The Dirty Reality of Clean Eating

“Clean eating” is the act of consuming whole foods free from processed and modified ingredients, including, but not limited to: lean meats, authentic yogurts, wholewheat grains, and fresh produce. At its core, “clean eating” is a reiteration of the basic principals of healthy eating that have been advised by medical professionals since the beginning of time. Similar to many trends today, the concept of clean eating is heavily influenced and perpetuated by social media; the ideas of clean eating know no social or geographic borders. With the development of “food porn” (über aesthetically-pleasing food photos), it has never been easier — or more fashionable — to incorporate clean ingredients into your daily life. Bombarded with curated photos of the week’s hottest smoothie bowls and sautéed salmon recipes, during a time of growing concerns regarding climate change and ecosystem devastation, I couldn’t help but wonder: how does clean eating effect the environment?

Given that clean eating roots itself within the importance of natural ingredients found within the earth’s ecosystem, I began wondering if we’d finally done it. Had we finally found a way to meet our health and fitness desires while simultaneously becoming more socially aware about the importance of natural ecosystems? Upon conducting research into clean eating practices, I quickly came to learn this was not the case. Finding endless documentaries, UN reports, and scientific journals on the topics of food production systems, it became apparent that the cleanest thing about clean eating is the curated social media accounts it inspires.

Let me break it down for you. Climate scientists agree that animal agriculture (in the form of animal farming for butchering, fishing, and dairy) remains the largest contributor of green house gas emissions — larger than all of the world’s transportation combined — and is the primary cause of amazon rainforest deforestation.

Animal agriculture is also a leading influence in global starvation, due to the percentage of crops grown in developing nations for the purpose of animal agriculture processes, rather than human consumption. I began to further question how the squeaky clean marketing of clean eating was able to overpower the dirty reality of the industries it not only promotes but convinces millions of people to financially support.

How do salmon fillets remain the poster child of clean eating while scientists are simultaneously predicting fishless oceans by 2048? The answer is simple: the concept of clean eating isn’t about the environment — it’s about the human body. Salmon is clean because it provides the body with lean protein. Greek yogurt is clean because the fat content is low. The problem with this approach, however, is that the human body cannot function separately from the environment. For better or worse, human health and environmental health are linked as one.

While food consumption and production practices hide under the veil of private sector choice, in actuality, creating supply and demand through purchasing of goods and services is potentially the most frequent political action taken by individuals. In a capitalistic society structured around the movement of capital, every dollar an individual spends is a vote cast either for or against the continuation of established practices. If you don’t want something to continue happening, stop paying people to do it. Therefore, to separate human food trends from the environmental movement is to ignore the most direct and accessible line of action an individual can take to create a cleaner earth. So, with all this knowledge, what really is clean eating? Is it even possible? How do we merge human desires for clean food with environmental protection? I propose three steps we can all take to move our diets and our earth one step closer to being clean.

The concept of clean eating is heavily influenced and perpetuated by social media.”

First, strive to lower your meat and animal by-product consumption. Research shows that plant-based diets not only shrink an individual’s environmental footprint by 40% or larger, but also reduce the chance of developing high cholesterol and blood pressure associated with cardiac illnesses. Not to mention, on average, vegans live eight years longer than their meat-eating counterparts. The second element is to take accountability. Every action has a reaction and, subsequently, we must consciously strive to broaden our understanding of the production systems involved with getting dinner onto our plates. We must own up to the reality of the situation and no longer pretend that the private act of eating can be separated from the public search for sustainability. Lastly, reflect upon your dietary biases. There are endless facts and falsities within the food and nutrition sector of life. Like anything in life, it is crucial to question the sources behind information and not merely consume food from a place of influenced habit or tradition, but rather from educated awareness. If we all strive to follow these steps, then we truly have a society that is attempting to eat clean.

By Madelaine Shales | Photography by Anna Maria Li