Clean Eating in 2024, trying old recipes and hunting down special offers.

Longwalker

Emmia said:

Longwalker said:

Its funny how different people define clean

Myself its buying food as close to its natural state as possible 

If I want a chip, which I do now and then, I get a spud, chip it and air fry it , certainly wouldn't be paying £3.25 a kilo for a spud 

As for type 2 diabetes not being reversible, Id question the credentials of the person who told you that. Its been well known for years that it can be done. Trouble is most people with it dont want to change their diet and are happy to inject themselves or medicate themselves as long as they can still eat a cream cake. As for the "NHS pushing carbs at you" they dont. They say you have to eat from the 4 food groups and when it comes to carbs, 2 slices of wholemeal , brown rice, wholemeal pasta - all with a lower GI then the white refined stuff

I'd define clean as food as food as close to the natural state as possible - in that I include tinned sweetcorn (no salt/sugar) and frozen peas....


Tomatoes are better for you when cooked.

I found this thread very interesting last year  p1

JIL

I have always gone for the 80/20 principle.

The 20 can be the waffles and oven chips.

I think theres a lot to be said about how we fuel and service our bodies. I also feel that drs will all have different opinions and how do you know who is right? 

Good luck with your challenge. 

Katiehound

Still worth a look at Dr Michael Mosley's book- Blood sugar diet- you can get it at less than £3 from Awesome Books.
 Diabetes 2 is reversible- see the book- case studies.

 You can be thin & have diabetes- it just depends where fat is deposited in the body.

YoungBlueEyes

I am not a doctor.

I'm not clear from your post if it was an NHS person/medical professional who told you that diabetes is irreversible, but if it was I would be putting in a stern complaint and making a lot of noise about that. I also find it hard to believe that an NHS person told you to eat carby breakfast cereals - my sister is type 1 diabetic and nowhere in her appointments or the literature they gave her was it mentioned to do that. You absolutely can reverse it, and diet is a huge (if not total) part of it. She started as type 2 because she wouldn't stop eating cakes and junk, it became type 1 over time, she was put on insulin but has reduced her doses purely through diet and careful exercise. 

As for COPD - I nursed my father for many years. One of the diseases/ailments he had was COPD. Now, I'm not saying diet won't have an affect on it, but I bet you my house that the "results [that] came back as being as good as someone without COPD" was not down to whatever changes were made to his diet. Sucking down whatever drugs, as prescribed by a professional, would make the biggest difference.

Whilst I do agree that the human body is a marvelous thing, with an amazing capacity to heal itself, I think threads like this need to be very carefully phrased so as not to give the wrong impression to any lurkers or those who believe everything they read on the internet.

MrsStepford

My husband was raised with good food. His father was a former Royal Navy chef, his mother was head cook at a local factory and their best friend was the local butcher. My father in law grew a huge array of fruit and veg organically and my mother in law raised geese and made jam and pickles. My father in law went rabbiting and fishing. They lived a traditional country life, whereas my parents gravitated towards the local town and things like cinema, theatre, eating out, dancing and yoga. All our food came from Sainsbury's and Marks & ,Spencer. 

Somewhere through life, my husband developed a liking for chips, potato waffles, burgers, mushy peas, corned beef, Viennetta, Chinese takeaways, wine gums etc though he had worked in the catering industry himself, including at a five star country hotel. 

We were poor for our first five years together and lived on soya mince and pasta, which is how I ended up with diabetes. It is quite possible to be a normal weight and have diabetes or be skinny fat ie skinny on the outside but fat on the inside. 

It has been a struggle to get my husband to quit bringing home unhealthy food which is bad for me. He had a light bulb moment when diagnosed with COPD and suddenly had a chronic health condition to deal with. 

He's resistant to change though so I'm trying to transition him to healthier food slowly. 

purpleivy

I have read Chris van Tulleken, Michael Mosley, Tim Spector etc, but I find the most interesting, informative and up to date information using current research is on the Zoe Podcast.  Very interesting listening!  

