Tips on Clean Eating

Tips on Eating Clean
1)Keep your pantry and your recipes stocked.
• If you are going to live without temptation you had better keep your house full of nutritious foods you can feel great about eating and snacking on.
• I look for new recipes daily. Learn how to take a recipe you find interesting and modify it to what you can have. Find a great chili recipe, and use some other veggies instead of beans etc.
2) Pre-Cook
• Spend some time Sunday making 2-3 meals that will last for the week. This will cut down your cooking time during the week and save you that thought on the way home “what am I going to make tonight?”
3) Cook more than you need
• Going off the last item, when you cook more, you have left overs. Yumm!
• Don’t keep food you don’t want to eat in your house
• Keeping unhealthy food in your house where you can be tempted to eat it is a no no. Keep it out of your house and you’ll never have an issue.
4)Utilize Tupperware
• Get lots of sturdy Tupperware to keep all your pre cooked meals and leftovers in.
5) Get a food processor and a Crockpot
• I use my food processor almost every day whether I am making paleo ice cream or pesto sauce or baking
• I use my Crockpot at least once a week. It’s easy, it saves time, and it’s delicious.
6)Keep clean snacks on hand… just in case
• Nuts, fruit, veggies, beef jerky….. keep safe food close to you in times of supreme hunger or change of plans happen
7) Learn to use spices
• Changing the way you eat, means learning a new way to cook… or learning how to cook in the first place.
8 Learn to cook!
• Eating clean involves rethinking how you cook food as well as how you eat food. Once you realize how many options you really have, you will love the variety of veggies, fruits, and how creative you can get in the kitchen.
• Take a cooking class if you are seriously deficient in this area.
9)Create your menu for the week
• Spend some time researching recipes for your week’s menu before you go to the grocery store and buy food for the week. This makes shopping easier and more purposeful. And will save you extra trips.
10) Choose free range and grass fed meat whenever possible
• http://www.eatwild.com/basics.html
11)Craving something? Find a recipe and modify and experiment
• Try out your kitchen skills by finding paleo versions of recipes you love on the internet, or finding a recipe you love and modifying it to your new way of eating.
12) Love to bake?:
• Discover Honeyville blanched Almond Flour and www.elanaspantry.com
• Just be cautious, don’t be going crazy with muffins and cakes and agave nectar. Especially no agave nectar if you are doing your 30 days.
Eating out? Use caution, willpower, and authority
• Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want! If you don’t see it on the menu, ask if they can make it. Now I’m not talking about asking for some random thing, be reasonable here.
• Find something on the menu that you can modify to your liking. Sometimes there isn’t much. Most places have chicken breasts and can cook one up for you separately if its not on the menu.
• Obviously if you are out you are at the mercy of that kitchen, but sometimes you have to compromise. For example, I go to a networking every week at a restaurant and I usually order some kind of chicken breast sandwich without the bun or cheese and ask for fruit, veggies or salad on the side.
• I always bring nuts or fruit or something with me just in case.
• I always order something off the menu. It is debatable to me whether it is ruder to go to a restaurant and not order food or to bring some “extra snacks” and order off the menu and be the crazy person with all the modifications. So, I always go with the second one and I always leave a nice tip.
12) Eat Local
• Find the farmers markets in town and get your meats and produce there.
• There are some great resources for getting local and in season foods like Door to Door organics and Grant Family Farms here in fort Collins
• Get really local and grow your own garden!