Eat. Live. Be. #9: Portion Control

I am going to preface today’s post by saying I am likely to be zero help with this week’s Eat. Live. Be. topic: Portion control. Why? Because with the type of eating that I do (clean eating), there is no measuring, counting or weighing really. As long as you’re eating the right foods, you can have as much as you want. It’s one of the many reasons why it’s worked so well for me and why I love it so much.  It takes all the guesswork and heck, just plain work, out of it and makes the whole approach very simple.

What do I mean by “the right food?”  All natural.  God made.  Food in its purest sense of the word.  Vegetables, fruit, protein, some carbs.  For the most part, nothing processed, man-made or from a factory somewhere in middle America.  If you can’t pronounce the ingredients, chances are, I’m not eating it.  Except in the rare jelly bean case of course.  This girl has to have SOME indulgences.  But as long as you’re sticking to REAL food, there is no portion reminder.  Spinach, asparagus, shrimp, tilapia, oranges, bananas, nuts, eggs, the list is endless.  You get the idea, I’m sure.

Of course I bend the rules a bit.  I’m not kidding about the jelly beans.  They’re on my desk as I type now, and I’m picking out the red, white, purple and pink ones before I send them along to my Mom.  Ok, Madeline likes purple too, so I’m trying to share.  But the way I eat probably encompasses about 90% of my choices.  I reserve the extra 10% for the occasional indulgence.

There is a quote in Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food that sums up clean eating beautifully:

When you’re cooking with food as alive as this – these gorgeous and semi-gorgeous fruits and leaves and flesh – you’re in no danger of mistaking it for a commodity, or a fuel, or a collection of chemical nutrients … The cook in the kitchen preparing a meal from plants and animals at the end of this shortest of food chains has a great many things to worry about, but “health” is simply not one of them, because it is a given.

For more tips and tricks when it comes to portion control, check out my fellow ELBers at the below links:

• Sarah Caron from Sarah’s Cucina Bella
• Joanne from Eats Well with Others
• Maris Callahan – In Good Taste
• Chris Arpante – Melecotte
• Faith – Blog Appetit
• Kristen – Dine and Dish
• Jenna – Stop, Drop and Blog
• Casey – The Starnes Family
• Patsy – Family, Friends and Food
• Tri-Fit Mom
• Claire – Cooking is Medicine
• Allison – Sweet Flours
• Jen – NJ Epicurean
• Leslie – The Hungry Housewife
• Rivki Locker – Healthy Eating for Ordinary People
• Claudia – Journey of an Italian Cook
• Jennifer Schulz – Lick-a-Plate
• Sarah Rogers – Sarah’s Sweet Creations
• Denise and Lenny – Chez Us

Before I forget, Nermeen asked in last weeks’ ELB post about the Salad Fixins’ I had a picture of … I got that at Costco.  I think it was $7-8 for the bag.  It’s made by Aurora Products.

Tomorrow?  I’ll be sharing some details about the divine Carnitas Salad we had for dinner last night.  Clean eating, guilt-free and super simple to make.

Project 365
February 28, 2011, Photo #58 and a bonus
Some days I think she can pull off just about anything.  Today is not one of those days.  Finally woke the sleeping beauty up at 8:20 am and we had to leave the house by 8:30.  She didn’t want to get dressed.  Wanted to wear her “jamas,” with her red and green Hello Kitty socks.  And the light up Sketchers apparently made the outfit complete.  Just wasn’t worth the battle.  I figure we have another year that she can maybe get away with complete 100% free rein.

What I did this weekend at my Dad’s place. R is for Robot. xoxo Madeline

PRINT