Meal planning and Clean Eating

At the grocery today, I got called a "health nut" by the bagger. Then the cashier goes "I must not eat healthy, b/c I have NO IDEA what most of this is." LOL

What is clean eating?
"Clean eating may feel a bit overwhelming at first, especially if you have a lot of changes to make. My advice is to take baby steps. Make little changes every day and don’t beat yourself up if you make mistakes. We all do. Just realize that it’s what you do the majority of them time that counts."

The Gracious Pantry is a GREAT clean eating blog :) Check it out!

A lot of people have talked to me about meal planning when eating clean. Well, I'll tell you this... It's NOT easy. You cannot buy much more than a week in advance because things start to go bad. So I'm going to give you an example of my meal plan and some recipes. I hope this helps! Lots of these are links b/c unfortunately, I take other people's recipes and tweak them. >.<

Here is an example of a one week meal plan for us:

Breakfast:
-Egg frittatas (2x a week) (We leave out the half and half)
-Soaked oatmeal (2x a week)
-Soaked pancakes (2x a week)
-Scrambled eggs with homemade turkey sausage and toast
(we soak our grains and legumes and rice you can look up The Healthy Home Economist to learn the benefits of soaking)

Lunch:
-Tacos wrapped in lettuce (or sprouted grain tortillas)
-Grilled chicken or shrimp salads (our kids love salad)
-Chicken and rice
-Sloppy Buffalo Joes (We do not use the blue cheese or rolls. We will wrap them in a piece of romaine  lettuce of serve with carrots and celery to scoop it up with)
-Almond butter and raw honey sandwiches on sprouted whole grain bread
-Roasted chicken wrapped in tortilla with veggies

Dinner:
-Chicken soup (we use this recipe with egg noodles or rice noodles instead of dumplings)
-Shrimp stir fry
-Shepherds pie (with ground turkey and often mashed cauliflower in lieu of mashed potatoes)
-Vegetarian lasagna (There are lots of recipes for this. I saute squash, zucchini, and onions and layer them with sauce and lasagna noodles and bake without cheese (It doesn't need it and we have a milk allergy in the home))
-Cajun chicken pasta ( We sub coconut milk for the heavy cream and leave out the pasta and add LOTS of veggies)
-Spaghetti squash and sauce
-Mediterranean chicken (throw 4 leg quarters in a crock pot with 1/2 can black olives and a few Tbsp of the juice, 1/3-1/2 jar of pepperoncini peppers and a few Tbsp of the juice. Juice of 1/2 lemon. 3 cloves of garlic (finely chopped) Salt, pepper, and paprika to taste. Serve over soaked short grain rice.)

Snacks:
Hummus with carrots and celery (We use soaked dried chickpeas and add extra water and leave out the oil)
Stove top popcorn (not from a bag) (I put a few Tbs of grass fed butter in the pan for oil and add sea salt)
Roasted pumpkin seeds
Roasted chick peas
Veggie and fruit plate
Hard boiled eggs
Yogurt


Find healthy meals that you and your family like and start keeping a list of them. You will eventually be able to have a clean meal plan of your own! It took a long time to compile ours and we're always looking for new recipes. Feel free to share your favorite recipe with me!

If you're just starting to eat healthier, start by substituting things in your favorite recipes for healthier alternatives. Google works wonders for this :)


EAT CLEAN & TRAIN MEAN
Follow me on Facebook :)