What is Clean Eating?

What Is Clean Eating?

Clean eating is a “buzz” phrase for what so many people are doing now. You may have heard it tossed around in talking with friends, on TV,  in blogs you read or in magazines. It is a way of cooking like our parents and grandparents did with less processed foods and more whole foods.  I’m sharing a series on how to begin a plant based, whole foods lifestyle. Eating this way is much more healthy for our bodies.  The series begin today and will be weekly, so you may want to bookmark them for future reference!  Beginning a clean, plant based, whole foods lifestyle will help in so many ways.

Check out WHY you should want to think about clean eating:

To me, clean eating means choosing to stop eating foods that are bad for our body.   It is getting rid of processed foods and eating more plant based.   The best part about clean eating is that it is healthy!  If you have some weight to lose, you may just find that a few of those extra pounds begin to fall off eating clean and plant based.

Clean eating is NOT about going vegetarian or vegan!   You can eat animal products that are organic, grass fed, range grown, etc if you choose to eat animal products.

When you practice this way of eating, it means that you pay attention to the food that you put in your body. You make sure that the foods that you eat are whole foods that have limited or no processing at all.

Clean eating is just eating foods as nature made them and nature doesn’t put things in cans!  Foods that are processed contain a whole lot of additives and preservatives to keep the food fresh enough to be eaten even years down the road. While that might make the food last, these additives can derail your health.  You will not be choosing processed food when you eat clean. Processed foods contain chemicals so that the food tastes better. Some of them have a lot of salt, enough to fulfill a whole day’s sodium intake, to preserve the food, which isn’t good for our health!

Processed foods also have artificial flavoring and/or coloring in the foods. For example, not all the roast beef that you buy packaged in the lunch meat area naturally looks that way.   Coloring is added to give it the look of roast beef and freshness. Every food that you eat that’s in boxes, cans or jars has been processed in some way. That means that it’s not the healthiest choice to put into your body.  Many of these additives contribute to health problems later in life. All you have to do is read the labels to see what some of these additives are. Look them up and you’ll see exactly what they are and how they can affect your body, then cut as many as possible out of your diet.

This blog is about dairy-free and gluten-free eating.  But we are also going more “clean” based.  So you will find recipes with less preservatives, additives and fillers in our recipes.   We hope you like the new healthy direction our blog is going to be taking.  We will continue to have fish recipes and a few other animal based recipes.  The animal products will lean towards organic grass fed beef and organic open range chicken.

I’m not saying we will stop altogether using canned or bottled products.   But we plan to be more mindful and check ingredients when purchasing.   We can try to be as healthy as possible even when purchasing packaged foods.  Stay tuned for weekly posts on transitioning into eating plant based whole foods and recipes!

Do you have some suggestions for Clean Foods recipes you would like?  Let me know in the comments.