Monday 25 July 2016

Opinion: So-Called "Clean" Eating

I was on the sofa the other night, scrolling through my Facebook feed, when I came across a link a girl I used to go to college with had shared. Entitled “Clean Eating’s Dirty Secrets”, the screen cap showed a young girl unknown to me (who, it turns out, is Grace Victory: “the internet’s big sister” and UK lifestyle and advice blogger with 106,000 Instagram followers and 209,600 YouTube subscribers…oops) holding a green smoothie and a plate of that hipster go-to of the moment - avocado on toast. The original Facebook post was by a girl I don’t know, who’d written a rather long paragraph about how “dangerous and unhealthy” she feels the clean eating regime has become, from personal experience with it. I was a bit skeptical at first - the clue is in the name, how bad can clean eating really be? - but the original poster claimed to have come to this conclusion from studying nutrition, and my curiosity was really quite piqued, so I clicked on the link. I figured I would watch the first five minutes or so and see whether it would be worth a watch. I ended up stuck to my iPhone screen, watching the whole thing right through to the end. It’s a really fascinating and somewhat unnerving look into a fad that seems innocent on the surface but actually harbours some disturbing information that definitely isn’t advertised under #cleaneating. I’m always a bit wary when writing these opinion posts, because I don’t want to pretend I’m some huge expert and expect some people will be offended by what I say, but I think this is an important issue that needs more coverage. 

Thursday 14 July 2016

Travel: Brighton Micro-Trip

My boyfriend and I have been trying to spend some time travelling England recently; he’s here for the whole summer and we don’t have the funds to travel further afield at the moment, so we’re taking advantage of places close to home. I had a couple of days off from work this last week and we headed to Brighton! I completed my degree at the nearby University of Sussex, and lived in the city for three years - it’s one of my favourite places in the world. We visited most of my BTN must-dos, and I wanted to mention them here.