The Dirt on Clean Eating

August 28, 2011 3:14 PM

My favorite response to questions about how to eat clean is, “Wash your food.” On the always-changing understanding of ‘good’ food and how some of the bodybuilding community’s dogma doesn’t hold up to research.
posted by the mad poster! (52 comments total)

Probably of keen interest to those in the bodybuilding community.

For those of us merely interested in healthy living, this is like reading a debate among porn stars about how the most organic and performance-proof implants.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 3:25 PM on August 28, 2011 [8 favorites]

Is there a particular reason for the repeated picture of the female bodybuilder in the article, aside from the obvious?
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:43 PM on August 28, 2011

Are 'Clean' and 'dirty' bodybuilder-ese for good and bad?
posted by zamboni at 3:45 PM on August 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Actually, while this sort of information would be of interest to an off-season bodybuilder simply looking to maintain leanness, it's not going to help with contest prep.

It will help with the vast majority of the public trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle. He is arguing against approaching your food in an OCD fashion or being superstitious about specific types of food, but rather using a common sense approach and understanding if you are eating 80-90% healthy you are doing pretty good. It doesn't have to be all-or nothing.
posted by schroedinger at 3:46 PM on August 28, 2011 [2 favorites]

That's some unfortunate background rope placement in the lady bodybuilder's picture. My kingdom for some photoshop!
posted by phunniemee at 3:51 PM on August 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

The first sentence in the article is "Everyone knows the difference between dirty and clean foods, so I don’t have to explain the obvious…or do I?".

The answer is obviously "yes".
posted by Justinian at 3:52 PM on August 28, 2011 [3 favorites]

It will help with the vast majority of the public trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

I think it probably won't, just because the jargon and examples are pretty body-building specific. I never hear food described as "dirty" or "clean," except in the literal sense, and I don't spend a lot of time around people who demonize fruit or dairy products. I think that an article about having a balanced approach to eating would be more effective at reaching the general population if it were pitched at the general population.
posted by craichead at 3:54 PM on August 28, 2011 [3 favorites]

yeah, i pretty much got my body off the shelf, but lately i've been getting into the aftermarket modifications and i'm thinking of doing a total rebuild
posted by LogicalDash at 3:55 PM on August 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

However I predict 99% of Metafilter users reading this article will see "bodybuilding" or notice the lifting-themed URL, close the window, and make some snarky comment about how bodybuilders are like porn stars

I predict they'll see the lady bodybuilder with the rope and think that.
posted by Mcable at 3:56 PM on August 28, 2011

if you build your body hard enough people will assume you're doing porn when you're walking to the train station
posted by LogicalDash at 3:58 PM on August 28, 2011 [2 favorites]

if you build your body hard enough people will assume you're doing porn when you're walking to the train station

What in God's name are you doing while walking to the train station?
posted by Mcable at 4:05 PM on August 28, 2011 [16 favorites]

yeah despite the unfortunate pictorial and interface choices of the publishing site I posted this as a general nutrition article. There aren't really a lot of body-building specific terms in there just issues relevant to nutrition and fitness. It's definitely one of the best survey articles I've read on these matters.

But hey, maybe reader's digest has something better. The reason, Clyde Mnestra, that bodybuilders are interested in nutrition is that they want specific effective results for their bodies from their eating regimen rather than wanting to sign up for the latest Oprah-endorsed diet book and have an $80/mo gym membership they never use and then try again next year. It's funny though 99% of the comments you make are like reading debate between the near-pathologically left brained and someone high as Coleridge so hey I guess it evens out
posted by the mad poster! at 4:05 PM on August 28, 2011

Is there a particular reason for the repeated picture of the female bodybuilder in the article, aside from the obvious?

"Janeil knows a thing or two about eating right."
posted by chavenet at 4:11 PM on August 28, 2011

maybe it would have been better if they had a picture of Janeil eating, then.
posted by lester at 4:14 PM on August 28, 2011

There's an old saying, "You will eat a peck of dirt before you die."

