Wanting to Try Eating Clean.

Try a website called heavenlyhomemakers.com. It is a great website and she has tons of recipes. Everything is made from scratch. She even has snacks on there.

Hi M.!

Ive been trying to do the same. The trick so far is to put foods together with limited ingredients that are unprocessed. There is a magazine I LOVE called Clean Eating - you can find copies at Whole Foods or NewFlower Market, or at www.cleaneatingmag.com. They do product comparisons and have dozens of good and easy recipes.

I hope this helps! Good luck and Happy New Year!
A.

What a great resolution. I also try to eat unprocessed foods and what I do is just read the ingredients list and not buy anything with hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup. I much prefer whole fats and plain sugar to these two items. Granted that there's more to eating well than these two things, but I find that when I pick out foods that meet this requirement, the other ingredients tend to be more 'wholesome' as well. But, resist the temptation to be 100% or nothing! Give yourself a break if you don't always buy these kids of foods. If you set a goal to "eat clean" most of the time, you have a good shot at being very successful. Don't give up because you bought something you just plain like and it has a no-no ingredient. :) Give yourself permission to give in now and then.

As for snack ideas, here are a few:
Hummus (very easy and cheap to make your own), eat with pita bread, crackers, Wheat Thins, etc
Kashi bars
Fruit
Chips and salsa (especially good with chopped up avocado)
Yogurt
Peanut butter on bread or apples
Trail mix
Cookies (yup, I see some kinds as health food!)

reading lables is a good way, start slow (so you can stick to it) by getting rid of pocessed snacks, then do a meal a week and so on

i found initally this to be very difficult and expensive. I have learned that you can do it cheaper not everything that is prepackaged is filled with junk. look for fruit packed in juice, pudding with corn syrup, most potato chips that are plain are clean potatos, salt, and sunflower oil. It doesn't have to always be organic either a vegetable is still better than a twinkie. If your really worried about the enviromental working group has a list of the clean 15 (dont bother with organic) and the dirty dozen (always buy organic)

i have always been a prety thin yet healthy person, then 6 yrs ago i had my son and depression set in and has been hiting hard ever since, therefore i ate a lot more junk than usual. well this past may i went on vacation and started eating very healthy and havent looked back. ive changed everything to organics, chicken, fish, watching my sugars very close, msg's, dyes, sodium especially...and i tell ya, makes such a difference. everything is fresh, not frozen...well with the exception of a few things but not much. snacking was a real problem for me, but ive foud that health bars (check the ingredients closely) nuts (certain nuts and check their labels as well) fresh veggies, fruits with low sugars, etc etc. work wonders. i recently posted about fasting, im not fasting to lose lbs upon lbs, its mainly just a cleansing that im wanting to do. so with a healthy fasting (yes there is a healthy way to fast, but not weeks upon weeks like some would expect) and maintaining a healthy diet, i will continue forth to my goal.
There are sooo many good ideas that the ladies have suggested, i would take a little from everyone (yea a lot to take in) and apply it to your daily routine. It will be hard at first, but you will fel so amazing once it starts really working for you.
Much luck and wishing you a very blessed New year!!!

You could try not replacing the snacky type food stuff with anything. It use to be we ate at meal times and that was it. If that's too cold turkey for you, have yogurt, fresh fruits and veggie sticks on hand.

I came across a local news food article that cracked me up:
http://www.dailypress.com/features/family/dp-ugly-ducklin...

I expected sardines, cabbage, beets, Brussles sprouts and the like. But their item number 6 made me do a double take - crickets and grasshoppers.
Apparently they are an excellent source of protein, calcium and iron.

I couldn't help the other questions that came to my mind:

Does PETA know about this? Does insect count as a meat and what wine would go with that? Where does one find recipes for grasshopper/cricket? What does it take to start a grasshopper/cricket farm, and can I get a government subsidy for doing so? Is it Kosher and/or Halal? How the heck does the FDA grade/inspect insects as a food source? Is it a problem if you have a roach infestation on the side? USDA Grade A Grasshopper is one label I'd have to read over several times and then I still would have a hard time believing it. How many crickets in a single serving? Are they high in cholesterol? OK, they are probably easier to grow than a cow or a goat, and most likely they don't use hormones or antibiotics on insects and I'm not sure what problems surround the processing of droppings (manure). Ooo - free range grasshoppers! Do they qualify as organic? Must they be treated humanely and what is the approved slaughtering process?
Please - somebody help me - I can't stop laughing!

Hello M.,

Looks like you may want to find a few health-offending-items and drop them from your diet. How about these four:

1. MSG (monosodium glutamate)
2. High Fructose Corn Syrup
3. Hydrogenated anything
4. Diet sugars

You may want to consider a few organic items... but do it when you're ready. Good luck! ~C.~

M.,
You've gotten some good advice. I would just add that treat yourself and family to some homemade desserts once in awhile. I convert all the recipes to make them more healthful, for example, when I make pumpkin pie, I make sure I use a good quality sugar and and fat free evaporated milk. You can even make it without the crust. My family likes this pie better than any other pumpkin pie.
Also, be careful with bottled dressings and sauces. It is hard to find them without high fructose corn syrup.
Congratulations on making such a great choice for your family!
Victoria

try keeping a food journal for one week. don't edit what you eat. be honest about how many chips you eat in one sitting. then look back at what you could change. one summer for a health reason, i cut all MSG out of my diet and trust me that was harder than it sounds. it's in everything! you have to know what your limits are for what you want to do. i personally am a vegetarian and love it, but could never be a vegan or purely organic. i know my limits.

I too have been trying to focus on "clean" eating, cooking more for my family, getting away from processed foods. I found a cookbook on Amazon.com that has been really great - it's call The Squeaky Gourmet: Simple, Clean Food. The recipes are surprisingly simple and my family has been happy with the ones I have fixed - especially the Western States Chili and (believe it or not) the roasted broccoli. I believe the woman who wrote it also has a website and/or blog about clean eating. I think she's got some of her recipes up there so you can try them. Good luck - baby steps!

One simple thing to do is to check your labels. Anything that has High Fructose Corn Syrup as and ingredient (HFCS) is usually junk. Just cut that out of your diet and replace with "healthier" choices. It takes some time but your body will crave the salt and sweets less once you get that out of your system. And cut out all soda, regular and diet.

There aren't a lot of healthy and quick snacks out there to choose from. A good place to start might be to just start reading the ingredients. Avoid things like MSG, Polysorbates, trans fats, to name just a few. Choose products with normal basic ingredients and less mystery materials. For snacking, try cereal bars, popcorn, or nuts, raisens, cut veggies. 10 and 12 is a good age to start learning to bake (whether they're boys or girls). Maybe if they want cookies they have to make them homemade (yum!). Make triple batches and freeze them so they're available when the craving hits. Cutting out the processed junk food might end up saving you a lot of money, it's expensive to manufacture all those toxins into food-like substances.

Chances are that you're eating the junk because you're hungry, it's easy, and it's yummy. To successfully cut this stuff out of your diet you'll need to consume something else instead to satisfy those cravings. In a healthy diet, fruits and veggies should dominate every meal, so maybe start there. Force yourself to eat a piece of fruit every time you reach for a ding dong. That way maybe you'll eat just one ding dong, instead of several. Calories from fruit are far more satisfying to your body and eventually you'll find yourself craving the junk less often.

Good luck!