What exactly is "clean eating"?

I use to have such a different idea of what "healthy food" was.  I thought diet soda was a good choice.  I thought Special K bars or the Special K cereal with skim milk was good for me.  That light or fat free salad dressing was healthy and that eating a "100-calorie pack" as a snack was "being good"   Now, I disagree immensely.

Clean Eating is eating whole, unprocessed foods, or foods as close to their natural state as possible.  Most things that are in the produce and bulk sections (that do not come in packages or have nutrition labels) are whole foods.  Like, an apple is a whole food.  Things that come in packages, too, can be considered clean if you look at the ingredient label and it contains only recognizable ingredients.  For instance, a package of nuts may say, "Ingredients: almonds, salt."  That is still clean.  Even many things with lots of ingredients are still considered clean such as many organic cereals, organic oatmeal, some apple sauces, LaraBars etc.  But something like, Honey Maid graham crackers or Special K cereal are not.  The ingredient list should look like a recipe, not a science project and you should be able to identify what is listed on the label.  But note that not all unrecognizable ingredients are bad... some we just aren't familiar with.  Take Xanthan Gum, for instance - it's a stabilizer found in most organic dressings and you can actually purchase it on it's own, from the grocery store..  Thanks to smart phones, I am able to google ingredients while at the grocery store before purchasing an item.  

One thing is for sure - anything with High Fructose Corn Syrup (aka Corn Sugar) or Hydrogenated oils are bad news.  (which are actually found in both Honey Maid Ghram Crackers and in Special K cereal, and use to be things I ate and assuemed I was eating things that were good for me!)  If I am looking at an ingredient list and it contains either of those, I always put it back.

When I first began exploring the world of whole foods/clean eating, I was shocked to learn how many foods that I thought to be healthy and wholesome were actually very bad for me.  My Wishbone "1-calorie-per-spray" dressing had hydrogenated oil in it, my light wheat buns (and most other bread products) and so called "healthy" cereals had HFCS in them, the ingredients in a 100-calorie pack were all foreign!  You see, when companies make a product "light" or fat free etc, they typically add a ton of sugar and a ton of other chemical crap...or -- "ingredients" to make them taste better.  What you get is a chemical compound that shouldn't be sold for human consumption.

To me, the ingredients in the food are much more important to me than the calories/fat grams/carbs/sugars.  When you are eating clean, your body processes food much more efficiently than when you're eating food loaded with junk.  For instance, 500 calories worth of a Big Mac (ingredient list below) will not be processed by your body as efficiently as, say 500 calories of whole grains and vegetables.  With whole/clean foods, your body receives them, identifies them and knows exactly what to do with them.  With foods that contain artificial/chemical ingredients and preservatives, your body doesn't know what it is or how to process it, so it stores it as waste (stored within your fat cells that is). So if I were to have a choice between, say, an avocado (~200 calories) or a Special K bar (90 calories) I would absolutely choose the avocado.  Not all calories are created equal. 


Even if you got a chicken sandwich thinking you're going healthy, here's what you're eating: