Maybe you can slowly introduce more clean foods into their diets. Use organic whole wheat bread, non gmo foods, less processed overall. If you like to cook, you are ahead of the game because there are lots of clean recipes you can try.

I'm a newbie eating clean! I started today and I'm super motivated I want that lifestyle and hopefully my family will slowly follow

llbennett74 wrote: »

I cook separately. I usually cook something for myself on Sundays that I can heat up throught the week because honestly I'm okay with a little monotony. I know it's not for everyone. It saves me time since I cook my husband his own meal. Not to mention it keeps me on track. By the time I get home from the gym I want to spend as little time in the kitchen as possible and if I don't have something quick to heat up it can spell disaster.

I do the same. I also freeze a lot of my meals so, if I get bored of eating the same thing, I have options.

dballantine17751 wrote: »

Hello I am new Clean Eating, started 2 weeks ago and have never felt better but also finding it to be very challenging. My husband and daughter want no part of my clean eating so making dinners are challenging as I no longer make the traditional meat, starch, veggie meal...then my co workers think I am just going through a phase....Any thoughts or ideas how to deal with the doubters of your new lifestyle? I do have a friend who has been a clean eater for years and to this day she makes 2 separate meals every night for her family, I really don't want to do this as I also struggle with controlling myself with many of the foods..

In their defence, almost always, this is a phase. Yes, it's annoying to be feeling undermined, but it will pass. As you keep going with this, people will get used to seeing you eat this way.

As for your family not wanting to participate, I'm sorry you have the added challenge of lack of support at home. What I said above, and also, it is still possible to make clean protein, starch and veggie dinners. If it's really important to you, maybe as a family you can strike a deal where one day a week you eat what they want and one day a week they eat what you want?

Lifestyle changes take time for everyone. If it's important to you, you'll figure it out.

I feel your pain!! I'm so worried about my partners eating. But anything that is deemed healthy he won't touch!

For me this is a matter of whose problem is this anyway? If one has been granted the title of family cook, then the recipients should rejoice they are so well loved. Cooking is a lot of work. Parents with dependent children are of course obligated to feed them.

Picky eaters can be rehabilitated and s l o w l y be brought around. Everything you teach them they will remember and you will be laying the foundation for healthier eating perhaps later in their life. Stay the course.

If they make a huge revolt over this ... teach them to cook for each other. We have two older sons who would not eat my clean food, at first. Now that meal that lasted me a week is gone overnight.

As for DH who requires a separate meal ... indentured servitude for women went out in the 60's thanks to Gloria Steinem. Time for them to learn to cook, too. It only takes a few days of no separate meals before they start to fend for themselves. Once they have gratitude for your past service to them, they may become much more open minded ... or not.

Have you seen the website 100daysofrealfood.com. She has a lot of great ideas for families and some great recipes too. I love to cook. I'm dating a guy who's not really into the whole food thing and I've been eating this way for almost 2 years. Its getting really annoying trying please both myself and him, so much so that I'm beginning to wonder if dating him is worth it because I'm tired of trying to improvise. To make matters worse, my nephew moved in with me and is all into whole food eating so I know what a joy it is to have someone love my 'food' lifestyle.

I cook 3 separate meals in my household. I don't mind keeps me on my feet and allows me to be in total control of what I'm consuming. My husband is skinny as heck and doesn't clean eat. Initially everyone questioned how long I could eat the way I do, now everyone just accepts thats what I do. It took a long time and me going to dinner parties with my weighing scale for people to realize how committed I was LOL. People often cook me a healthier option when I go to theirs too which I always accept very graciously!!!

