How I Learned to Eat Cleaner (As Told By a 10 Year Old) ---Clean Cuisine

This is a guest blog post about learning to eat cleaner written by 10-year old Carly Gans, the daughter of my dear friend Debby Gan’s (who also took all of the beautiful photos!)

In Carly’s Own Words….

It’s unbelievable just how much junk food I’ve eaten in the past ten years of my life. Every day, I eat less and less junk food thanks to what I’ve learned from my mom’s friend Ivy.Ivy is one of my mom’s closest friends, and because of her I eat healthier food. If you don’t know, I have a gluten allergy. Gluten is in TONS of foods so it is hard for me. Lots of times I get tummy aches and nausea, but Ivy’s clean eating diet limits my health problems.

Learning to Eat Cleaner

To begin, “healthy Ivy food” is not only nutritious but delicious! Some of my favorite healthy Ivy foods are:

Thai thing (Instant Pot Chicken Curry with Vegetables)
Baked Yuca Fries (this is the yuca recipe Ivy uses)
Strawberry Banana Split “No Milk” Shake (this is on page 312 of Ivy’s Clean Cuisine book)
Lemon-Lime Dateorade–a healthy no-refined sugar alternative to Gateorade (this recipe will be in the new Clean Cuisine Cookbook!)
Orange Chicken (this is a healthy version of one of my favorite chicken recipes my mom always made when we had people over to dinner. My mom and Ivy worked on cleaning it up and I like the new healthy version even better!)

All of Ivy’s recipes include a veg (vegetable), a fruit or a “superfood”. My parents ALWAYS made me eat vegetables in the past but I wasn’t very happy about it. The fantastic thing is that you don’t even notice the veg in Ivy’s recipes. For instance, I hate avocado. But Ivy makes a chocolate chip cookie with hidden avocado that that I absolutely LOVE! Now I get the healthy nutrients from avocados without tasting them =)

Another thing Ivy has done for us is introduce us to many healthy products. And I am actually having a lot of fun with our new clean eating grocery list! I’ve even convinced my mom to shop at Whole Foods Market! I used to think everything healthy didn’t taste good. Well, not anymore!!! Ivy has showed me many alternatives to foods I used to eat, such as “whole” almond milk instead of dairy milk or gluten-free / grain-free cassava flour (made from “whole” yuca root) instead of the less-healthy all-purpose gluten free flour we were using.

Some of My Favorite New Clean “Junk Foods”

I have always loved junk food and in the past that’s what I would snack on. But now that I am trying to eat clean I have found five new favorite foods that really do taste amazing…

New Barn Almond Creme Organic Strawberry “Ice Cream” (this is the same brand as the almond milk I now drink)
Organic Bare Toasted Organic Coconut Chips (these are amazing!)
Blueberry Blaze Trail Mix (I have found that by eating more fruit I have stopped craving sugar as much)
Just Apples (these are just dried apples, nothing is added. And they are delicious!)
Pipcorn (I am crazy for this mini non-GMO popcorn–it is made without refined oil, which I now know is VERY UNHEALTHY!)

I have no stomach problems and no nausea thanks to the Ivy Diet. I’m so happy I have been introduced to this new way of eating. Thank you so so so so so much Ivy!!!!!

-Carly Gans ; age 10 and a half

P.S. Even some of my friends are starting to get interested in my new clean eating foods!

Tips & Resources to Help Kids Eat Clean

2 Simple Tips for How to Get Kids to Eat Healthy (If you don’t know where to start, start here!)
First Bites & How Kids Learn to Eat (This is about how to teach your kids to have a healthy relationship with food.
Clean and Easy Desserts for Kids to Make (If they make it, chances are they will eat it! Most kids will be excited to make a dessert and there are LOTS of creative ways to make healthful desserts without refined sugar)
What’s Cooking with Adriana! (I just had to share this one! This is a collection of healthy cooking videos by a little girl named Adriana. If you are trying to get your kids excited about cooking clean, they will surely be inspired by the adorable Adriana.)

A special thank you to Debby Gans Photography for the beautiful photos!!