I didn't see much in the way of an opposing view, for instance:

"Clean diets are good to an extent, but remember to drink at least 1 soda per day. Also, supplement with some Totinos pizza rolls regularly for XX REASONS. And finally don't forget to add a smidgen of ice cream made with the best high fructose corn syrup with your salads, to ensure enough calories."

Food quackery is the new medical quackery. A huge industry has been built on selling snake oil foods to consumers that don't know any better.

Like the age of medical quackery, the reason this all exists is because people simply aren't educated about their nutritional needs. They rely on bloggers and advertisements to tell them what to eat, and that is often disastrous.

It shouldn't be this hard to educate the population about nutrition, and it's made worse by excessive lobbying by the food industry. The food pyramid was heavily influenced by lobbying, and the role of sugar in obesity was downplayed significantly. As a result, the obesity rate keeps growing higher and higher, giving more fuel to the food quackery industry.

Not only that but anyone can claim to be a nutritionist.

Going to a nutritionist is just like going to a toothlogist instead of a dentist.

I keep falling for it still. I go through phases of "eh everything is OK in moderation, just sleep and eat vegetables" to "I can only eat sweet potatoes, broccoli, and wild Alaskan salmon from now on." It depends on what I read - I know that there are many studies that show no evidence of benefits from 'organic' or 'non-GMO' foods, for example, but most recently I came across http://theshawnstevensonmodel.com/ and my irrationality has gotten the better of me. He's just so charismatic.

When you choose to eat organic foods it should be because you care about the environment, not because you believe that it will cure ailments. Organic and non-organic are nutritionally equivalent.

Organic food isn't necessarily better for the environment either. It takes a lot more resources (land, manpower, etc) to produce Organic food.

When most people in the western world have no idea where their food comes from and the processes that are required to get it to them then we have a problem.

Yesterday evening I spent time cleaning out the weeds in my vegetable gardens. Just a couple of weeks ago, I killed, dressed and butchered the last of my sheep.

My daughter teaches her children about gardening. My grandsons watched while I dressed and butchered the sheep. They were fascinated by it. My granddaughter was disappointed that she couldn't be there. So she will be with me when the goat is done. She is looking forward to it.

They know how and where food comes from. They have an advantage that others don't in that they will know how and what to do to obtain their food if it is ever needed.

These are experiences that were passed down to my wife and me and we in tern pass them to our children and grandchildren.

So many city dwellers have little or no concept of what is needed to give them the things of modern civilisation and they are the poorer for it.

So many will recommend particular diets without ever comprehending what it takes to get the ingredients to the table.

There was something paradoxical about the way these books were marketed. What they were selling purported to be an alternative to a sordidly commercial food industry. “If it’s got a barcode or a ‘promise’, don’t buy it,” wrote Freer. Yet clean eating is itself a wildly profitable commercial enterprise, promoted using photogenic young bloggers on a multi-billion-dollar tech platform.

This is so bizarre. I see myself as someone who "eats clean," though nothing in this article remotely resonates with me. For me, eating clean means I far prefer Little Caesar's pizza to most other chain restaurants because they make their dough fresh daily on site. It doesn't mean I live on kale balls or whatever the fuck weirdness was listed in this article.

Little Caesar's, the cleanest of pizzas for sure!

The opening paragraph is cringe:

Younger, 23, believed herself to be eating the healthiest of all possible diets. She was a “gluten-free, sugar-free, oil-free, grain-free, legume-free, plant-based raw vegan”......Younger had sold more than 40,000 copies of her own $25, five-day “cleanse”

I feel the whole article was cringe. It kept creating the "clean" strawman, valiantly slaying it with word vomit, then resurrecting the strawman with some slight variation to be slayed again. Apparently, putting the adjective "clean" before food makes "clean" a pejorative.

I also kept thinking "Brought to you by Monsanto" the whole time I read the article.

Serious question: if you think the article was creating a "clean" strawman, then to you, what is the actual definition of "eating clean?"

There isn't a generally agreed upon definition, and that is the point. Even the author acknowledges this.

> At its simplest, clean eating is about ingesting nothing but “whole” or “unprocessed” foods (whatever is meant by these deeply ambiguous terms).

If you aren't clear of the definition of "eating clean," then let's ask, what strawman do you think the author was knocking down?

Read the article.

First, it was raw veganism = clean eating.

Then, coconut oil = clean eating.

Then the alkaline diet = clean eating.

Gluten-free = clean eating.

Dairy free = clean eating.

Serious question: how can "we" agree we "fell" for something if we can't even define what we are talking about?

The point is that we fell for all of that.

I'd put all of those things under the umbrella of "clean eating". And barring some other condition like celiac disease, a diagnosed gluten intolerance, or lactose intolerance, they all seem like pointless dietary restrictions, but there are a lot of people who will buy something just because it's advertised as "gluten-free".

Except a big part of the article's thesis is that a big part of why eat clean is so big is because Big Ag has so thoroughly destroyed trust in the food system and nutritional advice that people are desperate for any solution.

I find it somewhat hypocritical that this is in The Guardian, considering that they frequently publish the kind of questionable nutritional advice that the article lambasts.

People even used to drink distilled water as a health fad in the 70's. People are stupid.

> Families who would once have eaten potato waffles are now experimenting with lower carb butternut “squaffles” (slices of butternut squash cut to resemble a waffle).

Why is that bad again? I'm a vegetarian, or at least, I do my best to minimize my impact on the destruction of life (nobody is perfect). I don't like "clean eating" and I don't like all the GMO hysteria, but I do think you should try and eat as few processed foods as possible not only because of your health, but because of some of the extraneous benefits. Eating "raw" foods means you tend to cook more, pay more attention to what you're eating, and be more in tune with where your food comes from. All the Instagram (I still can't believe people use products like Instagram and follow 'gurus' it makes me sick) diet fads are nonsense. It's ok to eat a burger and fries once in awhile, but spend more time eating food that you know what's in it, you know where it comes from, and you cook yourself. Food shouldn't be a lifestyle choice or virtue-signaling.

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