Clean Eating: More than Just Washing Your Veggies

Is ‘Clean Eating’ the newest fad diet? What exactly does it mean? I wash my produce, and I use clean plates and utensils; does that count as clean eating? Eating Clean means avoiding processed foods and chemicals in the diet and eating whole foods harvested from nature.  In others words, avoiding foods with words that look like something from a science experiment listed in the ingredients.

Nothing about this school of thought is novel in any way.  In fact people ate this way for thousands of years. Clean Eating differs from the Paleo Diet because it does not entail eating like cavemen.  The main purpose behind Clean Eating: avoiding dyes, additives, preservatives and other chemicals added by the food industry to the human diet.  Time and time again we hear how initially a chemical was deemed safe then ten or fifteen years later evidence surfaces tying it to adverse health effects.  For example, Bisphenol-A, otherwise known as BPA, was thought to be safe and used in food packaging to the point it was put in baby bottles, now researchers say BPA mimics estrogen in the body and increases the risk of numerous cancers.  Another example it sucralose (Splenda), researchers claimed it a safe calorie free alternative to sugar but newer studies link it to several diseases like irritable bowel disease and leukemia just to name a couple.

Why take the risk? Who wants to put chemicals, some with known health risks, into their bodies?  The solution is simple, only eat foods which you recognize all the ingredients on the label or by whole foods like rice, flour, quinoa, tomatoes, etc and cook from scratch at home.  Yes, it can be time consuming but women all over the world recognize the dangers of these foreign ingredients and have made the switch.  Finding fast and easy recipes is easy especially when using the internet and with cites like Pinterest, AllRecipes.com, the Food Network and many more.  You can also purchase clean eating menus with grocery lists already written out from websites like eMeals.

Like any other lifestyle change, take it slowly.  Start by eating clean for dinner twice a week then slowly increase as you learn what works for you.  Think of it as an enlightening journey allowing yourself to experiment new grains, vegetables, spices and cooking methods.  Plan out your meals; this saves time (only one trip to the grocery store), money (you only get what you need), and helps with weight loss and maintenance (more whole foods and less refine grains and sugars).

Know what you put in your body.  Nourishing yourself with wholesome produce, fueling whole grains, powerful proteins and solidifying calcium will have you feeling energetic and healthy.  You will notice a difference, a positive difference.

References

http://www.cspinet.org/reports/chemcuisine.htm#sucralose