When it comes to healthy living, there's always a new fad going around. Friends might tell you that they're eliminating certain foods from their diet for a time.

You might see an internet trend where people post about their meal prepping or juice cleanses. What makes these trends even more confusing is that diets work differently for everyone, so your body might not react the same way as the bodies of the people who introduced you to the fad.

A clean eating diet is a good example of one of these trends, but what does that mean? While everyone has different eating habits, clean eating is about eliminating things such as preservatives, extra sugar and unhealthy fats.

Sometimes this is a great change, since an overload of sugar and preservatives can affect the health and weight of people who don't watch what they eat.

People love this diet because it helps you lose weight and you can take it as far as you like, which means it's adaptable for even the strictest vegetarians and vegans. The diet still has its faults though, so read on to find out if clean eating is right for you.Research It Before You Start

It's completely normal to have times in your life where you want to switch things up and try to eat healthier. You should feel free to pursue those ambitions and see how far they can take you. Just remember that you need to balance diets against what your body needs and what's good for you. You should research clean eating, like any other fad, before you begin to follow it.

1. It Cuts out Whole Food Groups

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Popular diets often make people cut out foods, but clean eating can make you toss out entire food groups. The food pyramid consists of a little bit of everything for a reason — your body needs them to function. If you don't fuel your body properly, you won't benefit from a diet.

One food group that many clean eaters cut out is dairy, which is a great source of natural calcium and contributes to a healthy diet. The sugars that make up milk won't do the same damage that a carton of ice cream would.

2. It Makes Gluten the Bad Guy

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People who have gluten allergies know that it forces you to change your diet and makes what you eat look different than what your friends or family might like to eat. Clean eating tries to put the same emphasis on avoiding gluten, but unless you have an allergic reaction when you eat it, it's not something you should avoid.

Whole grains contain gluten and they've got plenty of nutritious vitamins and minerals. Unless you want to study those vitamins and supplement them, eat some gluten products regularly.

3. It Puts Food on a Timeline

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Something you might read if you research how to start a clean diet is to "never eat anything your great-grandfather wouldn't recognize." This is supposed to help avoid things such as modern-day fast foods and candy, but the truth behind what your great-grandfather would recognize might surprise you.

Even potato chips were invented in 1865 and sweets have been around for hundreds of years. You should judge your food based on what's best for you and not what fits on a timeline.

4. It Makes You Spend More Money

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Unsurprisingly, the large corporations that make high-demand foods use preservatives and chemicals that reduce the cost of production. Clean eating has a focus on local produce and all-natural, organic products.

That means that you'll be spending a ton of money on foods such as fruits and vegetables that's an impossible luxury for many people. You can still eat well and buy the produce in your usual grocery store.

5. It Can Create an Obsessive Mindset

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By labeling the foods in your diet as "clean," it essentially makes all other food "dirty." This can create an obsessive mindset when people who start this diet have the occasional slip up.

No one wants to eat something that's bad for you, so if it's labeled "dirty," it makes the food sound even worse. It's lead to a rise in anorexia among young women, which is another reason why food should go by its name and not put under specific, harmful labels.

6. It Teaches Nothing About Balance

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Life is a balancing act and that includes what and how you eat. Clean eating eliminates so many foods that you're stuck with strict options. This limits how many nutrients and fuel your body gets. You can learn how to cook clean instead of sticking with the guidelines of clean eating.

The difference is that you learn to create more meals you can choose from while eliminating the processed foods you wanted to avoid in the first place.