Please enlighten me: what is "clean" food?!

[Ashleen]

I go my whole life never hearing this term and suddenly hear it 50 times in one week. Does it mean organic? Unprocessed? Environmentally friendly? Fresh from the garden? Can meat or dairy be "clean"? Thanks in advance.

[Mrs Mungo]

It probably depends upon the circle. However, in athletic circles (I know this from my husband, not because I'm the teeniest bit athletic) it means eating low-fat food-plain pasta, rice, tuna, turkey, veggies, etc.

[Pamela H in Texas]

Here is a link for you. With this, to eat "clean" you eat from the top two tiers. The more you eat there and less you eat further down, the "cleaner" you are eating. HTHS:

 

http://www.focused-on-fitness.com/nutrition/michis-ladder.php

[Doran]

I was going to say that I imagined it to be food that isn't certified organic but still has "integrity" in the sense that it was grown responsibly, without chemicals, local, sustainably...all those terms with which you might be more familiar. This article might explain thing better -- I didn't read the whole thing. :o

[Sue G in PA]

I think it might be referring to foods that God referred to in the OT as "clean" or "unclean". He gave the direction to only eat the flesh of certain animals and never to eat of others. Pigs were one of those "unclean animals" because of their extremely basic digestive system and inability to sweat. Thus, pig products are said to be very "toxic" b/c the animal does not have the ability to sweat out the impurities. Some other animals that are "unclean" are shellfish like shrimp, crab, lobster and bottomfeeders like catfish. Jordan Rubin in his book, The Maker's Diet explains this fairly well. After reading his book about the clean and unclean animals, I decided to stop eating shellfish (very difficult b/c I LOVE crabs!) and pig products. My kids can be heard saying, "pigs don't sweat" in an answer to somebody asking why they don't eat sausage or pepperoni or pork. Anyway, that might be what they were referring to.

[Suzanne in ABQ]

That's interesting. The reasons I don't eat pig, and other "unclean" animals listed in the Bible, has nothing to do with sweat or no sweat. If you look at the list of unclean animals listed in Leviticus, you'll find that they're all carniverous. Birds of prey, "sea bugs" like lobsters, shrimp, and crabs, other bottom feeding fish, and pigs (along with others) are all specified as unclean, and they're all carniverous. (Rabbits are an exception -- they're herbavores, but still unclean, as are other rodents).

 

The "clean" animals (large animals that "chew the cud" and have "cloven hooves", fish with fins and scales, fowl) are plant eaters.

 

I've never heard of the pig-not-sweating thing, but the fact that pigs will eat ANYTHING, no matter how diseased or parasite/worm infested it may be, is reason enough for me to avoid eating them. Cooking kills some of the worms and larvae, but not all.

 

Plus, the health laws in Leviticus can be taken as a user-manual of sorts. Just as the maker of my car knows the best kind of fuel to use, the maker of my body would know what's best for it. I avoid the unclean foods listed in Leviticus, not for "religious" reasons, but simply because they're probably not good for me.