Why Vegan Eating Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Clean Eating (and What to Do About It)

By refraining from eating animal products, plant-based eaters are making a world of difference for animals and the Earth. But, just eating vegan doesn’t necessarily mean we are eating clean.

What Exactly Is Eating Clean?

Luckily, Sarah McCartan wrote an excellent article right here on One Green Planet, explaining what eating clean entails and how to do it. In quick scan bullet points, she reports that we should:

• Stay away from processed foods and eating things as close to their natural state as possible. Fruits are much better than fruit roll-ups, and vegetables are much better than V8 juice. Keep in mind that “the cleanest of foods only have one ingredient.”
• Avoid industrialized food sources as much as possible. The whole buying organic from farmer’s market shtick. It makes for cleaner food in your body and a cleaner environment around it.
• Eat whole foodstuff, which is much the same as saying don’t eat processed, but perhaps requires further explanation: whole grains, whole fruits and veggies (not canned or juiced) and seeds and nuts that haven’t been salted, roasted and possibly ruined. Don’t forget water.

Why a Vegan Plate Isn’t Necessarily a Clean Plate

So, this should be fairly obvious now, but we’ll go through the steps just to be loud and clear on our cleanliness:

• Vegan doesn’t necessary mean unprocessed. Frozen vegan burgers are processed, as are spicy potato chips and soy milk.
• Likewise, a vegan shopper can technically buy from Kellogg’s and Nestle and Sara Lee and other big industry food sources. Many products are incidentally vegan, and some companies even produce “health” food in a factory.
• White rice is just as vegan as brown rice, as are white bread, dairy-free cookies, and Twizzlers. Vegan doesn’t mean whole food healthy.

So, technically, even what seems a perfectly healthy breakfast — a bowl of raisin bran in almond milk, a side of toast with peanut butter, and some pulptastic orange juice — is not exactly eating clean. In fact, it’s likely the antithesis: processed, industrialized and not at all whole food.

Before moving on to what a clean eater’s breakfast might look like, we should weed out what was wrong with this unclean breakfast. Raisin bran is a processed cereal with added sugar, additives, and factory roots, and the same goes for that milk it’s floating in. The toast, even a whole-wheat variety with nuts and seeds on the crust, likely has ingredients that keep it fresher longer and have nothing to do with healthy living. The jam will bring a lot more sugar to the table, as will the juice, which is not digested the same way the orange it came from would have been.

So Then: What Does a Vegan Clean Eater’s Plate Look Like?

So, what’s left to eat, right? Fret not, just like a meat eater wonders what a vegan eats, negating the fact that most food in the world comes from plants not animals, a clean eater can quickly note that most food at one point started from clean, whole sources. Moreover, that’s what we should be eating!

For the sake of understanding how it’s done, let’s take this same breakfast and convert it to the clean(er) plate edition. It won’t look that different, but it’ll make a big nutritive difference.

Raisin Bran and Almond Milk:  The reason for this choice is likely a high fiber content of the cereal, which comes from the bran and a little from the raisins, and perhaps some protein and fat from the milk. So, why not just choose a fiber rich whole grain and throw in some dried fruit, or make some Vanilla Fig Oatmeal? Not only that, but you can make your own raw milk, either almond or coconut, in just a few easy steps — no additives.

Toast With Peanut Butter: Yet again, the idea would be to get some good carbs for energy and spike it with a little protein kicker. Bread is a tough subject, as many think flour of all types is devilish. But, for the sake of wonderful toast, let’s say this is not the case. The easy answer to make this option cleaner is to make your own. Use healthy flour and simple recipes with only real food and few ingredients. As for the peanut butter, cashew or almond is probably a better choice, but either way, it’s easy to make your own without all the added sugar and such.

Orange Juice: Instead, just eat an orange. It has more pulp and nutrients anyway. Drink a glass of water. It’s better for you and more thirst quenching anyway.

Now, eating clean will undoubtedly raise as many questions about your diet as being plant-based. But, just the same, there are a “beaucoup” of benefits to provide resoundingly astute answers. Eat well (and clean)!

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