For reference, there are four bushels in a peck.
posted by charlie don't surf at 4:18 PM on August 28, 2011 [8 favorites]

Janeil Stehr advertises for Nitrean, which is the photo above her second one in the article.
posted by Houstonian at 4:22 PM on August 28, 2011

I'm basing this response on what I know from hanging around bodybuilding forums. Standard advice for beginning weightlifters is to eat more, and to eat more protein, in addition to just doing the exercises. "More protein" here means double or triple the amount you're eating now.

The difficulty with this course of action is that high-calorie and high-protein foods are often those that are popularly considered unhealthy, like burger meat and pasta. An effective bodybuilding diet is mostly about the search for "clean" foods — foods that meet your ambitious nutritional goals without sacrificing healthy eating in the process.

People also distinguish "clean" weight gain (weight gain that is mostly muscle, due to a rigorous healthy diet) from "dirty" weight gain (weight gain that is part muscle and part fat, gained by consuming more calories at any cost). Some weightlifters plan to do a "dirty bulk" followed by a "clean cut," putting on mass and then losing the fat.

Of course, in women's bodybuilding the ideas about eating "clean" are mixed up with existing social aspects of eating — the need to exhibit various eating behaviors to others to maintain social status. The linked article is in part about taking bodybuilding nutrition out of that social environment and putting it back in the hands of the individual athlete.
posted by Nomyte at 4:23 PM on August 28, 2011 [9 favorites]

yeah I found it while trying to find out more about the relationship between body lean weight and fat—that is to say, how to lose fat without losing much muscle and how to gain muscle without gaining much fat. Turns out that's an extraordinary problem to deal with and something your biology isn't really tuned for—your body will eat its muscle, your body will put on fat—all you can do is optimize the ratios in which this happens. Food choices are part of that.
posted by the mad poster! at 4:27 PM on August 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

My favorite response to questions about how to eat clean is use a fork and a plate. Perhaps a napkin.

The few hardcore body builders I've met seemed to omit utensils entirely and apparently preferred to shovel eggs or skinless, unseasoned microwaved-from-frozen chicken breasts into their face with their hands. One of them just poured protein powder into his mouth dry straight from the tub and washed it down with water or milk.

Since then I've never been too inclined to take advice about food from body builders. It's like asking a golf course landscaper for advice about a vegetable garden.
posted by loquacious at 4:27 PM on August 28, 2011 [22 favorites]

I use one of these to wash my food before I eat it. I eat pretty clean.
posted by dirigibleman at 4:40 PM on August 28, 2011

There's an old saying, "You will eat a peck of dirt before you die."

Now it's "You will eat a peck of benzoate preservatives before you die"
posted by deliquescent at 4:50 PM on August 28, 2011 [7 favorites]

Is there a particular reason for the repeated picture of the female bodybuilder in the article, aside from the obvious?

And by "obvious" you mean the web designer's choice of picking one of the article's accompanying pictures (the only one that is not in the "still life" category) as a tiny, low-quality thumbnail, right?
posted by vidur at 4:57 PM on August 28, 2011

You will eat a tanker full of high fructose corn syrup before you die.
posted by bukvich at 5:01 PM on August 28, 2011 [3 favorites]

I once saw a man eat almost a full half-kilo tub of glutamine powder, dry. That counted as "clean". He needed it because he'd just hit a squat PR.
posted by Kandarp Von Bontee at 5:02 PM on August 28, 2011

Crow 1: Did you ever see an elephant fly?
Crow 2: Well, I've seen a horse fly!
Crow 3: Ah, I've seen a dragon fly!
Crow 4: I've seen a house fly!
posted by Nomyte at 5:14 PM on August 28, 2011

For reference, there are four bushels in a peck.
posted by charlie don't surf

I'm guessing charlie don't work in an orchard, either.
1 bushel = 4 pecks.
posted by Floydd at 5:32 PM on August 28, 2011 [4 favorites]

1 bushel = 4 pecks.

Depends on what's in the bushel. A bushel of peaches will sometimes fetch a whole canoodle.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 5:38 PM on August 28, 2011

I thought paches came from a can, perhaps put there by a man.
posted by maxwelton at 5:45 PM on August 28, 2011 [2 favorites]

As Michael Pollan would probably say, this article is entirely too reductionist.

