How To Choose Healthy When Grocery Shopping
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How the heck do you choose healthy when grocery shopping?
Your wandering around the supermarket for the hundredth time this week. You have no idea what to have for a healthy dinner so you’ve popped down to see if anything inspired you.
You pass the muesli section and remember you ran out that morning. So you grab a box that has a delicious looking picture and says ‘Natural and Grain Free’ on the front. It must be good right?
Wrong!
The dollars spent on marketing,
by some of these companies could easily eclipse the economy of a small country. The marketers are smart and have become very adept at duping you into thinking their product is the healthier choice without checking the label.
Let’s be smarter than that.
Check the nutrition panel on the back,
for carbohydrates per serve, also sugar, saturated fat content while you there sodium. Hold onto that box and compare it to a few others. See how many calories you can save. I would be aiming for at least under 8 grams of sugar per serve.
If you have a spare 10 minutes and the ingredients to hand make up your own muesli. Here is my recipe. If you don’t have the inclination to make you own there are some very reasonable product on the shelves at the supermarket now. Just make sure to check the label.
Let’s be smarter than that.
Now back to that dinner you need to cook for tonight.
Step away from the frozen meal section!
My strategies for trouble free shopping for healthy foods are:
- Remember to shop in the perimeter of the supermarket. This is where the fresh foods and foods without labels are.
- Always do a quick plan of the meals you would like to cook this week before shopping so that you don’t panic buy. It will only take a few minutes and can save time running back to the store for ingredients. To make this step easier keep a collection of your favourite recipes stored somewhere on your phone.
- I think most of this know this by now. DON’T SHOP ON AN EMPTY STOMACH! I did that once and came home with all of aisle 4. But seriously this is when the pictures of delicious food will entice you into buying pre packaged foods with a negative nutritional value and probably somewhere in the chocolate section.
- When buying processed goods check the label. Are the calories, fat, sugar, and sodium quantities acceptable? Are they ingredients that you recognise.
- Labels on the front of the package like natural does not necessarily mean they are healthy. Often they can contain ridiculous amounts of sugar and processed oils. The only way to know this is to check the nutrition facts.
- Try and keep to in season fruits and vegetables. They will be higher in nutrition and cheaper.
Learn how to choose healthy when grocery shopping and spend a few extra minutes to take care about what you are buying to put into your body. You can not only save calories you can make a huge difference to your health and budget.
