"Eating Clean - What Does it Mean?"Eating “clean” sounds weird, right? What does this mean? Well, basically, it means eating healthy food. This isn’t a diet, this is a way of life. You can use it as a diet though. The benefits of eating clean are numerous and include increased energy, fat loss, clearer skin, improved mental well-being, shinier hair and better sleep.

EatingClean : Basic Principles

  • Avoid processed foods

What are processed foods? When you buy products from the market, they usually have a label. On the label you can see a number of ingredients. Processed foods have lots of ingredients. Don’t put away every processed food. For example, you can still eat natural cheese and whole grain pasta. If while scrutinizing the label you come across an ingredient that you can’t pronounce, you had better not buy that product.

  • Eat whole foods

As you may have assumed, whole foods are unprocessed foods. Basically, such foods come straight from the farm. They are whole grains, fruit and vegetables, unsalted seeds and nuts, dairy products, etc.

  • Cook your own food

Even though some labels claim the products are healthy, this may not be true. If you want to make sure that the food you eat is really nutritious, avoid buying food in boxes. Preparing your own meals is not that hard. In fact you need little preparation apart from chopping and stewing.

  • Have four or five meals a day

Having 4 or 5 small meals a day is better than eating two huge bowls of spaghetti or a pizza for dinner. When you eat small portions of food every few hours, you will avoid getting hungry and eating the wrong kind of food. This way you won’t feel deprived and there will be no need to cheat.

  • Eliminate refined sugar

Sugar is often defined as the white poison and this is not by chance. It comes in many forms but it has the same bad effects every time. Sugar makes your body produce extra quantities of insulin, raises triglycerides, slows the immune system, damages teeth and is highly addictive. These are just a couple of the damages it can cause.

If you want to eat clean, you need to eliminate refined sugar. There is no point in eating whole grains, fruit and vegetables, dairy products and anything from the farm if you add sugar to them. There are many other alternatives to sugar. The market offers other sweeteners that will work just as great, only they are healthier.

So when you choose to eat “clean” you need to eliminate all extra additives and processed foods from your diet. If you want to take up eating “clean” as a new concept in life, you can start by eating larger quantities of fruit and vegetables. Basically, you ought to avoid food that has been processed in any way.

Don’t exclude meat from your diet. Make sure you prepare it yourself so that you know what ingredients you put inside. You can pick up “whole”, healthy meet from your butcher.

Later on you can to add whole grains to your diet. Make sure you always read the labels on products. Companies often mark their products as “healthy”, “eco” or “natural”, but it doesn’t mean that the food inside the box is really natural. You will be surprised by the amount of ingredients and additives that these “healthy” products include.

Last but not least, don’t eat too many ingredients. The purpose of eating “clean” is to make your food as simple as possible.

 

Author Bio: Connie Jameson is passionate about everything related to organic lifestyle and green living. That’s why she works for HireHouseCleaner South East London, who use only eco cleaning methods.