We have just started a New Year, and you may be one of many who make New Year’s resolutions. One typical resolution is to “eat healthier.” Regardless of the month of the year, improving our eating habits to be healthier overall is a great resolution to make at any time.
You might have heard the term clean eating. What exactly does it mean? To put it simply, clean eating means eating food in its purest, most unprocessed state, whenever possible. An example would be eating whole grain oats instead of pulverized oats with added sugars, like in instant oatmeal packets. Think of eating a plain baked potato with its skin intact and a pat of butter, versus mashed potatoes with no skin and lots of added margarine (with a hard-to-pronounce ingredient list). Generally, the more food is made “ready to eat” and “shelf-stable”, the more processed it is. The processing is what makes foods less nutritious, since the more changes foods go through before we eat them, the greater the chance that the actual nutrition of the food is reduced.
To get some simple ideas of how to get started, go here. This article highlights some easy ways that you can begin to incorporate clean eating into your life, such as eating more fresh fruits and vegetables and drinking more water rather than sugar-sweetened beverages.
In addition, EVPL has many books in our collection, both physical and electronic, to help you on your quest to eat cleaner and healthier in the New Year. Here are a few:
- Clean Eating for Busy Families: Get Meals on the Table in Minutes With Simple & Satisfying Whole-Foods Recipes You & Your Kids Will Love
- Hungry Girl Clean & Hungry: Easy All-Natural Recipes for Clean Eating in the Real World
- 100% Real: 100 Insanely Good Recipes for Clean Food Made Fresh
Explore our EVPL website, or give us a call!
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Related: New Year, New Goals