(First Comment!)
posted by Zagabog at 5:48 PM on August 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

the article is anti-reductionist in that it's saying there's no way to properly break down foods by nutritional value
posted by the mad poster! at 5:49 PM on August 28, 2011

I'm guessing charlie don't work in an orchard, either.
1 bushel = 4 pecks.

Oops, typed that out backwards. Yeah, actually, I sorta did, I worked in our family greenhouse and tree nursery. We used to sell peat moss by the bale, measured in pecks and bushels.
posted by charlie don't surf at 6:06 PM on August 28, 2011

Is there a particular reason for the repeated picture of the female bodybuilder in the article, aside from the obvious?

If you view the non-print version there is actual layout through CSS so the first photo is nothing more than a thumb mug and the second is no less relevant than a jar of supplement and shots of food. I think the point was to show someone that doesn't often indulge in fast food.

Then again I didn't bother reading the article.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:09 PM on August 28, 2011

Apparently my diet is Nitrean+ deficient. Good to know.
posted by snofoam at 6:11 PM on August 28, 2011

[few comments removed, be mindful of flagging and moving on, making threadshitting comments about all of MetaFilter, overly threadmodding and the 24/7 availability of openness of MetaTalk. Thank you. ]
posted by jessamyn at 6:11 PM on August 28, 2011

Did I just read an advertisement for Whey protein powder?
posted by nzero at 6:14 PM on August 28, 2011

But I thought what you eat has no effect on your body!
posted by Threeway Handshake at 6:26 PM on August 28, 2011

There aren't really a lot of body-building specific terms in there just issues relevant to nutrition and fitness.

Well, except for the terms "dirty" and "clean" which, I assure you, mean pretty much nothing to non-body builders. I have no idea what eating dirty would do to me, nor clean. I read some of the article, but clearly it assumed I knew what the goals of eating dirty and clean were.
posted by Bovine Love at 6:37 PM on August 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well, except for the terms "dirty" and "clean" which, I assure you, mean pretty much nothing to non-body builders.

YMMV.

No one could mistake me for a bodybuilder, and I know what those terms mean. I was under the impression that most athletes and many diet "hackers" would be familiar with them. I've seen the term a lot on women's fitness/diet blogs and they are a far cry from bodybuilding.
posted by subject_verb_remainder at 7:02 PM on August 28, 2011

I've always eaten the least, and probably the best, when I was garde mange in an upscale restaurant. It was my job to assure that the produce was first quality at delivery (tasting from every box) fruit was first quality (tasting from every box) and sampling everything that the restaurant produced between 5 am and first seating at 11:30 am. I ate a tablespoon of fish, beef, pork and lamb every day, just to make sure that what we were creating was delicious. I always tasted every sauce, dressing and buttery thing we made. I didn't suffer from cravings, and it was pretty much impossible for me to sit down at a table and eat "a meal". It worked best for me. I always called it gorilla eating, since I figured that was pretty much the way gorillas ate in the forest - whatever came to hand. Of course, it involved 15 hour days, so that could've been part of it, too. That's what I call clean.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 7:21 PM on August 28, 2011 [3 favorites]

People with super built bodies kind of freak me out. I'm always waiting for them to pose, their skin splitting open, and then peeling off them like a boken balloon.
posted by FunkyHelix at 7:42 PM on August 28, 2011

I've seen similar conversations in cycling recently, especially around "gluten free."

Why "gluten free"? It prevents inflammation. Inflammation, what sort of inflammation? Inflammation of what?

It seems like "inflammation" is the new "toxins." Yes, if you have Coeliac, or Crohn's, or some other form of diagnosed gluten sensitivity, then, yes, you should probably stay away from wheat gluten. Otherwise, it's fine to eat mostly rice, or potato, or yam, but if you want to eat a bit of wheat pasta or (dare I say) bread (whole wheat only, of course) before a ride, you'll probably be OK. Eddy Merckx used to have cheese on white flour rolls in his musettes for God's sake! You just drank a beer!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:54 PM on August 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm always waiting for them to pose, their skin splitting open, and then peeling off them like a boken balloon.

