Book Review: The Clean 20

When it comes to eating, I crave simplicity. Ha! That's just a euphemism for "I'm too lazy to take the time to prepare healthy foods, so I snack on unhealthy things that are easily available." Plus, I'm horribly ineffective. While I love to read about making changes, I seldom apply what I read. Thus, on the heels of the pep talk in The Aging Brain, I read another book on simple changes to improve diet and health. For me, my reaction to raw vegetables is similar to Cookie Monster's reaction on this hilarious t-shirt my boys found and purchased on a recent thrift store run:

In The Clean 20, Dr. Ian K. Smith supplies a list of 20 simple and easy clean foods to incorporate into your diet for 20 days. It sounded easy enough for even me! The inside cover shows photos of the twenty healthy foods and they look inviting. As he introduces each one, he provides information about the selection process and the benefits accrued. I was sure I could incorporate most of these into my diet:

1) Avocado; 2) Berries (I love strawberries and enjoy making smoothies); 3) cheese (somewhat surprised this made the list because I consider cheese fattening, but thrilled I didn't have to squelch my cottage cheese consumption); 4) Chicken; 5) Chickpeas; 6) eggs (I ate many spinach and cheese omelets); 7) Kale (the author allows spinach as a basket buddy alternative); 8) Lemons (a no-go for me); 9) Lentils (another food where I can add spinach); 10) Nuts and seeds (I fudged and snacked on Dark Chocolate-covered Almonds whenever I needed a treat); 11) Oatmeal; 12) Quinoa (no-can-do); 13) seafood (I consumed salmon); 14) Squash (or basket buddy alternatives: carrots, zucchini); 15) Sweet potatoes; 16) tomatoes (fresh from our garden); 17) Turkey (surprising); 18) Whole-grain bread; 19) Whole-wheat pasta; and 20) Yogurt.

The book gives daily pep talks and meal plans. I skimmed the 60 recipes at the end of the book and copied eight. Although I enjoyed several of the recipes, a few of them flopped in my incompetent hands. The baby spinach omelet, the green smoothie, the egg and turkey casserole, and the baked sweet potato fries turned out well. I tried the author's easy recipe for making kale chips (it sounded simple enough that even I could tackle it). Alas, it was a bust. Perhaps I didn't distribute the olive oil evenly enough because I ended up with a mix of dry chips and wet. I didn't care for the baked apple oatmeal cups even though they sounded delicious and were simple to prepare.

The author provides an ample list of clean snack possibilities, so it was easy to make healthy choices. I turned to things like mashed avocado on whole wheat toast, hard-boiled eggs, frozen grapes, cottage cheese, and mozzarella cheese sticks with apple slices. Again, I fudged and used regular peanut butter instead of the author's suggested organic. Plus, I applied regular dressing to my salads (cannot abide the healthier oil-based dressings).

Dr. Smith ends the book with a section on exercise, but I didn't incorporate his exercises. I stuck with my daily treadmill time. Still, other readers might enjoy the challenges he provides in that section.

For my final analysis, I liked the ease of incorporating the small list of clean foods into my daily diet habits. It was a simple plan to follow. After a while, it felt limiting, but I pressed on and even lost four and a half pounds during my 20 day experiment. Even now, I turn to the ideas of the book when contemplating what to eat. It can't hurt to apply the mantra on the back cover: "Eat Clean. Live Lean!"