The first time I heard the word ‘clean’ in relation to food was way back in the mid 1990s. I attended a conference about supermarket trends, and learned that grocery chains were starting to “clean up” store brand ingredient lists by removing unrecognizable terms. Back then, this move was considered controversial, because it involved doing away with added nutrients, listed by their technical, non-household names (like pantothenic acid, a B vitamin), as well as eliminating preservatives, which meant short shelf lives (e.g. would consumers really want bread that gets hard or moldy within a few days?).
But, the writing was on the wall. Consumers were starting to pay attention to how foods were made, and what they were made of, health food stores were attracting more and more customers, and Wild Oats Markets (a chain of natural food stores and farmer’s markets, later acquired by Whole Foods) experienced a remarkable 4-year growth of 544% between 1989 and 1993, making it one of the fastest growing small companies in America.
Today, two decades down the road, clean eating, or eating clean, is a major movement, spurred by people from all walks of life, who want to feel good about what they’re putting in their bodies. When I asked via Twitter, “What does clean eating mean to you?” I received a variety of replies, from simply ‘eating fresh fruits and veggies,’ to ‘not eating anything artificial.’ Over the years, I’ve honed my personal definition of what it means to eat clean, and while I’m sure it will continue to evolve, here’s my current take on what this philosophy (which I’m a huge fan of) is all about: