Clean eating is a simple, inexpensive way to eat healthy. Because it’s good for the body and easy to do, the popularity of this eating plan continues to rise. The basic concept behind clean eating is based on guidelines that anyone can adhere to.
You start by making sure that the foods you have for your snacks and all of your meals are natural ones. You would pick food items that are as close to the way that they were made in nature over picking foods that are processed.
When foods are processed, you can usually tell by the packaging. These items will usually be in cans or boxes. If it has an ingredient label with more than one or two items, then it’s usually processed.
To avoid processed foods, look for items that are found in your produce section such as leafy green vegetables and fruits. Non-processed foods are ones that are brought to the store in the same state in which they were grown.
They’re not put in cans or covered in preservatives or anything additional. When you’re following a clean eating plan, you’ll want to make sure your menus are based on unrefined foods.
Refined foods are foods that have been changed from the way they were grown into something where the makeup of the original isn’t the same. For example, white rice was changed from its original state of brown rice.
You want your diet to be filled with whole grains as much as possible. This means that you should eat things like brown rice or legumes. Some people are addicted to sugar but sugar isn’t good for you and when you’re on a clean eating plan, it’s best to avoid it.
You can have sweets in place of sugar such as honey. Don’t skip out on the protein. You need that for healthy muscles plus, it gives you the energy that your body requires. You can eat smaller portions of protein throughout the day and in many different forms such as beans or poultry.
You also need healthy fats like olive oil in your clean eating diet. You need to pay attention to the amount of salt in your diet. You’ll usually be able to limit your intake of salt once you stop eating processed foods.
When you choose clean eating, the food is in a natural state which doesn’t contain all the additives that processed foods have. It’s these additives that can negatively impact your health.
You’ll want to spread your meals out over the course of the day rather than having three large meals. For some people, this will mean making sure they add filling snacks in between meals.