One Simple Thing: Eat Simply & Clean

Have you ever looked at the ingredient list for a food that you know requires only a few ingredients, yet the list goes on and on with many items that you can't even pronounce? Let's take bread, for example.  To make bread, you typically need flour, water, sugar, salt, oil and yeast. Yet, here is the list of ingredients for a very common loaf of bread:

Whole wheat flour, water, wheat gluten, high fructose corn syrup, contains 2 percent or less of: soybean oil, salt, molasses, yeast, mono and diglycerides, exthoxylated mono and diglycerides, dough conditioners (sodium stearoyl lactylate, calcium iodate, calcium dioxide), datem, calcium sulfate, vinegar, yeast nutrient (ammonium sulfate), extracts of malted barley and corn, dicalcium phosphate, diammonium phosphate, calcium propionate (to retain freshness).

Pretty scary, right? It's especially frightening since our bodies simply don't know what to do with most of the synthetic "stuff" that is added to our food to give it a decent shelf-life. Spell check doesn't recognize most of these ingredients, so how is your body supposed to deal with them?

So I'll bet you're wondering if I'm going to ask you to make your own bread and just dreading how to find the time in your day for that. Not quite. 

First, let's just establish an awareness of how many synthetic ingredients you rely on in a typical day. For one day, I want you to look at the ingredients list of the foods you eat. Write down everything you eat for the day, and if the food has more than 5 ingredients, place an x next to that food. 

After the day is done, look at your list and see what percentage of the foods you listed have an x next to them. Is it more than half? Then I'd say we have some work to do! I like to try to keep my percentage of "x's," or overly processed food, to under 20 percent. Of course having none would be ideal, but I have to be realistic with what I juggle in any given day. I will say that the more you work on this, the more easily you can replace processed foods with delicious whole foods. And I don't miss the majority of the processed stuff for a single second.

On the following day, see if you can't make any simple substitutions for some of your processed items.  For example, instead of having cheese and crackers as a snack, switch it out with celery and hummus, apple slices and raw nuts, or a hard boiled egg and orange. 

Now for the big challenge.... I want you to try for an entire day to eat ONLY food that contains 5 or fewer ingredients on the label. I know it might sound overwhelming, but I think we all can do just about anything for a single day! By doing this, you'll get a taste of the concept of eating clean, and hopefully start to work it into your daily meals little by little. Remember, it's not about a drastic overhaul, but instead to focus on having todays that have improved over your yesterdays. 

Here are a few sample meals & snacks if you need a little inspiration:

Veggie omelet (Start with whole eggs, and add any veggies)

Grilled chicken breast over spinach salad with black beans and onions.  Dress the salad with olive oil and red wine or balsamic vinegar.

Smoothie using fresh fruit and unsweetened greek yogurt

Grilled wild-caught fish and sweet potato

Also, let me clarify. Just because we're eating foods that have fewer than 5 ingredients does not mean that you can't enjoy recipes that have many ingredients. As long as those ingredients are whole foods, you are still eating clean. I've provided some very simple meal ideas above, but feel free to add some mango chutney to your fish or coat the chicken with a lemon rosemary marinade, for example.

If you choose to eat this way, I want you to pay attention to how you feel. You should feel noticeably better. After all, you're giving you body the nutrients that nature intended. If you decide to continue to try to eat this way, let me recommend some of favorite books on this topic:

Food Rules by Michael Pollan: a useful guide for being mindful of the foods you eat

The Eat-Clean Diet by Tosca Reno: Don't be confused by the title... this is not a "diet" but rather a sensible approach to eating whole foods.  Tosca teaches you how to cut out all of the processed food in favor of fresh, whole foods. 

Super Natural Cooking by Heidi Swanson: Learn how to start incorporating more healthful, better tasting ingredients into your everyday cooking.  She starts by helping you build a natural foods pantry, and then shares some delicious recipes using these staples.

Elaina Smith is the owner of Studio One to One, a personal training studio offering customized fitness solutions in Milton, GA. For more information, visit www.studio-onetoone.com or call (678) 367-3619.