What is the Standard American Diet

Can the Standard American Diet be Clean

Cleaning up the Standard American Diet

What do you think of when you think of the Standard American Diet?  If you are like me, you may not really know what it is.  Some think of the food pyramid that is shown to the right.  It divides the major food group and the most that you are to eat is on the bottom and then you move up until you get to the top section that you are to use sparingly. I was surprised to see the top of the pyramid puts sweets(sugars) in with fats and oils.

I am not a nutritionist but I can tell you from my experience, this breakdown in the servings is not accurate.  Six to 11 servings of carbs, really?  But it is recommended to only have three to five servings of fruits and vegetables?   Good fats are a big part of my diet now since your brain needs fat to function properly.  As I said seems like this pyramid is a little out of order.

But I digress, I only remember this pyramid from high school health class.  What I think of as the Standard American Diet (SAD), is processed foods, fast foods and comfort foods.  All that fast microwavable, drive-thru that we started eating as kids instead of having a home cooked meal.

Or I think of those foods that you want to eat when you had a bad day or on a cold rainy day:  mac and cheese, burger and fries, nachos, pasta, pizza, ice cream.  Those foods you eat until you are stuffed and then want to take a nap afterwards. We get hooked on these foods and they become our ‘go to’ foods when we want something to make us feel better emotionally but not necessarily physically.

Here’s the good news, most of the time, these foods that we love and crave and be made Clean.  Instead of using the processed boxed or canned ingredients, you can use the clean version of the ingredients.  You can enjoy them even more now as they will make you feel better emotionally AND physically.  They will be made from real food that your body knows what do with and not something severely processed that comes in a paper bag with a logo on it.

You can start your journey now and create your own clean healthy version of the Standard American Diet.  Here is a link to some products in our Starter Kit that you can use in your favorite recipes.  Click here to get our Clean Eating Ingredient STARTER KIT

You can also see some of our meal plans to give you some ideas to add to your own list of favorites.

As always, to start your journey to clean eating, you just have to take it one step at a time.

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