Clean foods are natural foods and often take the form of fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as seeds, nuts and legumes

EATING CLEAN

When I refer to ‘eating clean’, I am talking about eating in a way that lowers
exposure to toxins and increases the amount of ‘good’ food entering your
body. Clean food has a high nutritional value, is low in refined sugars and
trans-fats, and promotes vitality and health in the body. Clean foods are
natural foods and often take the form of fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as
seeds, nuts and legumes. These are ‘natural’ because they come directly from
nature, have had little tampering and thus contain fewer toxins. Less natural
foods are laden with sugar, salt, preservatives and pesticides, as well as
chemicals and toxins that are very bad for our bodies. These ‘unnatural’ foods
are the ones that in all likelihood contribute to illnesses like cancer.

Eating clean thus means putting healthy, nutritional and non-toxic food
into your body, which will in turn create a healthy and more nourished body
that is free of toxins.

Faced with so many choices, it can be challenging to know which options
are the cleanest. Moreover, after a busy day or in the rush of everyday life,
convenience meals often trump cooking from scratch. Because you have not
made the food yourself, you do not know how ‘clean’ it really is.

‘From a food perspective,’ explains dietitian Nathalie Mat, ‘we can
obviously reduce toxins that we are exposed to by choosing foods that are
closest to their natural form.’ She explains that one of the ways in which we
can move towards a cleaner way of eating is to eat organically, as this reduces
our exposure to pesticides, which contain chemicals and toxins. Mat says that
the safety of pesticides is normally tested on animals, where the single
pesticide is the single toxin the test animal receives. Humans, however, are
exposed to many different chemicals in combinations that have never been
tested. ‘So while the total dose of each chemical that we are exposed to may be
below the amount associated with side effects in the single chemical trials, we
have no idea how the vast number of chemicals we are exposed to affect our
health. There is simply no way of knowing whether or not it’s the chemicals
or the change in our modern-day diets or the lack of activity that is to blame
for our increase in disease.’

What Mat has learnt through her experience as a dietitian is that everyone
reacts differently and everyone has a different ability to process toxins. Thus,
her main recommendation for eating in a more ‘clean’ way would be to first
cover the most important behaviours associated with health. These include:
being physically active;
eating at least two to four servings of fruit a day;
eating at least three to five servings of vegetables a day;
avoiding a diet high in processed carbohydrates and animal fats; and
maintaining a healthy weight.

‘Once the aforementioned foundations of health have been implemented,
more attention can be given to the smaller components that may be affecting
one’s health, such as contaminants in the environment.’

There are a few tips that Mat recommends when it comes to avoiding such
contaminants, which she draws from a list released by the American
Environmental Working Group. 29 Known as the ‘dirty dozen and clean
fifteen’, it lists the twelve most contaminated fruits and vegetables, which
have the highest levels of pesticide contamination, and the fifteen fruits and
vegetables least contaminated with pesticides, which do not need to be bought
as organic produce. The dirty dozen are best bought from organic farms to
reduce the levels of pesticides consumed. There is no South African version of
this list, but Mat suggests using a similar logic when it comes to which fruits
and vegetables are best bought organic. ‘Produce with thick skins/rinds which
are normally not consumed, like watermelon or bananas, are less likely to
have the flesh contaminated with pesticides. Salad leaves, fresh herbs and
berries are consumed as they are packed. It is important that these types of
foods are either bought organically or are washed.’

Packaging, Mat explains, can also play a role, as the chemicals that make
plastic soft can act as endocrine disruptors in the body. When in direct
contact with food, these chemicals leach into the food. Because they tend to
leach into fatty foods and are transferred fastest when plastic is heated, one
should avoid heating fatty foods in soft plastic wraps and store high-fat foods
like cheese in containers, rather than wrapping them in cling wrap.

Food additives also need to be considered. ‘Food additives should not
receive a blanket ban as carcinogenic, but careful label reading can help to
reduce the amount of unnecessary chemicals one consumes. Highly processed
foods not only contain more additives, but are also likely to contain less
desirable ingredients, such as refined carbohydrates and trans-fats,’ Mat says.

Food that contains heavy metals like aluminium salts should be avoided, as
well as fish that eat other fish (like shark, sword fish or albacore tuna), as they
accumulate mercury.

While eating in a more natural way by incorporating fresh foods, fruits
and vegetables, as well as sprouts and herbs, may seem logical, unfortunately
many of us have become accustomed to an unhealthy lifestyle. The WHO has
found that more than half of South African women are overweight, which
means that the average woman is eating more than she needs and is
increasing her risk of developing certain cancers. It can also be deduced that
her fruit and vegetable intake is inadequate. ‘Generally South Africans are not
eating or living in a way that is congruent with long-term health,’ says Mat.

But why? Besides the amounts of chemicals, antibiotics, artificial
hormones and heavy metals that have made their way into the food chain,
Mat says that modernisation has introduced many readily available, ‘hyperpalatable’
and highly refined foods into our diets. We tend to eat these in
place of healthier foods. ‘Food is more readily available which makes eating
for reasons other than hunger that much more common too. I think it is a
great contributor to the increase in noncommunicable diseases of lifestyle such
as cancer and the huge increase in the average weight of the population.’

If you want to eat in a cleaner way, Mat suggests a diet high in vegetables
and low in animal products, to lower inflammation in the body. Eating at
least one vegetarian meal a week can reduce your carbon footprint too. Mat
recommends cruciferous vegetables, explaining, that they ‘may play an
important role in cancer prevention. These vegetables contain phytochemicals
known as isothiocyanates. These phytochemicals change the way oestrogen is
metabolised or broken down in the body. This in turn decreases the risk of
hormone or oestrogen-related cancers, such as breast and uterine cancer.

Chopping or chewing cruciferous vegetables results in the formation of these
bioactive products. Eating these vegetables either raw, lightly sautéed or
steamed is best to retain the full array of nutrients. Cruciferous vegetables are
also known as important sources of fibre, vitamins and minerals. Eating a
serving of these vegetables daily (particularly broccoli, kale and Brussels
sprouts) can help lower disease risk.’ The following vegetables are included in
the cruciferous family:

arugula (rocket) bok choy (Chinese cabbage) broccoli
Brussels sprouts cabbage cauliflower
daikon (white radish) kale kohlrabi
mustard greens radish rapini (broccoli rabé)
turnips watercress

While all these suggestions and tips are important, they can be
overwhelming. Start making changes to your diet and eating habits slowly, so
that they might be more sustainable. The most important thing is to first
adopt a clean way of eating that promotes behaviours associated with health.

Once this is achieved, the nittygritty can be tackled.

Understanding cancer in itself, as well as how nutrition affects cancer,
may also help you to gain a clearer understanding of why eating clean can
lead to much better health.