Eating Cleaner
We live in a really toxic world. There is no place on earth that isn't contaminated with pesticide residues these days, among other things.
The further you go up the food chain, the more environmental toxins, like pesticides, concentrate in the fats of animals. In other words, herbivores have more pesticides (et al) than plants, animals that eat herbivores have more pesticides than herbivores and animals that eat omnivores or carnivores will be more toxic still.
So one easy way to eat cleaner is to eat less meat, fish and dairy.
If you do eat meat, look for good quality meat, like organic or grass fed. I'm willing to eat beef at Wendy's, Chipotle, Outback's and sometimes Panda Express, but at most eateries I stick to chicken or vegetarian options.
When I was really, really sick, I was much pickier about such things.
Of course, this is just a really quick and dirty general rule of thumb. Successfully eating cleaner on a consistent basis requires more time, effort and research than this but it's a place to start.
You can also go vegetarian to reduce your exposure and cut out all meat.
One of the big "myths" is that it's hard to get enough protein as a vegetarian. This is not true.
You can get plenty of protein if you go vegetarian and most traditional vegetarian diets already have best practices for protein complementarity built into their recipes. So if you don't yet know how to combine complementary proteins to get enough, just pick up some vegetarian Asian, Indian or other ethnic dishes.
There are some things that are hard to get enough of if you go vegetarian, like some of the B vitamins, but you don't actually need to go vegetarian to reduce your exposure to environmental toxins. Just eating less meat and being pickier about the quality of meat you do eat will make a difference.
The further you go up the food chain, the more environmental toxins, like pesticides, concentrate in the fats of animals. In other words, herbivores have more pesticides (et al) than plants, animals that eat herbivores have more pesticides than herbivores and animals that eat omnivores or carnivores will be more toxic still.
So one easy way to eat cleaner is to eat less meat, fish and dairy.
If you do eat meat, look for good quality meat, like organic or grass fed. I'm willing to eat beef at Wendy's, Chipotle, Outback's and sometimes Panda Express, but at most eateries I stick to chicken or vegetarian options.
When I was really, really sick, I was much pickier about such things.
Of course, this is just a really quick and dirty general rule of thumb. Successfully eating cleaner on a consistent basis requires more time, effort and research than this but it's a place to start.
You can also go vegetarian to reduce your exposure and cut out all meat.
One of the big "myths" is that it's hard to get enough protein as a vegetarian. This is not true.
You can get plenty of protein if you go vegetarian and most traditional vegetarian diets already have best practices for protein complementarity built into their recipes. So if you don't yet know how to combine complementary proteins to get enough, just pick up some vegetarian Asian, Indian or other ethnic dishes.
There are some things that are hard to get enough of if you go vegetarian, like some of the B vitamins, but you don't actually need to go vegetarian to reduce your exposure to environmental toxins. Just eating less meat and being pickier about the quality of meat you do eat will make a difference.
