How to eat clean | clean eating tips

Benefits of clean eating

If you’d like to improve your diet in order to make at much healthier and easier on your digestive system, you may consider starting eating clean. Clean eating is quite an amazing concept that, in fact, makes our food and nutrition much simpler and much more natural.

It brings people closer to their natural way of eating, which involves minimum of preliminary processing, virtual absence of inorganic stuff in our diet, consuming fresh or home-cooked meals that is highly beneficial for our bodies and preserves vitamins and minerals its ingredients contain.

If you eat clean, you become less dependent on those pre-prepared food ‘containers’ from stores you heat up in your microwave and consume just to satisfy your hunger.

You become more cautious about what you put into your body. You avoid things and chemicals you don’t really eat. You make choices that allow you to know what exactly you consume and where it comes from.

And, the greatest thing is that if you follow this lifestyle diligently, you’ll improve your health and you’ll understand that cooking at home is not difficult at all. You’ll learn to experiment with recipes, you’ll enjoy the variety of food and you’ll even be able to lose weight and contribute to the world’s eco safety. Isn’t that amazing?

So, if you’re interested in changing your eating habits for better, let’s see what might help you start eating clean. (Note: it’s a universal guide for all main types of diets, so might include meat, dairy and other non-vegetarian or non-vegan products.)

Clean eating tips

1. Most people think that clean eating is rather difficult to follow. However, if you chose unprocessed and minimally processed foods that contain fewer calories, organic foods that have no chemicals in it, introduce more fruit and vegetables into your diet and simplify the meals you consume, you don’t have to count your calories as much as you would before.
   Just stuff your shopping cart with whole foods that mainly consist of one-two ingredients and you’ll be surprised at how much you can do with them and how much money you save on groceries.
2. So, chose whole foods. Those are the foods that don’t feature the ‘ingredients’ label at all or have simple and natural ingredients.
   You don’t have to stuff your fridge with fruit and vegetables only. If it fits your lifestyle, you may buy raw organic meat/fish, eggs, milk, yogurt and cheese at the store.
   But if you grab something from the shelve in the store and you don’t know what this or that ingredient it’s made of is – just toss it away and move on.
3. Chose foods in their natural form. Apples instead of apple sauce or juice with sugar, non-refined grains instead of box of sweet cereal, tomatoes and not pasta sauce, whole milk but not pasteurized.
   This doesn’t limit your food choice at all. For instance, even bread and pasta fit the clean eating concept. But whole-wheat instead of ordinary refined ones.
4. Make sure that you consume the amount of healthy fats, carbs and proteins your body requires every single day. Control the amount of salt and sugar in your diet. It depends on your lifestyle, age and many other factors, so it’s better to talk to a nutritionist to figure out the best diet option for you.
   Go to HireRush.com to find one in your local area. Or, you may just leave a job task on the website describing what you want to change and what you want to talk about. And, a local pro will contact you himself.  Post a task now
5. Substitute saturated fats (like in fried foods, ‘typical’ snacks – chips, cookies, most ‘typical’ desserts, etc.) with healthy ones. They are highly beneficial for your heart and circulatory system.
   Nuts (almonds, peanuts), seeds, extra virgin olive oil high-medium fat fish (salmon, herring), oysters, coconut oil and avocados contain them.
6. Eat less, but more frequently. 5-6 small meals a day will do. This will improve your metabolism drastically.
   This is also the way to teach your body that you’re going to provide it with the right amount of good stuff regularly and that it doesn’t need to lay something ‘in stock’ on your sides and stomach.
7. Cook your meals at home. Prepare snacks and lunches to take them to work. Chose simple clean recipes that involve minimum heat treatment. Plan your meals for a week and buy all your groceries according to it. Concentrate on seasonal fruits and vegetables.
   Turn your fruits into healthy and delicious desserts. Don’t use flour and products based on refined grains (like white bread, pasta, white rice, etc.) Check out a couple of simple, yet delicious clean eating recipes on Cookinglight.com.
8. If you’re struggling during the transition period, stick to 80/20 rule. That’s when you maintain 80% of your diet completely clean, but allow yourself a cheat – like a sweet dessert every once in a while.
   But try to keep this sneaky meals or snacks as healthy as possible. For instance, opt for a sorbet instead of regular sugary and chemically ice-cream.