The nutritional trend of eating as “cleanly as possible” has been going on for several years and is becoming more and more popular – and rightly so. Because if you eat less sugar, white flour and finished products, you live healthier. Give it a try with our 5 clean eating tips for beginners.
Whether against chronic inflammation, to lose weight or to prevent diseases – clean eating is an excellent method of supplying the body with as few harmful ingredients as possible, such as sugar, refined white flour or added fatty acids. Instead, the focus is on fresh fruit and vegetables, legumes, nuts and whole grain products. We will show you how to integrate your diet into a stressful everyday life.
Table of Contents
Clean eating: 5 tips for beginners
1. Fewer finished products
Highly processed and industrially produced foods usually contain too many calories, too much sugar, too much salt and too much fat. However, this not only affects the usual suspects such as frozen pizza, packet soups and fish fingers, but also cornflakes aimed at children, crunchy muesli with a high sugar content or store-bought (white) bread, which also contains a surprising amount of sugar and salt. Of course, it would be optimal to omit any finished products. For starters, however, it is enough if you leave out ready-made muesli mixtures and put them together yourself using oatmeal, flaxseed, nuts, buckwheat and fresh berries. This is not only cheaper and tastier, but also much healthier. Likewise you shouldReplace packet soups or ramen with your own creations , since the effort of cooking yourself is only slightly higher: Simply sauté onions, boil frozen vegetables with water and add bouillon cubes, spices and herbs to taste – it couldn’t be easier.
Tip: If you get a little hungry in between, grab your favorite fruit instead of a chocolate bar when clean eating or fill yourself up with a handful of nuts instead of a bread roll. Satisfy late-night chip cravings with colorful raw vegetables and a tzatziki or hummus dip.
2. Pre-cook your meals
Who doesn’t know it during the lunch break: You hardly have time to eat, cooking or clean eating is out of the question and the supermarkets or restaurants nearby only offer unhealthy or overpriced meals. Meal prepping is the perfect solution for both your wallet and your health . The above soup in particular is ideal for preparing in large quantities. You can also pre-cook large quantities of filling basic ingredients such as lentils, beans, quinoa, millet or wholemeal pasta together with frozen vegetables, so that you then only have to refine it with a delicious sauce at work or in the home office. Salads or bowls can also be wonderfully prepared and packed in the evening – so you avoid the temptation to reach for fast food or an unhealthy ready meal during your lunch break.
3. Fruits and Vegetables: The more colorful, the better
Vitamins are important, but we can easily get enough of most of them – with the exception of vitamin D – through our normal diet. Therefore, we should also pay more attention to the supply of so-called secondary plant substances when eating clean . They have numerous health-promoting properties that you miss out on if you have a very one-sided diet or use ready-made products. For example, flavonoids, phenolic acids or saponins have an antioxidant, antimicrobial, antithrombotic, cholesterol-lowering, blood-sugar-lowering, anti-carcinogenic and immunomodulating effect according to the latest findings and according to the German Society for Nutrition (DGE) . Therefore, the Federal Center for Nutrition (BZfE) assumes that phytochemicals have a preventive effect against high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis and hypercholesterolemia , among other things .
So that you can benefit from the full range of secondary plant substances, you should not always eat the same fruit and vegetables, but vary them regularly and try out new varieties. Particularly colorful varieties such as blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, kale, peppers and aubergines, but also products such as tofu or coffee contain larger amounts of health-promoting plant substances. Therefore, bring as much variety as possible into your clean eating strategy. So it never gets boring in terms of taste!
4. Drink zero calories
Clean eating is not about counting calories or losing weight as quickly as possible. However, you are doing both your health and your figure a benefit if you eliminate all liquid calories from your diet. It doesn’t matter whether it’s fruit juices, lemonades or cappuccinos, when consuming such drinks we take in far too much sugar within a very short time, which not only increases our risk of tooth decay , but also causes our blood sugar level to skyrocket again and again. Ultimately, this promotes obesity and type 2 diabetes. And even if fruit juices contain vitamins, the high sugar content immediately negates the health benefits. Always use whole fruit instead.
Tip: Sweetening coffee or tea with a teaspoon of sugar or honey can also add up over the course of the day. If you drink two or three cups a day, you already have 8 to 12 grams of sugar. That makes up a good portion of the recommended maximum dose of 25 grams per day.
5. Take it easy
As with any fundamental change in diet that is not geared towards short-term weight loss through extreme dieting, but rather towards long-term health benefits, clean eating does not require you to completely switch everything overnight. It makes much more sense and is more sustainable to change individual eating habits bit by bit and one after the other. Start small and replace one meal a day with a clean dish, for example. For example, if you always eat a sweet pastry from the bakery in the morning, white bread with sausage or a roll with nut nougat cream, try oatmeal, blueberries, nuts and yoghurt or soy milk instead.
dr Meike Diessner: Lose weight healthily with Clean Eating
In the following Insta-Live with @docdiessner , you will learn from the nutritionist and author of the book “Naturally Slim: Lose Weight Healthy with Clean Eating” how to get started with Clean Eating, what health benefits this diet offers you and which foods are particularly ” are clean. Have fun looking!
