Deliciously Ella: The dirty truth about ‘clean eating’ fad
Food writer distances herself from ‘gurus’
‘Clean used to mean natural. Now it means diet’
THE food writer famed for her Deliciously Ella books has branded the ‘clean eating’ movement she once led as ‘dirty’ after a shocking investigation exposed dangerous false claims by self-appointed nutrition experts.
Ella Mills – who was Ella Woodward before she married – has written widely on the benefits of cutting out meat, dairy and refined sugar.
But now she has distanced herself from the clean-eating food gurus who make claims for which there is no scientific evidence – including conning cancer sufferers into believing that they can be cured by fad diets.
Ms Mills, 24, admits: ‘My problem with the word clean is that it has become too complicated. It has become too loaded. When I first read the term, it meant natural, unprocessed. Now it doesn’t mean that at all. It means diet. It means fad.’
Ms Mills appears with Cambridge University scientist Dr Giles Yeo in a BBC Horizon documentary to be broadcast later this month.
Biochemist Dr Yeo calls into question the validity of healthy eating gurus such as Jasmine and Melissa Hemsley, and Natasha Corrett and Vicki Edgson, authors of the Honestly Healthy series of books.
The Hemsley sisters champion cutting out all grains such as wheat, barley and rye as a way of avoiding gluten, which can be damaging to people with coeliac disease.
Dr Yeo said: ‘If you are going to give such extreme dietary advice, you’ve got to have proof. Otherwise, all you are doing is stoking fear about a food group most people shouldn’t have to worry about.’
The Hemsleys declined to appear on Horizon but issued a statement saying: ‘Grains are abundant in a modern diet. Our recipes celebrate other ingredients.’
Another growing trend among clean eaters is ‘alkaline eating’. According to Honestly Healthy, meat, dairy and processed foods create acid in the body and these put a burden on the liver and kidneys.
Alkaline foods, however, including broccoli, kale and avocado, are said to be easier to digest, and create an ‘alkaline state’ in the body which is said to cure ailments.
In her book Honestly Healthy Cleanse, Corrett writes a glowing citation of American alternative medicine guru Robert O. Young, saying he discovered ‘that eating a plantbased diet free from processed foods can help to cure diseases in the body’. He stands accused of offering false hope to cancer patients, and is facing a three-year jail term after a probe by the Medical Board of California.
Dr Yeo said of Young’s claims: ‘It’s anti-intellectual, it’s anti-fact, it’s anti-evidence-based, and it’s a very troubling narrative.’
Horizon: Clean Eating – The Dirty Truth is on BBC2 on January 19.