By Toby Amidor
July 20, 2011
www.blog.foodnetwork.com/healthyeats

Clean Eating is a term that’s been thrown around a lot lately, only it’s not necessarily understood. We’ll explain what it is and if it’s advisable to eat this way.

What Is It?
Although you’ll find Clean Eating “diets,”  it’s more of a way of living than a temporary weight loss solution. The term Clean Eating is relatively new, but it dates back to the 1960s when the natural health food movement looked down on diets filled with processed foods.

Author Terry Walters helped fuel the Clean Eating movement into mainstream America. According to the author of Clean Food and Clean Start, it’s all about consuming natural, unprocessed foods. Her philosophy is:

• Eat a varied diet
• Eat a rainbow of colors
• Enjoy food and mealtime
• Eat locally grown and seasonal food
• Eat all 5 tastes (sweet, salty, bitter, sour, umami)

This means eating whole grains, fruits and vegetables and lean proteins (a.k.a. real food) instead of fast food or highly processed, packaged foods, and giving new foods a try that you may not recognize at the farmers market — a lot like Dana’s Market Watch series.

Is It Recommended?
Eating whole, unprocessed foods is something many people don’t do enough of. Choosing highly processed foods which have a laundry list of ingredients that you don’t recognize is not the healthiest choice. This doesn’t mean you need to eat clean 100% of the time or even 80% of the time. Do what’s right for you. Here are some ways to eat cleaner:

• Find a local farmers market and pay them a visit.
• Instead of buying jarred salad dressing or tomato sauce, make your own.
• Add more fruits and vegetables to your meals.
• Choose whole grains over processed ones (such as brown rice over white).
• Instead of sugar-laden sodas and calorie-filled specialty coffee, opt for water, freshly made lemonade or iced tea.
• Pay attention to where the produce you choose is imported from. Regulations vary from country to country on how they grow food — choose locally grown or organic food that hasn’t traveled across half the world and hasn’t been treated with a variety of chemicals.

Bottom Line: Clean Eating is a way of living, not a diet plan. Eating less processed foods is always a positive thing, but you need to decide what’s right for you and how far you want to take it.

Toby Amidor, MS, RD, CDN, is a registered dietitian and consultant who specializes in food safety and culinary nutrition.

Terry Walters wears many hats. She’s the author of two cookbooks, CLEAN FOOD and CLEAN START (the latter of which was just nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award). She also offers group and private cooking classes, runs a health counseling business, and travels all over the country speaking out to change the way Americans think about food. Below, she talks about what’s gone wrong with the average American diet and explains how to get started cleaning up your own eating habits.

In Clean Food, you accentuate the need to go back to the foods our parents and grandparents ate when they were growing up. Older generations have had less exposure to the processed foods that now stock grocery store shelves. How did this change come about?

We have absolutely traded in nourishment for convenience. Convenience is key for a lot of people. We have been fed a bill of goods that it is not in our best interest. I think our entire food industry is driven by agendas other than our own health and well-being. The lobbyists have a lot of money and they wield a lot of power, they are looking purely at profit. They don’t want us to go back to eating real food. I tell my kids all the time to eat food that comes out of the green kind of plant, not the cement kind of plant.

What do you think is particularly flawed about the average American diet?

There is a misperception in our society that we need a lot of protein. We need much less protein than the average American eats. I see a lot of people who tell me they have eggs for breakfast, some type of meat in a sandwich for lunch, and chicken or fish for dinner. The average person only needs 15 to 20 percent of their diet to be from protein.

Also, we are so apt to value everything that is on a label. We latch on to the next greatest trend, but truthfully our grandparents were the ones who had it right. They ate food you can recognize. By returning to those basics, we can be much healthier. I would much rather pay my farmer or grocer than my doctor, insurance company, or pharmacist.

So how do we break the cycle of a processed food diet?

Don’t be afraid to try something new. We go into the grocery store and buy what we are programmed to buy. We go down the same aisles, we get the same salad dressings, and we buy the same snacks. We buy the same things because we know what to do with them. Take a deep breath, go to the grocery store or farmers’ market, and force yourself to buy one new food. Doing that once a week, we can slowly build a repertoire of new foods, and we can make our diets much more interesting. Check to see what is being displayed prominently in the produce aisle because those stands are likely to feature seasonal produce that is abundant and at its peak flavor and nutrient levels.

Data from the USDA shows that in 2010, there were 6,132 farmers’ markets operating throughout the US, a 16 percent increase from 2009. Do you think the local, seasonal food movement is putting Americans back on the right path?

I think that we are going in the right direction. I think it is grassroots, coming from the bottom up. I wish there was something big happening from the top so it would start trickling down. There are more farmers’ markets, and there has been a lot of change. In truth, if I came out with my book Clean Food 10 years ago, it probably would not have caught on like it did. That said, I think food continues to be entertainment. I see lots of cooking on TV and people watching food on TV, but it doesn’t seem to translate as much into people cooking at home. I am on the board of an urban farm and it’s still a struggle to stay afloat. The subsidies are still going to big agrobusiness a lot more than they are going to organic farms. So yes, we are headed in the right direction, but a lot more needs to be done.

You know the story: Kids love dirt. So why not thicken the plot and start a family garden?

Author (Clean Food, Clean Start), James Beard Foundation award nominee, mom, and clean-living expert Terry Walters has tips on doing it from the ground up.

Start with the fun stuff … and kale.
Sugar snap peas, strawberries, and green beans are perfect for little mouths and fingers. Kids also love carrots, because they see only green growing above ground and are surprised when the veggie is harvested. Make kale enticing by adding it to sauce, soup, stir-fry, mac ’n’ cheese, or even smoothies.

Buy seeds beyond the hardware store.
A number of online resources make seed ordering a breeze. The most well known is Seed Savers Exchange. Other favorites include Seeds of Change, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, and Fedco. Walters also hits local farms. For a list of those in your area, go to LocalHarvest and Slow Food USA.

Get friendly with companion plants.
Intersperse pungent onions and chives to keep pests away. Some insects, like bees, help plants resist disease. Attract them by growing borage or edible flowers, such as marigolds and nasturtium.

Timing is everything.
Spreading things out over the course of days, weeks, or months ensures a steady flow. For much of spring, keep flats of planted seeds in the garage at night and pull them into the sun during the day. After the final frost (usually mid-May in colder climates), transplant seedlings into outdoor containers or your garden.

Better late than never.
If you don’t have the patience for planting seeds or simply didn’t get to it in time (understandable), go straight to seedlings. Produce like melons, squash, and pumpkins can be planted later in the summer and early fall.

Give back.
Composting is a key part of the food cycle. Turn food scraps back into nourishment for your soil, and plants will have better results year after year. Not to mention, it makes a smaller footprint on our environment.

We dare you not to dig that.

Laurie Sanchez, Lifescript Staff Writer
Published January 2, 2011

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