Clean Eating

The husband and I have started to eat clean (or as clean as we can without going completely overboard... for example, we don't make our own cheese or cut our own meat, or anything along those lines). But basically we go by this quote that I heard recently "If it was grown on a plant, eat it. If it was made in a plant, avoid it". Clean eating cuts out all of the processed foods and preservatives. It doesn't cut down on flavor or things you can cook. it just changes the way you make your food and the way you eat. We now eat a lot of whole grain products, we eat a lot of fresh veggies, and we are cooking almost every night at home. I am trying to make sure we have lots of protein in our foods. I am also watching carbs on top of it all.

So the hunt as been on for meals and snacks that are clean and low carb. It has been fun and difficult all at once! Everything is new to us. I likened it to when we switched grocery stores last year. We switched from the grocery store we had been going to since we moved to this house 3 1/2 years ago (then it was 2 1/2 years) to another grocery store. When we came to this new grocery store we felt lost. We had no idea where to find certain items and it was hard to get used to. We were so tempted to go back to our other store, but then it started to get easier. We learned where we could find things in the store, and we now feel like we are used to the store. When it comes to eating, we were so used to eating the food we had all of our lives. We aren't going to be used to this change over night. For Jeff, he was brought up on meat and potatoes. What was made was what you ate. I was brought up on Pennsylvania Dutch foods. Lots of pot pies, casseroles, carbs, carbs, carbs. It isn't something that is going to change overnight. But as we make recipes we see what we like and don't like and we will begin to find a base of foods we like and will make regularly.

It has been an interesting week and a half of food so far. It has been expensive as we build the things we need in the house to make regular meals. It has been excited to try new meals, disappointing when we find meals we don't like that we really hoped we would like (like the chicken and dumplings that we made last week... yuck) but we've found some that we do like.

So here we go on this journey to change our lifestyle. I am going to try to take a picture of each meal and give a review on the meal. If we like it, I will include the recipe so that you can enjoy it as well. I am also going to post our weekly dinner menu. If you see something you would like to try and I haven't included the recipe, please feel free to send a message and ask! Not everyone's tastes are the same.

I was also told that if we were successful 90% of the time, then that is considered successful. We aren't always going to be able to eat clean (like when we go to family's house. We have no desire to dictate what they cook! Or when I am craving chocolate because I just can't give that up!).

So on top of life and exercise (which has been lacking the last few days!), I will be hopefully blogging about food.