Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Clean eating


Do you find yourself eating healthy all week and then something happens (you’re stressed, you’re bored, you’re having that time of the month, you’re out with your friends) and all your healthy clean eating flies out the window! You end up eating your week’s worth of calories in one night, and instantly feel regret.

How can we prevent things like this happening? We need to focus our attention on controlling exactly what goes into our mouths. Creating healthier alternatives for ourselves by substituting bad ingredients with good ingredients.

One of the biggest obstacles when it comes to nutrition is training your taste buds to clean eating. Many people hesitate to start cleaning up their diets because they think it’s going to be boring and bland.  But in reality, it doesn’t have to be like that at all. You just need to be more creative and put some thought into your food intake process. You can cook the same recipes that you love and make it “clean” by substituting the bad stuff with good.

This is a list of healthy substitutes to start you off –
Don’t sacrifice the taste, substitute the ingredient!

Instead of milk chocolate try carob or dark chocolate
Instead of white bread switch to whole wheat, multi, rye bread, sourdough
Instead of salad dressing try vinegar, lemon or olive oil
Instead of soda drink sparkling water or H2coco coconut water
Instead of chips have air popped pop corn
Instead of refined pasta try whole wheat or quinoa pasta
Instead of calorie filled cookies TRY my healthy cookie recipe below
Try and grill and bake instead of fry

To eat clean we really just need to start paying attention to our food. Start reading your labels. Eat organic as much as possible. It may take some time to change your habits and train your taste buds, but soon enough it will become your second nature.

If you are one of those people that stocks your pantry full of chips and chocolate, you will need to find healthier alternatives. Try setting aside one day in the week where you hit your kitchen and cook up some healthy alternatives. Bake a batch of my cookies below, air pop some pop corn. Put these in your pantry and replace the bad stuff. When you next have your ‘moment’ of needing something bad, you will have something that is still tasty but will not be filled with unnecessary calories that will leave you feeling guilty.
Also look in your healthy aisle at your local supermarket and I’m sure you can find a ‘healthier’ alternatives to buy than what you’re currently eating.

My guilt free chocolate chip cookie receipe
I’ve substituted some ingredients and created this recipe for a healthy alternative to eating those calorie filled cookies. Now you can enjoy your cookie without feeling the guilt after.

What you need
1/3 cup cooked oats
3 tbsp. agave nectar or honey
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (no high fructose! no hydrogenated oils!)

What to do
1. Mix everything (except the chocolate chips)
2. Slowly mix in chocolate chips (the warm oats will melt your chips if you mix too much)
3. Place spoonful on baking paper lined
4. Bake at 180 for 15-20mins (depends how soft you like your cookies)

Remember, these cookies are healthy so the texture will be a little different with the oatmeal as the base. This receipie is for a small batch so feel free to increase measurements. Enjoy :)

No comments:

Post a Comment