In my first post, Eating Clean - Step 1: Know What You're Eating I discussed a general rule advocating that you should be able to easily identify your food. That rule has a basic corollary to avoid processed foods.
One of the biggest culprits in the processed foods category is wheat flour.
Wheat flour is the starchy part of the wheat grain. It's pure carbohydrates with little of the nutrition of the whole wheat grain from which it originated. The problem with wheat flour is it quickly and easy converted into sugar in your bloodstream providing excess calories and gets stored as fat.
I'm not against carbohydrates. In fact I advocate a healthy dose of carbs every day and at the right times of the day. But there are much better carbohydrate choices than simple sugars and refined wheat flour. That's next in Step 3: Know Your Macronutrients
The reason I throw this rule out first is because it's another easy, general rule that can lead to dramatic positive changes in diet without too much technical detail. If you look at a piece of food and ask yourself "is there wheat flour in there?" the answer is generally YES for the worst food choices available. Cookies, tortillas, donuts, pancakes, pasta, cake, etc., are all crutches that keep more weight on people than they'd like. And it's easy to see what they have in common--wheat flour. You'll also find that wheat flour has a companion ingredient that follows it pretty much everywhere and that's added sugar, usually in the form of fructose. In general, avoiding wheat flour will conveniently lead to an avoidance of added sugar.
Wheat bread is convenient as a way to hold together a sandwich full of good stuff like avocado, lean meats or fish, veggies, etc. But I always look for whole wheat bread and try my best to eat it sparingly. Literally two or three times a week total is a good pace as far as I'm concerned.
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