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Introduction

Eating Clean Every Day

Everyone seems to be on some kind of diet or detox these days. It’s easy to
understand why. Most of us want to live healthier lives, lose a little bit (or a lot)
of weight, and generally feel better about the food we put into our bodies. But
given what we plan to get out of diets and detoxes, why do they feel more akin
to punishment than reward?
For the most part, changing how and what we eat, whether it’s for 10 days
or 3 months or more, involves restrictions. And math. Certain foods must be
cut out. Calories must be counted. Specific foods, regardless of how they taste,
must be consumed. Diet fatigue and diet failure happen for a reason. The work
involved to diet successfully is exhausting and, due to that very difculty, it’s a
struggle to keep it up for the long term. We take a break, and start again later,
take another break, start again later, and so on.
Eating healthily does not have to be so hard. It does not need to involve
worksheets or calculators. People who have adopted the clean eating “diet” are
living these truths firsthand. Clean eating is not a diet in the conventional sense
of the word, where you give up certain foods for a period of time to achieve a
specific health goal. Clean eating is more of a food philosophy, grounded in the
notion that meals should contain all sorts of foods—fruits, vegetables, meats,
grains, beans, nuts, and so on. The only restriction is that these foods should be
as close as possible to their natural, unadulterated state. Foods should be made
of, well, food, rather than combinations of food and chemicals.
Natural does not mean raw. Flip through the recipes in this book and you’ll
see that clean eating meals make use of an array of ingredients from a variety of
cuisines that can be cooked easily and in numerous ways. The 150 recipes ofered
here are downright delicious and filling, too. From Roasted Butternut Squash
and Israeli Couscous Pilaf to Cajun Pork Chops with Grilled Okra and Creamed
Corn, you’re about to find out that clean eating isn’t about restricting what you
eat, but expanding your palate with the very best whole, fresh ingredients.

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