Genevieve Le Hunt, Founder of Bake Mixes, simple baking mixes made with real ingredients for real people shares her expert opinion about Clean Eating.
 
This is an article that I have been hesitant to write for a number of reasons, mostly because I know it is going against the popular opinion of an entire industry, but I truly believe this is something we all need to start talking about.

Clean eating.

Over the last three years of owning a business in the “health food” industry, clean eating is a phrase I have come to despise. I will preface this by saying that I do understand that most individuals who use this term, do so with good intention and perhaps out of lack of a less divisive term to describe eating a balanced diet. However slowly but surely, I am seeing the term clean eating doing more harm than good and being flogged all over social media and packaging by food brands in order to get their food into your shopping trolley and your money into their pockets.

Labelling food and diets like this is dangerous because it propagates a negative diet culture, which in turn can has the potential to cause problems for the vulnerable or just anyone who is perhaps feeling a bit self-conscious about what they are eating. I also won’t limit this to the term clean eating. Another one which you will see food brands plaster all over their marketing in order to make you feel bad about what you do eat, is “guilt free”. The problem with both of these terms, is what they are insinuating about the food that is not theirs. For example, if this piece of bread is “clean”, then does that make all other bread “dirty”? Or if this chocolate is “guilt free”, am I supposed to feel guilty about eating another type of chocolate? Creating a mentality of food shame is harmful, unhelpful and potentially dangerous.

We all know as consumers it is hard enough to maintain some type of balance and sanity around food choices without being bombarded by mixed messages and undertones of food shame.  I myself, as both a consumer and the owner of a food brand (who should know better) have in the past bought in to this shiny, perfect and rigid message of eating which demonises entire food groups. And when I have, I can tell you first hand that it does not leave you feeling good in the slightest.

Now more than ever, we as consumers are more informed about what we are purchasing and eating, and are demanding transparency of food labelling and marketing. A controversial example of this is the sugar free movement. Reading the ingredients lists on sugar free products can be like trying to read a dictionary of scientific terms that no one knows how to pronounce. As a recipe developer, I completely fail to see how using these synthetic ingredients are supposed to be nutritionally superior to sugar. The whole sugar free movement is a conversation for another day, but when I see people stressing out about eating a piece of fruit because of the sugar content, I know something has to change.

So how do we break this diet and food shame culture? I wish I had the answer. Through supporting a movement of ‘clean eating’ we are perpetuating a culture where food rules are normalised and dieting has become a way of life. In addition, in order to ‘treat ourselves’ we have to follow ‘guilt free’ labels for the majority of the time in order to justify eating outside the guidelines we as a society are promoting.
When we limit ourselves to ‘clean eating’ in a lot of ways we are setting ourselves up for constant guilt and insinuating that our ‘successes’ of the day are based on rules, as compared to nourishing our body.

We get it, we understand that following guidelines can be comforting, and when we hear messages constantly from media about a growing society, no wonder we try hard to go the other way. Our question is – through this movement, have we changed the pendulum? Whilst we may not have the answer, our observations show that shame and guilt has not helped us take better care of our bodies or minds. In fact, we beg to argue that the message we are sending to our young generations is based around ‘good vs bad’, ‘guilt free vs guilt’ and ‘clean vs dirty’.

As food brands, we need to be putting a stop to using negative food terms on our packaging and in our marketing. I know that marketing foods as clean or guilt free and using fitspo models in crop tops is a surefire way to get dollars in the bank, but at what cost? So that impressionable customers feel guilty about what they actually are eating and feel obliged to buy our products out of guilt? That’s not a business I want a part in.
Promoting food products full of ingredients that will fuel your body well, as part of a balanced lifestyle that yes, will for most of us mere mortals include alcohol, take away and chocolate cake? That’s an honest business that I can stand behind. 

https://www.bakemixes.com.au/

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