#CLEANEATING

What even is clean eating anymore? Take it back to it's roots it meant eating as nature intended, cooking and eating wholesome, REAL food from the Earth. I watched a documentary on Clean Eating and it made me want to look into it a little further as I too was an avid 'clean eating' instagram/social media follower at one point seeking only to fuel my body with the purest foods I could find. I was gluten free, dairy free, fat free, sugar free, grain free, meat free...EVERYTHING FREE

As I looked further into the 'clean eating' culture I found that many nutritionists have commented that the clean eating revolution pushed by bloggers with no medical qualifications is giving peoples (and themselves) a pretty mask to use to hide a potential eating disorder. It certainly gave me a lovely veil to cover what was really going on. The trouble is that these successful bloggers and instagrammers have an immensely high influence on women, especially teenage girls and are helping fuel a rise in 'orthorexia' - an eating disorder where the obsession is only to consume 'clean' and 'healthy' foods. I believe none of these bloggers mean this to be a consequence but I believe that a lot of them have a abnormal attitude towards food. I wanted to be a health food blogger at one point, post only alternative, healthier options to some of our favourite foods. I was food obsessed, it was all I thought about. I would trawl the internet looking for gluten free, fat free, low calorie, healthy cakes, desserts and any other recipe I could manipulate to fit into my ideal.

Experts have said that the many clean eating bloggers out there do not have a specific understanding of the long term consequences of a lot of their advice. There is real concern growing that with the promotion of these alternative food lifestyles young women are being given the chance to hide underlying eating disorders behind a lovely veil called 'clean eating.' It's so much easier to tell someone that you don't eat gluten than that you don't want that slice of cake. I found it so, my orthorexia turned obsessional and before I knew it into anorexia. I was avoiding all the foods I classed as 'unclean' and then I started to avoid food altogether. Any restrictive diet the cuts out major food groups can lead to a greater risk of nutritional deficiencies. An eating disorder specialist said that 80-90% of his patients who were following a 'clean eating' diet were cutting out sugar, meat, dairy, carbohydrates and gluten.

The promoting of “clean” food on social media I have found can be incredibly patronising and harmful over its implication everyone else who does not eat that way is eating “dirty”.

Additionally, eating organic free-of-everything products to make a “plant-based” meal from scratch is expensive and time-consuming. While those clean-eating gurus’ daily routine might suit their recipes, the assumption it can be replicated by the everyday person is just insulting. Most people’s day does not really lend itself to making “bone broth” from scratch and can you expect the majority of the population to have time to make these incredibly appetising looking smoothie bowls every morning? Additionally, after rent, bills and general living costs, most people’s pay packet doesn’t allow for weekly shops at Whole Foods for only the most organic and nutritious ingredients.

At a time where women have an immense amount of pressure placed on them and their bodies due to the bombardment of seemingly perfect, idealistic images they see on social media every day, does this really have to extend into what we are eating too – unfortunately it does, a quick search of #cleaneating on Instagram brings up more than 27.5 million results.

While eating healthily and normally is important, having a healthy and normal attitude to food is also important.