The FastDay Forum

[carieoates]

I'm sitting here leafing through my "clean eating" magazine it has many nice recipes in and I've been getting it for a year now. Not a great idea on a fast day, I might add.
It is based in the US so some of ingredients are unknown to me. It does advocate organic wherever possible. I'm not an organic buyer, but do like to buy British especially meat as we should buy local and we have pretty high animal welfare rules here, or so I believe.
So what I'd like to know is what does everyone else think about clean eating and also organic food?
My sis lost about a stone switching to clean eating and interestingly she started baking muffins etc as she now has breakfast every single day. Where as I've now dropped it completely.

I'm also interested in local grocery boxes, which my hubs cousin gets in US which are organic locally sourced meat and veg which she has delivered fortnightly. Wow what a great mission to get a box and have to decide your families menus accordingly.

I buy organic meat and organic veggies and fruit. However I would buy a non organic locally sourced product over an imported organic one if there is a choice. Sometimes I get lucky with a local organic product. However I generally find the food boxes pretty poor.

What is clean eating?

I have a weekly box of veggies from Riverford Organics. I totally love them; can't wait to get home on Friday and see what has been delivered. If they put in something I don't like (and we have to try it first) then I swap with someone at work. I've now tried allsorts of things that I would never have tried before and I also find the quality is very good. You get a recipe and newsletter with each delivery and they have a very good website where you can add things to your delivery or change the size of your box. The link is http://www.riverford.co.uk/yar/ They do meat, cheese, dairy and some alcohol as well.

[carieoates]

Yes Karen, I think we need to source what's local and good at the end of the day.

Thanks loulou, I've had a look on there before, very interested.

Pinchy, clean eating is a way of eating which involves buying whole ingredients and doing it all yourself, we're a bit better at doing that on here I believe as we want to know what's in our food.


A quote from the mag " the soul of clean eating is consuming food in it's most natural state, or as close to it as possible. It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle approach to food and it's preparation." Lots of vegetarian, gluten free, not all low cal recipies available.

Peanut butter balls with dark chocolate and coconut dusting are to die for....

Example of vegetarian recipies in this months mag.

Moroccan couscous with tempeh and chickpeas
Mexican Mac and cheese
Caramelised onion and white bean spread
Stuffed eggplant with chickpeas and feta
Curries sweet potato waffles.....

And that's just the vegetarian ones
Take a look.

cleaneating.com

[Tracieknits]

I cook most of our meals completely from scratch, and I try to avoid processed foods. However I allow them in moderation. If I'm buying ice cream, I try to find stuff with as few ingredients as possible, and avoid chemical names or high fructose corn syrup. Unfortunately, my son wants some junk food in his lunch box so the other kids don't think he's weird So we have a lot of talks about moderation, limits and why these things aren't good choices.

YAY! I do this already - for some reason I expected it to be about eating everything raw.
Thanks ladies xx

[janeg]

Very taken by the idea of caramelised onion and bean spread and the stuffed eggplant with chickpeas and feta but the site I'm going to doesn't list them! what am I doing wrong?
Seems like we clean eat without know ing it too!

Would also recommend The Clean and Lean Cookbook by James Duigan

I've seen 'clean eating' stuff on pinterest and it took a while to realise that it was basically just what I do most of the time anyway. Odd to think that eating real food has become a kind of 'lifestyle choice' for people, that you have to make a real conscious decision to eat food that has not been messed about with.

Like Tracie, I make almost all my food (including bread) from scratch as it's cheaper, tastes way better, is better for you and, crucially, I have the time to do it. But I am not averse to something from a packet every now and then - emergency oatcakes! (I do make my own occasionally and they do taste amazing but they are a faff), chocolate (hard to make your own!), crumpets etc as well as the odd freezer thing for quick dinners. Life's too short to get obsessed about it!


Those peanut butter balls sound amazing - could you post the recipe please?

[carieoates]

Oh, sorry you can't find them, I only got the mag yesterday so it may be because it's only just been sent out to subscribers.

And yes I agree as I mentioned previously we all seem to "do our own" when the horse meat scare was at its height I was gob smacked, but didn't worry at all as I also make my own, so know exactly what's in there.

I will indeed post the peanut butter balls,

I am so bad at following recipies, that's why I don't keep them,

Basically it'sgood peanut butter, almond flour, oatmeal, flax seed and argave syrup or honey.

I get half a jar of p.butter and mix it like crazy till it softens, then add 2-3 desert spoons of almond flour, then 4-5 of oatmeal and 4-5 of flax- (milled). Adjust the ingredients until when you try to form the balls (about golf ball size) they are still a bit tacky, otherwise they'll be too dry and they will fall apart.

Best left in the fridge overnight. Then.....

Sometimes I melt good dark choc and roll them in. Sometimes I roll them in coconut. Sometimes both.

So sorry I can't find exact quantities, but sometimes the ingredients can be drier so you have to feel your way.

Would also recommend The Clean and Lean Cookbook by James Duigan

Yes, I've got that book too Karen!

I've eaten mostly wholefoods since the early 70s and try to grow as many organic veggies as possible. When my back started to get too painful for gardening, I joined a local vegetable box scheme but the veggies were not organic and each week there were mostly potatoes and onions in the boxes, so I stopped it. My thoughts were that if I wanted chemically grown produce then it would be better to buy from the supermarket, at least I could choose for myself. I went back to growing organic vegetables but not such a wide variety as before. I have never heard of clean eating before, I'm quite proud of myself now!

Just when you were all talking about clean eating, here is a link I found today - just gives the basics :

http://shine.yahoo.com/author-blog-posts/5-principles-clean-eating-160100973.html

I do receive a box of organic fruit and vegies every other week. I have tried a few items I never would have before...like rainbow chard.

I found this book to be a good read...
http://www.amazon.com/The-Eat-Clean-Die ... 1552100677