Clean Eating Condiments

Remember that clean rule: Avoid processed foods. Or maybe this rule: Buy only foods with 3 or less ingredients on the food label. Or maybe even this one: Avoid anything high in saturated and trans fat, fried, or high in sugar. Yea, pretty much cuts out any and all store bought condiments and seasoning packets, along with cream of something soups... Use these instead!

Product                                                       Homemade Version

Nutella                                                         Chocolate- Covered- Katie’s Nutella

Crackers                                                      Oat Flour Veggie Crackers

Spaghetti Sauce                                            Simply-Clean-Livings Spaghetti Sauce

Italian Dressing                                             Heavenly-homemakers Italian Dressing

Mayo                                                           Crunchy-Bettys Mayonnaise

Ranch Dressing                                             Heavenly Homemakers Ranch Dressing

Ketchup                                                       Heavenly Homemakers Ketchup

Taco seasoning                                             Heavenly Homemakers Taco Seasoning

Onion Soup Mix                                           Heavenly Homemakers Onion Soup Mix

Cream of Mushroom                                     Heavenly Homemakers Mushroom Soup

Cream of Chicken                                         Food.com's Cream of Soup Dry Mix
Teriyaki Sauce                                              Food.com's teriyaki sauce

Clean eating breakfast, lunch, and snacks

Tosca Reno suggests eating six small meals a day that consist of a lean protein and a complex carbohydrate. In my mind, this meant skinny meat with bread. Yep, clueless. To make matters worse, she expands carbohydrates into starchy and non starchy and we need less starchy than others! Gah! I started to freak. But, after learning the benefits linked to pairing protein with carbohydrates, I decided to figure out what foods fall under the lean protein and the complex carbohydrate categories.Thankfully, her book The Clean Eating Diet Recharged made it pretty easy to understand. (No freaking out necessary!)

I took what I learned and created a chart to make meal planning a breeze. (Note: The following chart does not contain all the foods that fall into the protein/ carbohydrate category. Also, I am no expert! Please check out Tosca's book for more information.) To use this chart, simply choose a protein and then a complex carb. to enjoy with it from either the second or third column! Happy meal planning!
6 Meals Explained Previous post: Clean eating beverages.
Next post: Clean eating desserts.

Portion Control While Eating Clean

Relevant Clean Eating Rules:

• Eat within proper portion sizes.
• Eat fruits, vegetables and lean protein in six small meals throughout the day

Tosca Reno herself explains portion sizes in this youtube video. 

Also, I found this chart to be helpful: (source unknown)

The do's and don'ts to clean eating

The rules of clean eating are clearly spelled out, but let's get specific!

Do:

1. Six small meals a day

2. Drink half our body weight in ounces daily

3. Eat within portion sizes.

4. 3 ingredients maximum on food labels.

5. Limit saturated fats

6. Buy organic, when possible.

7. Consume healthy fats

8. Plan ahead, take clean snacks to go!

Don’t:

1. Eat before bed time

2. Eat at fast food restaurants

3. Sugar

4. Preservatives

5. Artificial colorings

6. Processed food

7. Carbon foot print

8. “Fake foods” i.e. high calories, low nutrition

My personal cheats:
Sour cream, corn tortillas, and rice chex may have more than 3 ingredients on their food label, but as I don't know how to make sour cream we're keeping it in the fridge. Also, being a celliac (unable to eat wheat/ gluten) we can't purchase the clean eating approved wheat bread or bread crumbs. So, as a substitution we're going to keep buying corn tortillas for wraps, fajitas, tacos, and quesadillas. We'll keep buying rice chex because they work so well as gluten free bread crumbs in recipes, but are a whole lot more affordable than actual GF crumbs!