I try and stay away from artificial sweeteners, as they are supposed to be one of the worst things for gut health. Will Buliesevic reckons that if you are having problems, remove lactose and artificial sweeteners!  I was totally oblivious to the fact that lactose gives me problems till I tested for it!

catz4m8z

JIL said:

I have always gone for the 80/20 principle.

This is my current philosophy too. I dont call it clean eating though (sounds abit too faddy and restrictive TBH). I just say my diet is mostly whole food, plant based.
I just to try to make as much as possible out of unprocessed/minimally processed foods and concentrate on home cooking. 
Im sure that is where we all went wrong.....when convenience foods started filling up the shelves and freezers in supermarkets. It isnt rocket science that whole foods are going to make you feel better then heavily processed ones.

But I wouldnt try to cut out all processed foods. That sounds like a job and a half and I dont think a small percentage of 'junk' is going to cause too many problems (unless you are someone like Bryan Johnson!!LOL).

MrsStepford

I like the Zoe podcasts too @purpleivy.

I was addicted to Diet Pepsi and managed to give up by switching to the cannettes of Perrier. Same ring pull pshht and fizz. I have zero artificial sweeteners in my diet. Dr William Davis MD, author of Wheat Belly and Super Gut and Bobby Parrish of Flavcity are both fine with Stevia but I'm dubious. Husband still has four boxes of Capri-Sun left over from last summer but I won't be buying him more.

Somewhere, I heard that 75% of Americans are intolerant of lactose. Has to be said that American cows are given growth hormones though and fed on GMO grains and some never see grass, which is sad. 

Lactose free milk is lower in carbs than regular milk so Husband tried us on it for a few weeks. Didn't taste any different. He felt that his stomach was less grumbly on it, so carried on buying it, alongside organic whole milk. We now have Lactofree whole milk (fresh and UHT) and Lactofree organic semi-skimmed, whichever we can get. 

MrsStepford

@YoungBlueEyes I have had lots of bullying from NHS professionals. From the nurse who told me that I would be dead in six months if I didn't eat carbs, to the dietician who told me that I didn't look fat enough to have diabetes. She tried to make me promise to eat porridge or breakfast cereals for breakfast instead of eggs. A nurse practitioner actually assaulted me, because I wouldn't take a statin (I don't have heart disease and haven't had a cardiac event) and accused me of having a tantrum, when I became distressed by her nasty comments and cried. I don't take any nonsense from them now. I have complained to the Care Quality Commissionabout my doctor.

I am not a doctor. I am a college-trained former chef and during Lockdown I took lots of online certificate courses from proper universities via FutureLearn and Coursera, as well as online courses from the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and Food Standards Agency plus an NCFE course in Food & Nutrition.

 I am not giving medical advice, I am responding to comments, sharing our experiences and the healthier food journey that we have embarked upon.

I have two bookcases full of books in nutrition and diets (although I never follow an actual diet) and about three bookcases full of cookbooks. 

purpleivy

MrsStepford said:

I like the Zoe podcasts too @purpleivy.

I was addicted to Diet Pepsi and managed to give up by switching to the cannettes of Perrier. Same ring pull pshht and fizz. I have zero artificial sweeteners in my diet. Dr William Davis MD, author of Wheat Belly and Super Gut and Bobby Parrish of Flavcity are both fine with Stevia but I'm dubious. Husband still has four boxes of Capri-Sun left over from last summer but I won't be buying him more.

Somewhere, I heard that 75% of Americans are intolerant of lactose. Has to be said that American cows are given growth hormones though and fed on GMO grains and some never see grass, which is sad. 

Lactose free milk is lower in carbs than regular milk so Husband tried us on it for a few weeks. Didn't taste any different. He felt that his stomach was less grumbly on it, so carried on buying it, alongside organic whole milk. We now have Lactofree whole milk (fresh and UHT) and Lactofree organic semi-skimmed, whichever we can get. 

I watch for special offers on lactofree. It can be as low as £1.35 on offer this week or £2.10 in Spar. The rest in between.  Aldi/have  good price but generally only UHT.  Nowhere seems to have UHT skimmed.  

I don't like Stevia really. Or at least, years ago I tried it and didn't. Northern Europeans have  allegedly more lactose tolerant people, with African Americans and Asian people being a lot fewer people tolerant.