Clean Eating?? Whose doing it?

Anyone clean eating? I want to start for the health benefits from it. But don’t know where to start. Need recipes, tips, anything!
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Replies

  • chastitymorgan89
    chastitymorgan89 Posts: 5 Member
    My goal is to choose fresh over refined, and natural sugars not artificial.
  • dragonghost
    dragonghost Posts: 68 Member
    edited October 2018
    I would say 90% of my food is clean an every once in a while i eat something processed though not normal. The majority of my sugar comes from fresh organic fruit.
  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
    My goal is to choose fresh over refined, and natural sugars not artificial.

    While I disagree with the term "clean" eating just because it is nebulous and has so many different meanings to people. I can understand wanting to move towards more whole foods. Personally, I don't worry about sugars at all (changed that to monitor fibre a long time ago). I also think that fitting in a treat now and again is a good thing (for me). I do enjoy cooking because I control what goes into it and I can tweak recipes to fit my nutritional needs. Plus, I'm not a horrendous cook, so it tastes good. That being said...

    I would start in a couple places. There are plenty of recipe sites and some will allow you to enter in what you have on hand (I love myfridgefood.com - enter what I have in the house, and it gives me recipes for that). I love single pan recipes (salmon with roasted veggies topped with feta). I also have a slow cooker (batch cooking, great for stews, meats, roasts, etc) and a three tier steamer (rice on the bottom, meat in the middle, veggies on top) both save a lot of time in that I don't have to stand there and watch it once the ingredients are together.
  • earlnabby
    earlnabby Posts: 8,171 Member
    edited October 2018
    Anyone clean eating? I want to start for the health benefits from it. But don’t know where to start. Need recipes, tips, anything!

    Another who does not put a name to what I am eating. I eat mostly foods I prepare myself from fresh ingredients (although frozen and canned vegetables are staples in my house, some canned by me from my garden). I live alone so I do a lot of stews and casseroles (my crockpot is the most used appliance in my house after my coffeemaker). I make 4-6 portions. Freeze some, eat one the day I make it, and eat leftovers for a day or two. Stews especially make great leftovers.

    As far as recipes, there are so many good sites. My personal favorites for lower calorie recipes are https://skinnytaste.com/ and diabeticconnect.com/diabetic-recipes I also get a lot from AllRecipes. Many of them have a search-by-ingredient function so I can look up recipes according to what meat I want as the main ingredient.

    Another site I use just for my crockpot is https://365daysofcrockpot.com/
  • kgeyser
    kgeyser Posts: 22,505 Member
    Anyone clean eating? I want to start for the health benefits from it. But don’t know where to start. Need recipes, tips, anything!

    Check out the clean eating group, lots of other people in there with similar goals and suggestions on how to approach it, and you won't have to defend your choices of what you want to put into your own body and why.

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/133-clean-eating-group
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    I prepare most of my meals from scratch, whole ingredients or minimally processed ingredients. I don't do a whole lot of recipes...if I do, I get most of them from Pinterest. Most of my meals are simply a protein (usually grilled), veg, and starch or grain. I do drink a Cherry Coke Zero with lunch most days which I guess by your definition of "clean" wouldn't be clean...but that's kind of the problem with the term really. I also eat pizza on most Friday nights for pizza night with the wife and kids and I do have some pre packaged convenience foods that I eat from time to time when I'm in a time crunch.

    IDK...I think my diet is pretty "clean"...but it would depend on who you ask. A vegan would think my diet was absolutely filthy...
  • fittocycle
    fittocycle Posts: 827 Member
    You can friend me if you like. I'm not perfect by any stretch but I try to avoid processed foods.
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    My goal is to choose fresh over refined, and natural sugars not artificial.

    Cool, you've got some simple rules and a basic definition to work with. That cuts out a lot of the issues around clean eating (namely that there are tons of different variations and everyone seems to define it differently).

    Avoiding artificial sweeteners is fairly easy. Cooking from scratch is a surefire way to do it, but reading labels will get you the rest of the way. There are some brands and products you'll have to avoid, but they're easy to spot if you're checking the ingredients before you buy, imo.

    As for recipes, they're everywhere! Pinterest, Food Network, Budget Bytes, Hungry Girl, Betty Crocker. It can take a bit to build your collection, but just start looking for recipes you want to make until you have them.

    Personally, I say start with things you know you like and then work to add something like a new recipe or a new ingredient once a week to help expand your horizons. I don't consider myself a clean eater (lots of frozen veggies and canned beans in my diet), but that's how I got started. Just looking for substitutes and things that looked good when I had a chance and clipping recipes. My Betty Crocker cookbook handled the easiest recipes and Pinterest and various food magazines filled in the rest.
  • thebomb4043
    thebomb4043 Posts: 32 Member
    i eat clean! within my caloric means! switch it up experiment with new foods!🙂🕺🏻🕺🏻
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    That’s not my personal definition of clean but you may find success googling five ingredient recipes.

    Beans and legumes of all kinds cook up nicely.

    Steak is course would be clean according to your definition.

    For your starchy side you may try rice or quinoa. This is my favourite way to make rice now.

    https://pin.it/3btsgz2bie7xll

    I picked up a big tub of honey at my local farmers market and it gets introduced in to many of my recipes. You may also want to try blackstrap molasses.
  • pinuplove
    pinuplove Posts: 12,871 Member
    I love Panera but *kitten* their marketing campaign sucks!
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    Lillymoo01 wrote: »
    I will rinse food that can be rinsed under water but I refuse to use soap.

    Oh .... is that not what you mean by clean?

    The OP gave her definition as like the second response in the thread. Have you had a chance to read through? It was a pretty simple definition. I would think anyone can understand it
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    earlyxer wrote: »
    The easiest way to start to eat clean is to do two things : first, go through your kitchen and toss all the crap in the trash (and don't care what you paid for it, be ruthless), and 2) make sure when you shop that you are buying ingredients, not ready-to-eat.

    I suppose that is the easiest way. I'm a gal on a budget, though, so throwing out food is a big no for me. I'd rather use it up quickly than throw it out, personally.