Aibu to think that clean eating isn’t that bad?

[arethereanyleftatall]

DD, 17, only eats ‘clean’. She eats like this because she says she feels much better on it, and for her that’s a priority above all else. And, to be fair to her, she’s thriving. Doing well at alevels, volunteering, working, and generally a wonderfully bright and joyous person to be around. This is in stark contrast to the gcse years with school refusal, period pains, excessive sleeping, no homework completed ever.
if it’s relevant, and so as not to drip feed, she ticks every adhd box at the top, but not diagnosed although we’re 4 years in now on the nhs list, and she’s got through the first few stages, and probably autism, but is able to mask so much, that that isn’t noticeable to the outside world.
daily menu for her would be steak, eggs, salmon, about 4 different fruits/veg, honey, all organic, and meat/fish/eggs only cooked in a special non Teflon pan with tallow. Drinks are filtered water only, and a hot drink with ginger, lemon.
I didn’t think this was too bad, expensive yes but I can afford it, but many of her peers are eating junk on the daily, and drinking alcohol, so compared to that, I feel like she’s ok. Yes, I know there’s lots in between that and balance would be key but I can’t force any near adult to eat, and certainly not DD for whom telling her what to do has the exact opposite effect.
anyway. On here last night, i discovered there’s a diagnosis for this - orthorexia, and it scared me. Oh, one last thing, it doesn’t stop her eating out socially, she’ll order steak and chips and I’ll eat her chips.

I would suggest ringing the BEAT helpline and taking it through with them.

I am not an expert, but I would be concerned by the not eating for a day, refusing to eat a lasagne, refusing to drink tap water. I don’t know what the right response is, but I would be wary of normalising this.

I have a friend from high school like this. She would only ever eat ‘clean’ things like sushi, salads etc. Always took the fish and salad option, also asked for no bacon etc. whenever we had a party she would insist on bringing something, like a zucchini bake, and then would only eat that and not touch any of the other food, even the BBQ meat.

She refused to travel to Asia because she was worried about getting food poisoning, but I always wondered if she was worried that there would be nothing for her to eat. Whenever we had Thai or Malaysian food she would fuss about the sauces and even insisted on the Thai beef salad dressing to be served on the side.

She is still very fit and slim, has managed to have 2 children and seems to be happily married. She still has all the same eating habits. She also seems to have made her peace with it, and this is probably how she will always be.

You have described my daughter who had orthorexia. She is now 90% recovered,thriving and a Mum . She had counselling and medication for a few years.

Chemistry gave thousands of DuPont workers and local people cancer and congenital birth defects.

This is NOT Orthorexia...😒

Clean eating no isn't bad but ad I've read your posts your DD isn't clean eating or even following caveman/seasonal. She's become hyper focused on it which is a common ADHD trait. The fact that she wouldn't eat on a long haul flight or if at a friend's house etc is a concern.

If she's going to uni then she needs to learn how to be flexible and navigate not following it to the letter 24/7. That kind of diet isn't sustainable on a student budget for starters so what will she do then - just not eat for days?

PFOA is not Teflon.

The issue I have with ‘clean’ eating is the wording. There is not clean vs dirty food unless you literally mean unhygienic and it layers disgust onto certain foods.

Personally I don’t see how steak or tallow is considered clean eating when it’s got a high level of saturated fat and is associated with increased risk of colorectal cancer. This is my other issue with it - that the idea of healthy food is decided upon by a person who isn’t actually educated in nutrition and doesn’t understand it at a cellular level.

Another example - Hot lemon water… why? Just for taste? Fine, enjoy. But for some kind of benefit? The heat destroys the vitamin C so mostly it just damages enamel.

It’s great that she chooses to eat healthily. But this should be done with actual knowledge behind the choices not TikTok trends. And it shouldn’t be that she ever feels unable to have the unhealthy foods if she desires them.

Agree with this - I saw the same thing in a friend who was vegan - obviously a specific case but meant she was able to turn down all sorts of food under the guise of being vegan so did not flag as disordered eating for a long time. Similar to the OP’s DD she would have been fine if it meant she didn’t have to eat that day and would insist she was not hungry anyway. Anyway happily she ultimately got better I believe without any medical help but it did become apparent it was about weight she just had a better cover than others.

Mine manages ok food money wise at uni (not carnivore diet) as she doesn’t eat much max 2 meals a day and zero takeaways and virtually no eating out.
If OP’s dd is similar plus isn’t buying coffees/matcha and no alcohol she’ll probably be ok especially if Op is generous as worried won’t eat.
So eg eggs for brunch with blueberries, Aldi steak dinner probably £6 a day. Some students will spend more on a coffee.
I’d still be very concerned about her being away and potentially things getting more restricted especially if it is a control coping mechanism. Going to uni is challenging for anyone but especially if she’s ND.