Don't google Greg Valentino.
posted by Nomyte at 8:01 PM on August 28, 2011

I've always eaten the least, and probably the best, when I was garde mange in an upscale restaurant.

That sounds incredibly delicious. And healthy. Talk about ramping up your metabolism all day long.

I met a chef who was often the same way even at home, and when they did cook at home it was almost always something ridiculously dead simple but extraordinary - a pizza Margherita or an unusually refined apple crisp-cobbler. And he'd just snack on it, really. He wouldn't cook it for himself, as though he'd just eat granola bars, fruit and cold-cuts out of hand if no one was around on his off days, like it was just second nature to only eat out of hand.
posted by loquacious at 8:14 PM on August 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

I wish people would RTFA if they're going to bother commenting. He answers a bunch of the questions people ae asking here, and on top of that, he's AGREEING with all y'all kneejerk dismissive-of-bodybuilders-and-feel-the-uncontrollable-need-to-say-so comments that bodybuilders' dietary obsessions have historically been contradictory, faddish, cultlike, without scientific merit/superstitious, ultimately pointless, and potentially psychologically harmful. He talks about the potential for disordered eating, the way every decade has needed some demon/scapegoat ingredient or narrow/blindsided/rigid approach, the idea of having a cushion of sanity/not overthinking it. This isn't specialized stuff, it's good common sense, and admittedly it's a bummer it has to be said but that's why it's aimed at the kind of folks who might lose sight of that in their quest for perfection and control over their physiques (which reminds, some of ya don't seem to be getting the intro tone--he's making the point that "clean" is taken as an obvious given assumption, but really, in a way it's meaningless and perhaps the bodybuilding audience should pause and realize it's a silly catchall term, there's a reason the average layperson doesn't talk like that).

I got no defense for the pics though. Just your usual eye roll-y equivalent of bad given/rote goofy clip art or something.
posted by ifjuly at 8:19 PM on August 28, 2011 [9 favorites]

Must have missed that part. Sorry.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 8:31 PM on August 28, 2011

Talk about ramping up your metabolism all day long.

Not so much. RTA.
posted by Kandarp Von Bontee at 8:39 PM on August 28, 2011

the metabolism question is interesting. It's definitely common cultural knowledge among the diet-advice types and the article gets into it a little bit but my understanding of the current science is that the idea doesn't really hold up in terms of evidence. I could be mistaken though.
posted by the mad poster! at 8:44 PM on August 28, 2011

People with super built bodies kind of freak me out. I'm always waiting for them to pose, their skin splitting open, and then peeling off them like a broken balloon.

One too many Robbie Williams videos?
posted by halfbuckaroo at 8:59 PM on August 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

No, it really doesn't matter when you eat your meals, just eat them in whatever fashion makes you most likely to not overeat and binge on sugar. There are preliminary studies that indicate eating your carbs at night tends to promote better fat loss rather than muscle loss while losing weight though.
posted by schroedinger at 10:10 PM on August 28, 2011

I am not a bodybuilder and I found this article well-researched, interesting and helpful. Thanks.
posted by Rei Toei at 4:20 AM on August 29, 2011

Janeil Stehr advertises for Nitrean

I like to imagine that that's pronounced "Night Train."

Don't google Greg Valentino.

Oh, right, the guy who I always assumed was Photoshopped (but, unfortunately, wasn't).
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:29 AM on August 29, 2011

I wish people would RTFA if they're going to bother commenting. He answers a bunch of the questions people ae asking here

Which of the following questions in this thread are answered by the FA? Maybe I missed it.

Is there a particular reason for the repeated picture of the female bodybuilder in the article, aside from the obvious?
Are 'Clean' and 'dirty' bodybuilder-ese for good and bad?
Did I just read an advertisement for Whey protein powder?

The other questions are only tangentially related to the FA.
posted by zamboni at 11:37 AM on August 30, 2011 [2 favorites]