During the month of June, Jay and I, as well as my sister, Carrie, and brother-in-law, Ryan, committed to eating clean.

At first, it seemed like a definite challenge. The first few days were pretty tough and it felt hard to know what we could and couldn’t have. While the “rules” were easy, it was an adjustment compared to everything we normally eat. Our goal was to eat as natural as possible, and if you did not know what the ingredients were, you did not eat it.

In theory, only eating foods you know should be easy. That does limit your choices though. Eating on the outside of the grocery store makes it very easy to follow this guideline. While some may be able to eat just veggies and meat, we found ourselves getting creative and making different recipes, such as homemade potato chips, cheez-its, tortillas, and croutons. Of course these foods are not healthy or necessary, but they are things that we eat on a normal basis, so making homemade versions of them showed us that we can eat foods that we enjoy without eating preservatives.

I will say that one of the foods I avoided most was bread. Believe it or not, there are a lot of chemicals in bread. Even the bread that is sold in grocery store “bakeries” is not all that fresh.

After we got the hang of things, we realized that with some adjustments and careful consideration, eating clean is possible. Sure, you go through a LOT more dishes, and eating at restaurants may be the biggest challenge of all, but it definitely is doable.

My favorite part about eating clean was that it brought awareness to not only what I was eating, but also those around me. Not eating certain things definitely started conversations about my eating choices, and in turn, others would discuss how they might be able to change their eating habits as well.

So will I continue to eat clean? Yes! I think we all agreed that we could continue to eat mostly real food. Sure, there will be situations where we decide to eat something that may be unhealthy, but during our regular routines, we will continue to eat clean.

It would be great if we could think that companies wouldn’t use products that could harm us or cause us problems down the road. But the truth is that you simply need to know what is in your food, and that starts by reading labels and deciding if you are willing to put something into your body, not knowing how it will help or harm you. And while this may be a scary thought, we are lucky enough to have this knowledge. In a world where there are so many choices and not all of them are good, it is so important to simply be aware.

If you want to check out my other posts related to clean eating, you can read them here:

• Clean Eating Adventure
• Clean Eating Day 1
• Clean Eating Day 2
• Clean Eating Days 3 & 4
• Clean Eating Day 5
• Clean Eating Days 6,7,8 & 9
• Clean Eating Days 10,12, & 12
• Clean Eating Days 12,14,15 & 16
• Clean Eating Days 17-25
• My Sister Guest Blogs