In today’s super busy, fast-paced world, it can be easy for so many of us to choose the easiest and quickest ways to feed ourselves and our families. Unfortunately, these ways are often more dangerous than they are quick and easy and can cause damage to our bodies in the long run.

So much of the food that people choose to eat today is artificial and chemically laden. So much of it is packaged and filled with preservatives, additives, and ‘flavors.’ These ‘flavors’ are actually not real but chemically developed. Taste buds have become accustomed to these as being real food. This, unfortunately, is not the case.

So many of these foods are actually causing damage to our bodies. In the USA today, the biggest health problems include heart disease, liver and kidney diseases, diabetes, high blood pressure and thyroid disease. In so many cases, it is a bad diet that has caused these illnesses and allowed them to set in. In many cases, it is a change in diet that can help to change the body’s structure and the body can begin to heal itself.

Healthy eating is not always easy to do, especially when so much junk food is easily available to us everywhere and tempting us pretty much at every turn. It’s in the supermarkets, the corner deli, and even the office kitchen. Sometimes, due to bad choices when shopping, it is even in the home. This last one, however, can easily be changed.

Moving Into a Healthier Lifestyle

Changing your eating habits can help you move towards a healthier and cleaner lifestyle. You will begin to notice the changes, not only in your body, but also in your mind as well, for the food we eat and everything in it, affects every part of us. All parts of the body are affected by artificial chemicals that are ingested. Not only the gut, but also the brain. Recent research has shown a direct correlation between the gut and brain. It’s called the gut-brain connection. Depression is another illness that has become so common in today’s world and is suffered by so many. In no way are we advocating that people stop their physician’s advice or stop taking medication. We are simply suggesting that proper nutrition will help enormously with our moods.

Changing your eating habits and getting proper nutrition will help you manage stress, manage diseases, or avoid some of them altogether, lose weight or maintain a healthy weight, remove toxins, and generally feel much better in your own skin. Clean eating isn’t a diet but a healthy change in lifestyle.

Within the pages of this book, readers will find very clear and easy-to-read advice followed by many delicious recipes that can be made quickly and easily. It will make you think about being wiser in your grocery planning, grocery shopping, and home cooking. Clean eating not only involves avoiding processed or ‘refined’ foods but basing your diet on eating whole foods.

So what are whole foods exactly? These are any type of food that hasn’t been changed or tampered with, either in a lab or a manufacturing plant. These would include all fresh fruits and vegetables,(not canned or packed), whole grains, free-range or farm meats, organic, natural dairy products, and fresh seeds and nuts. It also includes oils such as good clean olive oils, sunflower, coconut or other nut oils.

Eating whole foods means avoiding anything that has a label. Any foods with a label indicate that one or more ingredients have been added to make the food. Some of these are ok to eat such as whole grain pasta or natural cheeses. The easiest way to avoid artificial or chemically laden food is to check the ingredients on the packaging. If there is anything you cannot pronounce on there, don’t consume it and put it in your body.

The way we prepare our food and the actual food we consume will make all the difference to our health. This book provides some fabulous recipes that are easy to prepare, quick and easy to make, and full of nutritional value. Cooking your own meals is another important factor in clean and healthy eating. Don’t buy your meals in a box – cook them yourself from scratch. Clean, whole foods don’t need much preparation apart from some chopping and sautéing. Delicious meals are quite easy to prepare and cook with the recipes provided in this book.

Cut It Out!

One thing that has to be done, without a doubt, is to avoid refined sugars. All refined sugars do is provide many calories and an addictive response from the body. Refined sugar has very little, if any place in a healthy eating plan.

Changing your eating habits and consuming more whole foods will definitely have an effect on the way you feel. This relates to the way you feel emotionally as well as physically. Whole foods will provide your body with the right nutrients and micronutrients which regulate blood sugar and reduce cholesterol. Whole foods also keep the body satisfied longer so you are less likely to need snacks of junk food throughout the day, and another benefit is that they keep the body regular.

Within the book are recipes for every meal and every need. There are breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snacks and salads, and the all-time favorite – desserts. Recipes include quinoa pancakes, bean and spinach burrito wraps, stuffed chicken breasts, and rocky road brownies. Now doesn’t that sound simply delicious? All our recipes have been chosen to provide maximum nutrients, vitamins, minerals, protein and carbohydrates. They have also been chosen for their tastiness, versatility and the fact that they’re quick and easy to make.

So, to quickly recap, eating clean really all about giving you the tools to understand the traceability of the food they eat and being more aware of where it comes from. It is a call to arms, so to speak, to check labels and sources and to better understand exactly what it is you are eating. If this book helps you, the readers do that, then we have done our job.