It’s also important to note that orthorexia is a diagnosis reached because of the psychology at play. It’s not just clean eating it’s obsession with healthy eating to the detriment of free choice and happiness and health.

It's an eating disorder, but a socially acceptable one. It can often, not always, lead to anorexia. I would be worried if this was my teenager.

I’d bet this is type of content she’s watching -
Tik tok what a uk uni student avoiding poison eats in a week. Lots of content like this.

This would worry me. It is a lie that she isn’t hungry all day. That is ED speak to persuade you that not eating all day is a viable choice.

If the foods she wanted weren’t available to her, it is not normal to starve for a day or two. That is obsessive behaviour. Does she have OCD?

It's not what she's eating that's the problem, it's her attitude to food and diet, her obsession with control, and her willingness not to eat at all. All of those things indicate disordered eating.

And like every disordered thread on here there are a number of posters normalising it. 😟

Have you asked her why?

That will reduce your food bill as I can imagine that it is very expensive. Even if you can afford it, it does not make sense not to eat cheaper healthy things like beans and pulses.

I don't want to eat either of them so will stick (😉) with stainless steel.

Her argument to sometimes not eating would be that she doesn’t get hungry because of the huge amount of protein she eats, in the same way that in caveman days, you ate when you could and you sometimes couldn’t. I have absolutely no idea if she is telling the truth that she’s not hungry, having never eaten like this, but she certainly doesn’t complain at all about being hungry for example. She says she can remember in year 10 having a huge bowl of porridge and fruit for breakfast and being hungry again at 10am, she hated that feeling and never wants it again.

her argument against this being disordered eating would be ‘why’? She feels great on it, knows the costs of prioritising it and is happy with the pros. She would argue why is this a ‘diet’ you need a dietitian for, but eating McDonald’s, crisps and monster daily isn’t?

my biggest take from this thread is that I need to have a chat with her that eating this way is fine, although I’d personally prefer more variation, BUT that it would tip over in to an eating disorder if she’s not prepared to ever be flexible. She needs to ‘practice’ eating things like potatoes etc so that when she is on this holiday in summer, or poor at Uni, she can be flexible. I expect her answer to that will be that she knows, but why not do it whilst she can.

Her answer to this would be that she prefers it, and she asks for absolutely nothing else (perfectly true) and her sister gets equivalent spent on her for an extracurricular she does.

I think that there are some red flags for sure - the not eating if there's nothing that exactly fulfils her criteria, refusing to eat say at a friend's house or at a restaurant. It's not the diet that's the issue, but the lack of flexibilty to account for things outside of her control, such as going to a friend's house for dinner and refusing to eat what they've made or going without food for a day as the narrow spectrum of exact foods she will eat isn't available. It sounds like it's more about control than the actual act of eating healthily, and control is a massive element of ED. A relative of mine had anorexia and it wasn't about physical appearance or even health (although she claimed it was the latter at first), it was about control.

The issue with this kind of stuff is that it can start fairly innocously (cutting out UPFs, for example, which is very in vogue) but then start to snowball and at some point cross the line from reasonable healthy living to food denial, missing out on social occasions, obsession, inflexibility, fasting beyond what is healthy.

I have adhd and have long term bullemia. (For twenty + years). I’m also vegan (8 years) and try to eat clean. I’ve only recently come to the realisation that I’m vegan so I can control what I eat without judgement from others - I told everyone it was because of the planet, animals, health etc - I even believed what I was saying to be true - but recently I’ve come to realise it’s all bullshit, and part of my eating disorder. It is control, and it’s harmful

I do agree it’s about control, but as of today, as it’s kind of ok especially compared to other 17yos diets, it’s hard to have a conversation about what might happen, when it hasn’t. If this is about control, then controlling your own food intake to just meat, fish, eggs and fruit, is about as good as you can get if you have an internal ‘need’ to control something. When she was 14/15 she tried to control me and friends etc, she has grown out of that, and I see this as ‘better’. It’s self soothing/reguluting of a kind. Just praying it doesn’t get worse.

She doesn't get hungry because animal fat is the most satiating and bioavilable food you can eat. When I ate like this I ate steak (and eggs) twice a day and was full constantly.

I agree you should have a serious word with her about monitoring her relationship with the food specifically. She shouldn't be forced into eating things she doesn't want to, but needs to be cautious of feelings of anxiety / fear when presented with eating different foods. Also how she feels about herself in comparison to other people that don't eat like her. It's a very fine line.