Cleaning up Your Diet – The Importance of “Clean Food”

Grocery shopping is often a time-consuming and expensive task. What we put into our grocery baskets has a fundamental impact on our lives and our environment. For many of us, that means choosing foods labeled organic. An organic label generally means that certifying bodies such as the US Department of Agriculture verify that these products have been grown with irradiation, synthetic chemical additives, including pesticides or fertilizers, or genetically modified organisms.

A holistic approach to eating

A new movement is gathering momentum that goes beyond the label of organic. Clean Food embraces the idea of choosing food that is organically grown and produced from the ground up, including water sources and soil, wholly without chemical additives of any kind. For meat and dairy products, it also means food that is free from antibiotics and growth hormones produced from animals that are raised in humane conditions and allowed free-range from a natural diet. It is a holistic approach to eating that rejects modern, conventional diets that are often filled with processed foods laden with additives and preservatives. In many ways, Clean Food is a move back to the way we raised our food a hundred years ago, before industrial agriculture.

Consider all factors of food production

It's important to consider all factors of food production. For us to define organic, it's not just a label or sticker that says 'organic' The way we choose our products is that they need to be certified by an international body, i.e. the USDA or the organic farmers group in Europe, and not only for the product itself. The soil is equally important. To grow food, we need to be mindful of natural resources, like soil, water, and the surrounding environment. Apart from we consider how they grow the product or raise the animal. How cows, for example, should be raised on foraged grass grown in certified organic soil, rather than fed the unnatural cocktail of corn-based grain and additives used by industrial farms.

A "clean food" diet to reduce toxicity

A basic problem is that "People nowadays often don't really know what they're eating. They choose food for convenience, not health." People undoubtedly choose foods for cost considerations as well; organic products are markedly more expensive than conventionally produced food. In the case of meat, the price for free-range grass-fed beef is often almost double.

However, the decision to dedicate time and money to providing clean food for your family is obvious when your child has a health issue such as asthma, skin problems, or even autism. Jennifer Lewin, a licensed acupuncturist and certified manual therapist at Balance Health treats many such children. One of her first recommendations is that parents reevaluate their children's diet. "Food fuels our bodies, but it can also lead to a great deal of toxicity or irritation. A 'clean food' diet is one of the easiest ways to begin to reduce the toxic and/or allergenic load that affects the average American child or adult. We do not have control of many factors that contribute to toxicity in the body, such as environmental or chemical exposure, but we certainly have control of the food that we feed ourselves and our families."

Making informed choices

There are ways to offset the increased cost that organic products add to your grocery bill, such as choosing more locally grown fruits and produce while reducing consumption of expensive processed foods, take-away or restaurant meals. As Ms. Lewin points out, diet can be a matter of choice. After all, many of us would not think twice about ordering a nice glass of wine with dinner out and yet balk at paying the same price for a carton of organic milk. Making good choices is a matter of making informed choices, so educating yourself about where food comes from and how it got to your table is key. Switching to a clean food diet, or even just a cleaner diet, can be an empowering way to clean up from the inside out and an opportunity to make good on the old adage, "You are what you eat."