Eating Clean??

sarah3436

I know I could use a little more of this in my life! But I need a place to start. I feel like it's hard to read a nutrition label. Sometimes I think I am choosing good healthy food. Then I find out I'm not. I know its not realistic for me to totally cut out processed food but I would like to have a better idea of clean eating. Can anyone recommend any good books to read on this topic? Provide me with some ideas on how to eat clean?

Railr0aderTony

There is not definiton for clean eatting it is like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny a work of fiction.

sarah3436

When I think of clean eating I just think of raw foods and no food additives! I feel like it's so hard to find food to fit this description.

Comonemo

I've talked to many different people, and everyone seems to have their own interpretation of clean eating (i.e. whether you can or cant have dairy). I started with clean eating New Years 2011 and moved to Paleo by fall.... but what I did was took the approach of "the closer to the natural state, the better" and "the shorter the ingredient list, the better".

Rule of thumb: shop the outside of the super market! (no the end caps don't count). Before going Paleo, I did hit the pasta aisle (whole grain) and of course, the bread aisle (whole grain) and ate quite a bit of dairy. There isn't a whole lot of packaged food that is considered "clean" eating, but I would stock on canned tuna, chicken, vegetables... it was the point in time where my microwave skills had to be traded in for cooking lessons!

Lleldiranne

When I think of clean eating I just think of raw foods and no food additives! I feel like it's so hard to find food to fit this description.

I would say the produce department and the butcher block are great places to start. If you want to "eat clean" you need to be ready to put some more work into cooking/preparing food. You aren't going to find what most people consider clean in packaged foods; it's not exactly going to show up on the nutrition labels.

{note, I'm not saying if clean is good or bad here … I'm staying out of that debate}

GypsySoul_74

ask a thousand people to define "clean eating" and you'll get a thousand different responses :-P that being said, i really appreciate the concept of consuming food that comes straight from nature (or is only a few simple steps removed from that). and while i've been making some terrible food choices lately, when i do focus on "cleaning up" my diet, i consider whether each item i eat could have been found on my great grandparents' dinner table 100 years ago. they were farmers and ate only what they could grow or raise (vegetables, grains, some fruits, livestock for meat & dairy, chickens/turkeys/geese for meat and eggs), hunt (wild game), gather (wild berries, carrots, onions, apples, honey), make from scratch or barter for with neighbors who lived similarly. table sugar was a scarcity. store-purchased flour was for holiday baking only. food was preserved by canning, salting or freezing rather than with chemicals.

i use the same considerations for processing. if the "processing" is of a sort my great-grandparents could have done on the farm (most manual processes such as mashing, mixing, baking, boiling, freezing, drying, canning, etc.), then i feel okay about it. if it's anything crazy they never would have heard of or wouldn't have been able to do (think turning corn into corn syrup & modified food starch), i take a closer look and decide for myself whether that's something i want to consume.

(obviously this doesn't cover all contingencies; i have to get creative with foods that wouldn't likely have been part of their culture.)

my family grows most of our own vegetables in from organic, non-GMO plants and seeds and purchases or trades for meat, fruits and vegetables from other local growers and farmers whose practices we trust. for purchased products, i just try to use common sense when i read labels and make sure i can recognize the ingredients. if i don't know what it is, i look it up. if i have a question about how a product is made, i research it.

and honestly, there are some packaged/highly-processed products i'm just not ready to give up. ultimately i have to find a balance between what i feel is best for my body and what is actually a practical and sustainable way to live in the 21st century

MoreBean13

The most practical way to think of it, in a way that you can ACTUALLY do, is to try to choose things as close to the way they grew as possible. If you have a choice between a sweet potato, and mashed potatoes made from a box, the sweet potato whole is a better nutritional choice. If you have a choice between a salad with grilled chicken, and a lean cuisine meal, the salad is the better nutritional choice. Don't get obsessed with it. Make the better choices when you have the option to, and you'll do fantastic.

DatMurse

eat clen and tren hard

whitlisd

I can't say I have completely started to eat clean, but I am now of the mindset that the processed food makers out there are trying to kill us all. I've watched soo many documentaries and learned so much about what goes into them that I'm not even swayed by my usual haunts like McDonald's and KFC anymore. All these corporations don't have your health in mind, they are out to make a buck. This has been a big help for me to stop eating pre-packaged and processed foods.

My meat is raised humanely, all natural, my eggs are free range, my vegetables are from the farmer's market, and I try to eat local fruits in season. I watch how much dairy I drink, but I haven't been able to quite get off of that yet.

Do your research and you will make your own conclusions about what clean eating means to you.

TheEffort

I try to stay away from processed foods as much as possible.

mike_ny

It's just about eating real food, period. So much of packaged food is loaded with stabilizers and preservatives and enhancers that are only there for long shelf life and appearance. There are literally tens of thousands of food additives that have never been tested or evaluated for long term effects. Even assuming that most of these are not health threats, chances are still good that a few in that mix may turn out to be a problem years down the road. Clean eating is about reducing your exposure to additives and making better choices for health and nutrition.

The real motivation, though, is that once you do stop or at least cut way back on eating processed and sugary foods and eat more fresh and especially local food for just a few weeks, you just start to feel so much better with more energy. You won't want to go back once you really give it a chance. The packaged stuff and fast foods you once thought were good just aren't appetizing anymore once you've had real food.

The only down side is that if you don't cook, it's very hard to really eat clean other than raw foods and dairy products, but its never too late to learn and cooking is an extremely useful skill you'll benefit from for the rest of your life.

piinchi

To me, clean eating is whatever makes me feel good inside. A chicken breast, some tender quinoa or black beans, a little guacamole, a tomato salad - sounds clean, right? But sometimes, a thin crust pizza with a light application of incredibly fresh mozzarella, plenty of veggies and a little fresh marinara, fresh-grown herbs and chili peppers makes me feel good too. But the first meal probably fits the typical "clean" description. The second meal is just "pizza". To some people, my first meal is not clean because I ate chicken and to some, meat isn't "clean". Quinoa has socio-political issues, so that may knock it off a "clean" list as well. Beans are packed in tinned cans that are lined with chemicals; is that clean? You could drive yourself crazy trying to "eat clean". Take a step back and eat Michael Pollan's description of food. Real food. Not too much. Mostly vegetables. The way you feel eating that way may make you feel "clean" but that might just be a happy digestive system. :laugh:

ktully93

A great book to read is "The Eat Clean Diet Recharged" by Tosca Reno. She gives meal plan ideas as well as excellent recipes. It is well written, easy to understand and follow, and just makes sense. I have had the book for 4 years and constantly use it as a resource.

mahanaibu

Food writer Michael Pollan is a good read on this subject. He puts it a nice way, though he doesn't actually use the term "clean" that I know of: Would your grandmother (or great-grandmother, depending on your age) recognize it as food? Was it something she would have found at the store? She might have bought the tomatoes, onions, garlic, wine to make a pasta sauce, but chances are there weren't premade pasta sauces in her local store. granola bars? She would have bought a turkey, not deli turkey breast, unless it was a true turkey breast, unadulterated, just roasted by the deli. She might have bought steel-cut oats for oatmeal, but not instant oatmeal or boxed cereals.

As someone said, shop the perimeter of the store to the extent that's reasonable possible, rather than the aisles.