A coworker and I once joked that we’d eat more greens and other healthy foods if an always-filled salad bar was miraculously installed at our homes – something that’ll allow us to pile up on a variety of fresh, whole food with little effort. We actually do love healthy food.

But the reality is I – and many other working Americans – often rush from our jobs to get bellies fed before sundown. That sometimes results in a pit stop to a fast food restaurant or a quick meal that consists of canned goods or a pasteurized cheese product.

It comes down to access and convenience. People buy what they can afford and prepare it when they can.

On the heels of last week’s column about not waiting for Jan. 1 to start implementing resolutions, I feel as though every last one of my cells are screaming for better nutrition. I want to eat cleaner.

The term “clean eating” has been a health buzzword for years, but some nutrition experts consider the obsession over clean eating a mask for eating disorders. I suppose anything you obsess over can be dangerous, but I think a better phrase is “just eat real food more often.”

So what is clean eating? People who swear by it eat more plant-based foods and minimally processed foods, with fewer added sugars, salt and preservatives. In a nutshell, clean eaters don’t eat foods that have hard-to-pronounce ingredients, don’t sit on a shelf for a long time and haven’t been created in a lab or assembly line.

They are serious about it. (Check Instagram and Pinterest for meal ideas and pictures of endless containers filled with healthy food).

If you’re a busy bee, eating clean may take some effort, from planning a menu and looking for budget meal ideas to cooking several days’ worth of food and loading it all into individual containers.

I would never say I won’t ever again enjoy a cup of queso or prepare a boxed meal, but my goal has been to eat clean as often as I can, which is why I wouldn’t call it a diet.

And I don’t foresee making my own salad dressings and sauces or avoiding certain foods like the plague – at least not most of the time. It just wouldn’t be practical. If you can keep up with only eating real, unprocessed foods everyday for the rest of your life, that’s awesome. But for most of us, we have to start somewhere, anywhere.

Clean eating should be viewed as a lifestyle transition with a desire to feel balanced. Read labels and familiarize yourself with new foods and new ways of cooking. Go forward knowing what you put in your body. As Maya Angelou would say, “when you know better, do better.”

By Coshandra Dillard, cdillard@tylerpaper.com