Clean Eating: The Documentary (2017)

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Watch Here:
Clean Eating - The Dirty Truth (2017) BBC Documentary - Video Dailymotion
https://archive.org/details/BBCHorizonCleanEatingTheDirtyTruthFullDocumentary



Dr Giles Yeo investigates the latest diet craze and social media sensation - clean eating. In a television first, Giles cooks with Ella Mills, the Instagram entrepreneur behind Deliciously Ella, one of the most popular brands associated with clean eating, and examines how far her plant-based cooking is based on science. She tells him clean has lost its way: "Clean now implies dirty and that's negative. I haven't used it, but as far as I understood it when I first read the term, it meant natural, kind of unprocessed, and now it doesn't mean that at all. It means diet, it means fad". Giles sifts through the claims of the Hemsley sisters, who advocate not just gluten-free but grain-free cooking, and Natasha Corrett, who popularises alkaline eating through her Honestly Healthy brand. In America, Giles reveals the key alternative health figures whose food philosophies are influencing the new gurus of clean. He discovers that when it comes to their promises about food and our health, all is not always what it appears to be. Inside a Californian ranch where cancer patients have been treated with alkaline food, Giles sees for himself what can happen when pseudoscience is taken to a shocking extreme.

Clean Eating: The Dirty Truth: 7 myths busted

Search '#cleaneating' on Instagram and over 27 million artsy posts of perfectly poured porridge, rainbow inspired smoothie bowls, and more will appear. But the clean eating trend, linked to celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow and food bloggers like Deliciously Ella, has apparently reached its peak.

Those who follow the diet, which typically consists of cutting out processed foods and avoiding gluten, dairy and excess sugar, are encouraged to eat around five to six times a day, including a lean protein, plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, and a complex carbohydrate (such as lentils or peas) with each meal.

Nutritional therapist Amelia Freer says the trend is well intentioned: "The clean eating trend was born of a desire to reduce the amount of processed or junk foods we consume, and increase our intake of unprocessed wholefoods.

"There’s nothing very groundbreaking about that – indeed, it’s the same advice given to us by public health bodies. However, this simple message has turned out to be both a blessing and a curse."

This distortion of the original clean eating message is the focus of a new BBC documentary, Clean Eating: The Dirty Truth.

In the programme, Dr. Giles Yeo from the University of Cambridge investigates the trend, getting straight to the heart of the matter by cooking with Ella Mills, better known as Deliciously Ella, sifting through the claims of the gluten and grain-free Hemsley sisters, and analysing the science behind Natasha Corrett's 'Honestly Healthy' brand.

As the documentary progresses Dr. Yeo reveals just how closely the clean eating trend is based on scienctific evidence and comes to some shocking conclusions.

Deliciously Ella doesn't like the term 'clean eating'

As arguably one of the names most associated with the clean eating phenomenon, it may come as a surprise that Ella Mills isn't all that keen on the term.

In the documentary she says the clean eating movement has lost its way: "My problem with the word 'clean' is that its become too complicated, too loaded. Clean now implies dirty and that's negative.

"I haven't used it, but as far as I understood it when I first read the term, it meant natural, kind of unprocessed, and now it doesn't mean that at all. It means diet. It means fad."

There's no evidence grains are bad for you

Dr William Davis, author of Wheat Belly, and a keen advocate of a completely grain-free diet believes that grains aren't fit for human consumption and "are harming all of us, to some degree, without exception.

"We already have a connection to grains to at least some auto immune diseases."

Dr Alessio Pasano, a pediatric gastroenterologist and researcher, and the man Dr. Davis credits with discovering evidence pointing towards grains being unhealthy, does not agree: "I'd be ecstatic if he's right, but honestly I don't think that is the case."

The Hemsley sisters have previously stated that "grains are not as substantial a source of energy as people are led to believe", but that doesn't mean they think everyone should swear them off.

Though they didn't appear in Dr. Yeo's documentary, they did release a statement saying: "Grains are already abundant in a modern diet so our recipes celebrate other ingredients. We don't believe in absolutes and no one way of eating suits everyone."

After suffering a heart attack, former president Bill Clinton decided to adopt a vegan diet and turned to The China Study by T. ****n Campbell. The diet is rich in nothing but beans, vegetables and fruits.

Deliciously Ella credits The China Study as one of the books that inspired her in the early days: "It was really interesting. I'd always liked science and it was full of science. It was the first time that I'd really understood that food could potentially have a really powerful effect, that wasn't something I'd really considered before."

Gluten, on its own, isn't enough to cause health problems

Despite coeliac disease only affecting around one per cent of the population, more and more of us are going gluten free. But, according to Dr Alessio Pasano, gluten alone isn't enough to cause problems in the body.

"Gluten is only a problem if you have four other problems already: genetic predisposition, a leaky gut, a faulty immune system, and imbalanced gut microbes."


Alkaline eating is "troubling"

The alkaline eating movement, popularised by health writers such as Natasha Corrett through her Honestly Healthy brand, consists of eating certain alkaline or acidic foods (most fruits and vegetables) to bring the pH of the blood to a level of "slight alkalinity" supposedly putting less stress on the body's mechanisms that are essential for good health.

This line of thinking has been championed by Dr Robert O Young who says "the human body in its perfect state of health is alkaline in its design."

However, Dr Yeo found no research to back up Dr Young's claims and called it "anti intellectual, anti fact, anti evidence based, and a very troubling narrative."

It's all just one (extremely popular) untested theory

As popular as the clean eating trend has become over the years, the science has so far been unable to prove that it is any better for you than simply following a balanced diet, as recommended by the NHS.

The Article:
Clean Eating: The Dirty Truth: 7 myths busted
 

kdubson14

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Thanks for the link, Bob.

Being heavily involved in the Instagram/Youtube vegan community is frustrating because of how highly revered(even worshipped) T. Collin Campbell's work is and it is incredibly refreshing to see, for the first time, that TCC recognizes the weakness in his work.

Reconciling this one interview where he acknowledges and clarifies his stance with the hundreds of other interviews and documentaries where he literally states "animal protein flips on the cancer switch" is another story but it's still refreshing to see.

I'm just ranting because we have tried time and again to broach the fact that The China Study is, at best, weak in rigor, and how his initial work and experimentation with aflatoxin in rats ignores basic metabolism and pathophysiology only to be met with complete obstinance from followers. It's as if The China Study and its spin-off documentary, Forks Over Knives, are holy scripture in the vegan community.

We have largely given up trying to advocate the importance of truth and accurate information regarding nutrition and health because the pushback from the majority of 400k+ followers is like watching a bunch of otherwise normal, likeable people regress into ****-flinging monkeys because you have challenged a belief and thus part of their identity. Food pics with accompanying shallow, positive captions are the norm nowadays because dealing with the drama and it potentially affecting revenue is just not worth it and frankly, I'm ashamed.

But with this interview I have rekindled hope that at least one interested and scientifically literate person among our followers will consider being receptive to acknowledging the flaws in TCCs work.
 

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