Talk:Clean eating

Inaccurate
I realise that the lead description may have 'consensus', but the the moniker of 'fad diet' is pejorative, inaccurate and the sources are weak. Two Guardian articles (a left-wing British newspaper) by people who are substantially gossip columnists does not constitute science. Both Harvard and Yale medical journals have produced articles on Clean Eating where the word 'fad' is nowhere mentioned. Could we focus on what is true instead of achieving'consensus' on things that aren't? 109.154.231.60 (talk) 07:30, 1 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Per Reliable sources/Perennial sources, There is consensus that The Guardian is generally reliable. Also, per Consensus, consensus is accepted as the best method to achieve Wikipedia's goals. What you regard to be true is not the prevailing consensus. I think you'll need something more than this to succeed. -- Pemilligan (talk) 13:50, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I also feel the article is sorta confusing. It seems to suggest, as-written, that eating minimally processed foods such as whole grains, fruit & veg, etc, and reducing intake of convenience and processed foods, is bad for ones health, or some sort of psuedoscientific diet. This would totally defy years of research on diet, and I presume is not what this article is trying to say.
 * I took a look at sources the IP editor refers to, e.g. a Harvard source I presume they're talking about, and the negative side of the diet it refers to is: Clean eating taken to an extreme has been associated with an increased risk of disordered eating patterns, such as orthorexia nervosa. - further it emphasises the broad nature of the term, how different people interpret it to mean different things, and the mislabelling of products.
 * This article should emphasise that more. I agree some of the stuff promoted by bloggers is probably taken to extremes and detrimental to health. However, the concept of a healthy diet, which is effectively what the first sentence of the lead describes, does not seem to me to be problematic. Conversely, reading this article, the first impression I get is that it's trying to say convenience/processed foods are fine? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:43, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
 * This is a good source from the European Food Information Council which gives a good overview Psychologist Guy (talk) 23:48, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Source misrepresentation
This broad statement (Health risks associated with this diet include food poisoning and diseases from parasites) is totally misrepresenting the source.

What exactly the source says is: Diseases caused by parasites. Consumption of raw meat increases the risk of contracting trichinosis, and eating raw fish increases the risk of infection by flukes and other parasitic worms. -- so the eating of raw meat increases the risk of infection by parasites... Which is not at all what the article said.

Aside from that, this is buried within a sub-section, with the bulk of the sub-section talking about the risks of eating processed foods. An honest representation of the source would include all that content too. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:57, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Poor sources/Dubious claims
There is - as far as I can research - no basis for calling Clean Eating a 'fad diet', yet this bizarre claim has gone untested here for some time. The description is clearly proprietorial, and I wonder about two dubious articles in The Guardian (hardly The Lancet). Poor sources indeed. This is everything that is wrong about Wiki. The concept seems to essentially echo many basic principles of The Mediterranean Diet, yet we do not describe that as a 'fad diet'. What is going on here? Consensus - however cordial - does not mean the claim is truthful. 86.153.86.158 (talk) 19:31, 7 September 2023 (UTC)


 * The Clean Eating is definitely a fad diet because it involves making pseudoscientific claims about avoiding dairy and gluten and processed foods. Clean eating is very different than the Mediterranean Diet. Psychologist Guy (talk) 19:53, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Only certain extreme versions of the diet, and there is no uniformly accepted version of what 'Clean Eating' actually means.
 * This problem is outlined in a Harvard University article called 'Clean Eating: the good and the bad'. Please take a look.
 * I don't object to crank versions of the diet being described as fad, but to dismiss the entire concept of clean eating as such is inaccurate. And to do so in the opening sentence is misleading.
 * This is sloppy, lazy work. And I repeat that the sources are quite insubstantial. The Guardian is a left-leaning UK newspaper which prints a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff: often just to fill pages.
 * It's hardly a peer-reviewed article in a reputable academic or scientific journal (university or otherwise) in which people actually know what they're talking about. 86.153.86.158 (talk) 16:07, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
 * What the article needs is probably someone willing to do the research, find the best quality sources out there, and rewrite some parts in a way that clearly summarises the sources. That would take some time investment, though. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:56, 8 October 2023 (UTC)