My Clean Eating Kitchen

Well, whilst the results of this week are flooding in, I thought I might take the time to comment on Clean Eating, after my post about Macronutritients.

Macronutrients are about what classification or broad category of food we put in our bodies, but you will hear a lot of talking about Clean Eating. 
"Clean Eating means to eat foods that are as close to their natural state as possible, and avoid foods that are highly processed and loaded with preservatives.  This unclean way of eating overloads the liver and digestive system making it difficult for the body to function to the best of its abilty."  (Clean Eating Recipes App)
So clean eating helps to cover the Micronutrient aspects of nutrition - ensuring that you don't clog your body with preservatives, refined flours, sugar etc, and focusses on raw, fresh, whole foods.

I've been trying to eat this way for some time - and above is a photo of a typical lunch for me (well not so typical if you know me as I don't usually eat much red meat, but today I just happened to).  And this year I've really been trying to tighten up on it further by cutting out sugar, and eating more raw food/whole grains with the help of my new Vitamix.

So this year, I cleaned up my pantry to turn it into a "clean eating" pantry. There is a Clean Eating Recipe App available for your phone - and it also has a list of foods that would be found in a clean eating pantry - so I followed this to fine tune what I already had.  So here's what my pantry and fridge look like now:

 

Yes, I have a lot of tupperware!  The top couple of shelves are devoted to grains and flours: quinoa, barley, rye, oats, wheat flours, spelt flour, coconut flour, quinoa flour etc, and then polenta, cous, cous,chick peas, broad beans, rice, etc. Then there are shelves stocked with dried fruit, nuts and seeds

Then canned foods, and condiments, and on the bottom shelf the big container is my concession to Tessa, where she keeps her "snacks" for school, and my coffee pods for the Nespresso.

The fridge has dairy and some leftovers on the top two shelves, and then its brimming with fruit and veg which I have trouble keeping up a sufficient supply.  And yes, in the bottom corner there is a box of Favourites that was given to us and I've been harping at my hubby to finish off!

 

So what's in your fridge and pantry - but more importantly, what's in yours that doesn't feature in mine?  Should it be there if you want to eat healthily?  One of the things we look for at the health service is the percentage of unhealthy foods displayed in our kiosks and vending machines. The rule of thumb is no more than 20%  What percentage of space is consumed by things that are not the best choices and vice versa - can you change this and help both yourself and your family?

 

Just some "food for thought" on a Saturday morning.  If you don't see the results you want this morning - perhaps a stocktake is in order?