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We may never all agree on just what"eating clean"really means, but if cleansing your diet means you think about your food, learn more about where it comes from and consider how healthy it is for you, that’s a good thing.
For many of us, the easiest way to eat clean is to cook at home. While we don’t all have time to make everything we eat from scratch, it can be fun (and easy!) to try your hand at making a few of the convenient processed foods you’d usually buy.
What are processed foods? They often come in a box or a jar. They can be high in added sugars, low in fiber and whole grains, processed with sodium, high in fat, or include trans fat and lots of saturated fat.
While snack foods, candy, cookies, and crackers are certainly considered processed foods, “healthy” foods can fall into this category too. Here is a list of six common processed foods that you can easily make a healthier homemade version of:
1. Salad Dressing
Next time you grab a bottle of salad dressing off the shelf, read the ingredients. It may alarm you that something so simple has so many ingredients that you’ve probably never heard of. Some keep the dressing from spoiling on the shelf while others are used to improve texture. While these ingredients may be harmless, it’s easy to avoid them if you make your own dressing at home.
A simple dressing takes no more than 10 minutes to make and is as easy as whisking oil into vinegar and throwing in a few seasonings like garlic powder, Dijon mustard, and minced garlic or shallot. Making your own dressing can help you control calories, too. If you find a recipe you like, double it so you can keep some in your refrigerator to use throughout the week.
Featured Recipe:Honey-Mustard Vinaigrette with Lemon
2. Breakfast Cereal
With more than100 kinds of cerealin many grocery store aisles, choosing a healthy cereal can be like searching for a needle in a haystack. Some cereals are packed with sugar while others are low in nutrients that you actually want from your cereal, such as fiber and whole grains.
Featured Recipe:Maple Granola
3. Canned Soup
It’s convenient to have canned soup on hand, but it’shigh in sodium. While you can get lower-sodium versions, that limits your selection.
Instead of forgoing soup altogether, get out of your soup pot and get cooking. Most soups freeze well, so if you like the convenience of portion control, freeze them in individual serving sizes. Don’t have the whole afternoon to spend in your kitchen? Many delicious soups can be made in 30 minutes or less.
Featured Recipe:Vegan Butternut Squash Soup
4. Pasta Sauce
While you may not think of pasta sauce as being “sweet,” many jarred pasta sauces havesugar listed as an ingredient. Although it’s not a lot of sugar, it certainly isn’t necessary.
Featured Recipe:Pressure-Cooker Tomato Sauce
5. Flavored Yogurt
The solution? Stir fresh or frozen fruit into plain yogurt. One trick to making it taste sweet without adding sugar is adding a splash of vanilla extract for a confectionary flavor.
Featured Recipe:Greek Yogurt with Strawberries
6. Granola and Energy Bars
Granola bars seem healthy, but if you’ve ever looked at the nutrition label, you may think otherwise. Sure, they may have grains and nuts, but they also tend to be loaded with sugar and aren’t always full of whole grains.
There is no reason to cut them out of your life completely, though: you can make them at home cheaply and with less sugar than what you might find in a boxed version. Plus, controlling the ingredients means you get to add plenty of healthy mix-ins like nuts, seeds, and dried fruit.
Featured Recipe:Cranberry-Almond Granola Bars
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