Clean eating...where to start?

Look up Tosca Reno. She has some very good books. My favorite is "Tosca Reno Recharged".

She also has a website with great recipes.

http://www.eatcleandiet.com/


p/s: I also have a cheat day every now and then. I love Mexican food. We go every other Friday....... mmmmm chile rellenos.

Look up Tosca Reno. She has some very good books. My favorite is "Tosca Reno Recharged".

She also has a website with great recipes.

http://www.eatcleandiet.com/

^^^^ What she said!
Tosco Reno's books are wonderful! There's also a clean eating group on here.
Just throw out bags and boxes of pre-made foods. Nothing with more than 5 ingredients. It can be challenging at first....but so worth it!
Good luck!

I started a few weeks ago and this website has been my constant go-to! Start with her "Clean Eating Shopping List" for beginners. also read clean eating 101, and recipe substitutions. the recipes are AMAZING and beyond easy. i made homemade bread and pie crusts. it's been so fun and delicious!Enjoy! (thegraciouspantry.com)
and edit to say: i also do an 80/20 split. i try for 80% clean and allow 20% not clean. this allows for the "little" things and it's more than an ample amount of calories to eat (i eat about 1600).

Eating clean means different things to different people, so you might want to start with what your ideal eating plan might look like. Over time, and by that I mean a year and a half or so, I've gone from a fast food lover who hardly cooked at home, to someone that eats organically most of the time and cooks ALL the time. Here's my definition of eating clean:

- Grass fed, or pasture raised no chemicals, no antibiotics, locally sourced meats
- Veg box from the local organic farmer co-op in town, they source only from organic farms within a 700 mile radius
- Only healthy fats - no man made fats - so macadamia nut, coconut, and avocado oils
- Organic cheeses and dairy whenever possible

I've also found that I have severe wheat, oat and corn allergies - so I've gone grain free as well.

I would recommend not doing this overnight. You want to just target one or two things at a time and eliminate them from your eating plan. It took me 4 tries over 6 months or so to finally quit drinking soda. But I did that until I was good at it and then moved on. It made the reality of quitting grains easier to tolerate (as in I didn't throw myself on the floor like a 2 year old and wail).

Good luck - if you have questions, let me know!

I'm going to be the rebel here and say I'm not a big fan of Tosca Reno, though I'm sure she has some good tips. She just comes across as inauthentic to me. The two authors that inspired me to clean up my diet were Michael Pollan ("The Omnivore's Dilemma", "In Defense of Food", "Food Rules") and Nina Planck ("Real Food: What to Eat and Why").

It depends on what your definition of eating clean is, there is a hardcore version then a just clean version.

To me eating clean in no refined carbs, processed foods, refined sugars or wheat.

I gradually weined myself off all these items over about a 2 month period. I really don't miss them at all now 6 months into things.

I'm going to be the rebel here and say I'm not a big fan of Tosca Reno, though I'm sure she has some good tips. She just comes across as inauthentic to me. The two authors that inspired me to clean up my diet were Michael Pollan ("The Omnivore's Dilemma", "In Defense of Food", "Food Rules") and Nina Planck ("Real Food: What to Eat and Why").

Will check those out also!

What are examples of stuff that you can't eat?

Off the top of my head:
Almost all fast food (unless you are a purist, there ARE exceptions, but not many)
Processed junk food like Doritos
Processed food that tries to resemble real food like Kraft Singles and margarine (there is a lot of crap in this category)
Anything with preservatives (blech)
Anything with artificial colors or artificial flavors or artificial sweeteners
Overly sugared bakery products like grocery store cakes

I also include dairy products from cows given rBGH, and foods with things that just don't belong in them. Like bread with twenty million ingredients, or peanut butter with anything in it but peanuts and salt (and flaxseeds, but that's the specific pb I buy).

It is nearly impossible to eat 100% clean. I don't. I go by an 80/20 rule (80% clean, 20% whatever I want), because if I could never just relax and go out for Italian or Mexican or Thai or Indian or Greek food without going nuts about what's in it, I would be miserable. But I only do it once a week, twice tops, and I buy literally no groceries with additives or preservatives.

Thank you for responding! I am really just getting into reading about it and everything I find is generalized and I haven't figured out exactly what they are talking about.

I had doritos this week. :grumble:

This is one of the reasons I love Michael Pollan's little "Food Rules" book. It's really more of a booklet, but it's very straightforward. He does not use the phrase "clean eating" but that is basically what he advocates, with a less-meat slant that clean eaters don't all take. EIther way, two of the rules (paraphrased):
- Don't eat anything with ingredients a third grader could not pronounce
- Don't eat anything with ingredients no ordinary human would have in the pantry

Simple.

Great question!

I personally love Tosca Reno. I am a huge fan of Oxygen Magazine which was the first real proponent of clean eating. Actually, RK Publishing, the Publisher of Oxygen, developed a magazine devoted to this topic, Clean Eating Magazine.

I began learning about clean eating through Oxygen, Ftiness Rx and Muscle and Fitness Hers magazines years ago. I have all of the books by Tosca as well as all of the Best of Clean Eating Cookbooks (compiled from the Clean Eating Magazine). The websites have already been mentioned here a few times. I also have a cookbook called Superfoods Cuisine that is very good. Basically, every recipe contains at least one superfood. I just learned by reading as much as i could and researching on the internet.

I subscribe to a 90/10 rule: eat clean 90 percent of the time and 10 percent can be less restricted. Usually my 10 percent is in alcohol! I don't eat processed anything. Everything i eat is all natural, mostly organic. I cook everything, make my own dressings, marinades, nut butters, jams/jellies with chia seeds, etc. The only thing I really don't make myself which i eat is Greek Yogurt and Ezekial Sprouted Grain bread. I have a huge garden and whatever i don't grow i buy locally.

I have cheated a few times and each time i have gotten extremely physically sick. My body is very accustomed to clean eating. I have very strong willpower and an all or nothing mentality so it was easy for me to give 100% to this.

There is also a Clean Eating Group on MFP - you should join!!!!

Feel free to add me as a friend and look at my foods everyday. If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Good luck!!!

Oh and one last thing!!! A principle of clean eating: if your food can't go bad, it's bad for you; if your food can go bad, it's good for you!!!!!!