'Clean Eating' - What's your version?
Define clean eating? What is it?
Cleaneating.com defines this ‘concept’ as: ‘The soul of clean eating is consuming food in its most natural state, or as close to it as possible. It is not a diet; it's a lifestyle approach’.
So there you have it – the definition for clean eating.
So now I have an exercise for you. Lets explore some different foods and determine which is clean and which is not. Please write down the ‘number’ of which foods you think are CLEAN.
(1) Home made pizza (flour base) with fresh tomato sauce, meat, vegetables and cheese
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(2) Home made cauliflower crust pizza with fresh tomato sauce, vegetables, chicken breast and cashew cheese
(3) A bowl of regular pasta with homemade bolognaise (lean meat) sauce and cheese
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(4) A bowl of raw zucchini pasta with homemade tomato sauce, tofu, herbs and spices and cottage cheese (or cashew cheese)
(5) Home made lean beef burgers (with bread), cheese, egg, salad and homemade chutney
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(6) Home made lean beef burgers (with Portobello mushrooms as bun), roasted sweet potato, eggplant, zucchini & homemade chutney
(7) Apple and berry muffins made with organic butter
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(8) Flourless chocolate protein muffins made with coconut oil
So, which of these are ‘clean’ and the other not? Figured it out yet? Well with the current ‘trends’ of what is considered ‘clean’ foods I bet most of you wrote down the numbers: 2, 4, 6 & 8. I know that’s what I would have done! Which brings me to the question – What is wrong with the other foods? Why are they not considered ‘clean’ too? There is homemade pizza, a bowl of spaghetti bolognaise, burgers and homemade muffins! These are all comfort foods and childhood favourites, something our parents would cook us when we were younger because it was nutritious and provided us with the energy we needed as active children. So why now are these old classics being branded as ‘unclean?’ The examples I provided are all ‘homemade’ recipes, so again, let us explore what clean eating really means and see if our classic comfort foods can fit into our clean eating lifestyle.
Clean eating involves consuming foods which are:
Wholesome
Chemical free
Homemade
Wholesome: Essentially this involves eating foods and using ingredients that are in their most ‘natural’ form – i.e. not eating processed cr*p out of a packet! Choose rolled oats & make your own muesli instead of buying corn flakes and coco pops. Make your banana muffins with fresh bananas, organic butter (or oil) and honey, instead of buying quick packet mix muffins.
Chemical Free: Well this is an easy one. Again this just relates to going ‘back to basics’ and gathering ingredients in their most ‘natural’ state. If you purchase something in a packet, look at the back at the ingredients list and if there are a bunch of words there you can’t pronounce out loud, then DON’T BUY IT! Artificial chemicals and preservatives are doing our bodies a HUGE disservice and we are just asking for health problems later on down the track by ingesting them on a regular basis.
Homemade: Make everything yourself! That way you know exactly what is going in your food. No need for food labels with 100 different ingredients and chemicals. Now I do understand that in our ‘fast paced’ society that making everything from scratch is near impossible. However, the best way to eat healthy, wholesome food 90% of the time is to dedicate a good chunk of time once a week to do ‘food prep’ for the coming week. Bake a large amount of various foods and freeze them to quickly grab throughout the week. Visit my 'healthy meals' tab for ideas.
So now I have gone through clean eating as consuming ‘wholesome, chemical free and homemade’ foods, there is nothing to say that making yourself a nice tasty pizza with a thin crispy flour base and hot spaghetti bolognaise with fresh tomatoes, basil and light cheese are ‘unclean’. Sure, it’s not exactly healthy to eat a bowl of pasta three times a day, but neither is consuming zucchini pasta with tofu! Everything needs to be eaten in moderation.
So, to wrap up it’s time to remove this ‘stigma’ that clean eating is all about staying away from foods that we once used to eat because we enjoyed it and it was good for us. As far as I’m concerned as long as a meal is made with wholesome, fresh and chemical free ingredients, then no matter what you are whipping up in the kitchen, it’s going to be ‘clean’.
