clean slate.

With the new year comes resolutions. Resolutions that usually involve being healthier or exercising more. 2014 was also full of the fade cleanses to detox your body and lose weight usually.

While there is nothing wrong with any of this, it is really lifestyle changes that are the best way to gain a healthier life and lose or maintain weight.

I just finished reading through a new book focused around the idea of making small lifestyle changes to promote healthier eating and help you feel your best: Clean Slate: A Cookbook and Guide. This book is from the editors of Martha Stewart Living.

The book is broken into two sections: a guide to healthy foods and choices (including two detox plans) and healthy recipes. I found this book incredibly informative and helpful. I found myself researching more about healthy fats, the benefits of legumes, and what makes products organic. The information is sound and is presented in a way that is easy to understand and not laborious to read. I enjoyed reading through the different types of quinoa, what makes a grain a whole-grain, and what foods and spices fight inflammation. Maybe I am just interested in the health components of foods, but I actually enjoyed learning how much better a choice avocado is than mayo or yogurt over sour cream.

The recipe section was also very interesting. Usually in healthy or clean eating cook books, you will find recipes will a bunch of ingredients you don't understand or have never heard of. Clean Slate introduces all of the ingredients included in their recipes in the guide section at the beginning. So when you see amaranth in a recipe, you can reference an earlier page and see what it is, why it is healthy, and how exactly to cook it. With that said, most of the recipes had less than 10 ingredients and all of the ingredients are readily available in most grocery stores.

The detoxing section was also interesting because it calls for the same meal to be served multiple times in a week. The three-day cleanse was the same three meals for everyday, so logically you could make each meal one time and eat off the leftovers for the rest of the cleanse. For the 21-day cleanse, each week had a rotation of the same three or four recipes for each meal of the day. So you could make each recipe in bulk and eat off of it on the corresponding day and meal. This makes it so easy to stick to the plan.

And the recipes really do look delicious. Salmon and avocado, watercress salad, roasted vegetables and pasta, halibut tacos. These are basic meals that I eat all the time, just with a healthy spin. Instead of ground beef for tacos, use halibut. Instead of creamy alfredo sauce and pasta, use roasted vegetables and a vinaigrette. These small changes really do make a difference health wise and are the first step to healthy lifestyle changes. I can't wait to incorporate more of these recipes into everyday cooking and reap the health benefits without sacrificing any flavor.


**I received a complementary copy of this book from Blogging For Books in exchange for this review.**