Clean eating, usually requires no wrappers or packaging. It's in its own package. My hubby is the typical eater/shopper pushing the shopping cart up and down every aisle. When we first enter the store, I just say, "I'll meet you at the produce."

in time my family started to eat my (whole) food. it happend just when i stopped pushing them.. whole pasta taste good, they dont like whole bread but tortia is ok. fruits taste good.. stopped buying cornflaks so they had to eat something else.
the start is not easy.
good luck:-)

It can definitely be hard at first. For my kids, they are younger (5 and 8) so they are welcome to pitch a fit about meals, but they can either choose to eat it, or wait until the next meal. I make sure they like at least one part of the meal, so they can just eat a lot of that if they choose, or choose to pick stuff out. I don't battle them, its very matter of fact: this is what is for dinner, either join us and be polite, or excuse yourself. My H backs me up with lots of "mommy worked hard to make this dinner, lets use our good manners and thank her even if it isn't our favorite". And they can go make themselves peanut butter bread (always whole wheat, lol!) if they want.

Luckily my H is on the same page as me, I think it is much harder to negotiate with spouses, because you are in fact negotiating, not dictating like with kids. With my H, even though we both like to eat clean, we just have some different dietary needs, so we do cook 2 things sometimes. Typically I do what a lot of others have suggested. I either make a big meal for me one day, and eat leftovers the next, and then on that day make a big thing for H, and he eats leftovers the next, etc. Or, I make meals that can have easy inexpensive variations. I make tacos, and people can either have tacos, taco salad, and they can put whatever toppings they want on. I make make stir fry, and people can pick out whatever parts they want, put on rice or not, etc.

We also make big batches of soups and stews, and freeze in freezer safe wide mouth pint canning jars. They are the perfect portion for one person. Either H or I can grab a kind we like and have it as a lunch or dinner, adding a piece of fruit to make a complete meal.

My family loves my meals. I make an organic chicken Alfredo and they just gobble it up. I also make organic cheesecake on rare occasions and they love that also. With all of my old recipes I just changed them into organic by using organic ingredients, so the adjustment for them was easy. My husband yesterday made cake (not organic) the kids and him loved it but I didn't eat any of it. We tend to use the slow cooker a lot. My family knows that if they don't eat what I cook then they can make their own meal.

Notreadytoquit wrote: »

I like that idea suzan06. The jars don't break?

Wide mouth pints and all jelly/jam jars are freezer safe. And since it is glass, you can just microwave in the jar (take the metal lid off first of course!) and eat right out of it. So easy for lunches.

The narrow mouth pints and quarts can be frozen with stuff like berries, green beans, etc- basically stuff with lots of air, but not with liquids.

you say you don't make the traditional meat,starch, veg meal anymore .... am I being dumb or is meat, potato and veg not the perfect 'clean' meal??

My kids grew up eating an almost clean diet, that's not to say they didn't have treats, sweets, fizzy drinks etc but they where a treat and not an every day occurrence.

Turning the family to a 'cleaner' way of life doesn't need to be difficult, most meals can be adapted. Tonight for example I did a spaghetti bolognaise ... the bolognaise portion is all cooked from scratch, veg, meat all clean. The kids/hubby had their portion with Pasta as usual, I had my portion with butternut squash spaghetti.

We all enjoyed the meal, I dare say the kids don't concider it 'mum's crazy health food' and I stuck to my diet. all in all it took 1 extra pan of washing up and a few extra mins to prep the butternut.

Same thing if the kids hubby want ... pie and chips or fishfingers ... most things can all go in the oven at the same temperature. it's not really a hardship to stick a salmon fillet in next to my husbands pie. Then I do oven chips for the family and slice up a sweetpotato for me shove them on the same tray.

The 'trick' is to cook the same things as you would usually, but slowly improve the quality and the family need not notice.

'Clean' doesn't mean freaky you may be over thinking it. if it's hard your doing it wrong.

My husband is an adventurous eater as well as more than happy to eat anything I put in front of him. He could lose 20 pounds (30?), so he totally sees the benefits of eating the clean, vegetarian meals I make. The few foods he requests are healthy (recently it was mushroom brown rice soup with broccolini). But he will order burgers out at restaurants. One or two of his "junky" meals a week fine with me. I'm so lucky he's such an agreeable mate!