What is clean eating?
You might think it means washing your fruit and vegetables before you eat them or sanitizing your cutting board when you cut raw chicken. These are good practices to follow, but clean eating is wholesome food, fresh vegetables, fruit and lean cuts of meat.
Let's take a look in your food pantry
Take a good look at the food you have. There’s probably canned soup, dry pasta, spaghetti sauce and sugary cereal. Do you have items you prepare just by adding water or milk?
Read the labels of the food packages. Are there ingredients you've never heard of? Take those items out of your pantry; we'll get to them in a minute. Do the shelves look empty? Hopefully you still have some good foods – whole wheat cereal, canned vegetables, oatmeal, rice and quinoa.
If you're ready to take your eating plan to the next level and start seeing the fat loss you've been dreaming of, clean eating is going to be a big step in the right direction!
Looking at the food you've taken out of the pantry, think about the similarities in ingredients that are additives - sugar, sodium, modified corn starch, trans fats and all those words you can't even pronounce - and next time you head to the grocery store, stick to the pantry items made only of one ingredient, or don't have any additives. The rest of this blog post gives you some good suggestions for how to re-stock your pantry!
But let's not waste edible food! We want to take steps from "not so great" food choices to the best food choices for a balanced, fat burning diet! Donate these items to your local shelter or soup kitchen. There are many people less fortunate who can put it to good use! Or, if you're not ready to take the plunge just yet - and that's alright, make the commitment to start changing your purchasing habits for the future.
Read the labels of the food packages. Are there ingredients you've never heard of? Take those items out of your pantry; we'll get to them in a minute. Do the shelves look empty? Hopefully you still have some good foods – whole wheat cereal, canned vegetables, oatmeal, rice and quinoa.
If you're ready to take your eating plan to the next level and start seeing the fat loss you've been dreaming of, clean eating is going to be a big step in the right direction!
Looking at the food you've taken out of the pantry, think about the similarities in ingredients that are additives - sugar, sodium, modified corn starch, trans fats and all those words you can't even pronounce - and next time you head to the grocery store, stick to the pantry items made only of one ingredient, or don't have any additives. The rest of this blog post gives you some good suggestions for how to re-stock your pantry!
But let's not waste edible food! We want to take steps from "not so great" food choices to the best food choices for a balanced, fat burning diet! Donate these items to your local shelter or soup kitchen. There are many people less fortunate who can put it to good use! Or, if you're not ready to take the plunge just yet - and that's alright, make the commitment to start changing your purchasing habits for the future.
Now to the fridge
Salad dressings, dipping sauces, relish, sugary jams? These items are loaded with sugars, sodium, unhealthy fats and preservatives. They’ve got to go! If you have natural almond butter, eggs, milk, fruit and vegetables…..you’re off to a great start.
Your fridge is going to be well used now. Clean eating includes fresh, wholesome foods. Most of them will be stored in your fridge.
Remember, if you can store food on a shelf, chances are you shouldn't feed it to your body.
Your fridge is going to be well used now. Clean eating includes fresh, wholesome foods. Most of them will be stored in your fridge.
Remember, if you can store food on a shelf, chances are you shouldn't feed it to your body.
Time to go grocery shopping
You’ll be cooking for your family now and eating such amazing food, you’ll forget all about the boxed items you used to eat. First let’s choose some things for your pantry:
- Whole grains: brown or wild rice, quinoa, lentils, barley and oats are excellent choices.
- Canned goods: tomatoes (watch for added sugar), canned fish, beans and legumes, pure pumpkin and coconut milk.
- Condiments: yellow mustard, any spices (watch for sodium levels), balsamic vinegar, salsa (watch for added sugar), tamari and hot sauce.
- Staples: low sodium broths, extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, pure honey and maple syrup, apple sauce, natural almond butter, whole grain rice crackers and unsalted nuts.
- Meat: Lean cuts are always a good choice. Be sure the meat isn’t processed to make it something else – ham, sausage, premade burgers, deli meat, etc. These meats have added ingredients and are processed to make them tasty, but they’re not the best choices for a whole clean diet.
- Dairy: Greek yogurt, eggs, cottage cheese and feta cheese are all good choices. I recommend unsweetened nut milks (sweetened or flavoured skyrocket the ingredient list, sugar content and calorie levels) as a great alternative to dairy milk.
- Produce: There aren’t any bad choices, so try lots of variety and choose some you’ve never tried before. Have you ever eaten a star fruit or eggplant? Pick up some fresh herbs too; they add so much flavour to your cooking.
- Frozen fruit & vegetables are an alternative to fresh if you’re not able to frequent the grocery store as often as you need.
Your grocery cart should look pretty amazing now, full of fresh healthy food. Congratulations, you are ready for clean eating.
Let's use those groceries and start cooking!
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