Tips to make healthy choices at the grocery store
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Here are a few tips to help you make healthy choices while you're at the grocery store. They're taken from Michael Pollan's book, "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto." This is a fantastic book that I would highly recommend. It’s a very helpful resource to help take the confusion out of healthy eating.
1. Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.
This is great advice because even things at the store that seem normal to us (i.e. nondairy creamer, donuts, imitation cheese, breakfast cereal bars) wouldn't have passed for "food" a couple generations ago. It's a good way to keep highly-processed products out of your shopping cart.
2. Avoid products with ingredients that are: A) Unfamiliar, B) Unpronounceable, C) More than 5 in number, or D) Include high-fructose corn syrup.
If you're reading the back of a package and see a ton of ingredients, many of which you don't recognize, you might want to put it back on the shelf. Look for lists with just a few ingredients of real foods that you recognize.
Also, know that ingredients are listed in order of ingredients with the greatest amount first, followed in descending order by those in smaller amounts. So if the first ingredient in the list is sugar, the product has more sugar in it than anything else.
3. Shop the peripheries of the store and stay out of the middle.
Grocery stores are pretty much all set up the same way: processed food products dominate the center aisles, while fresh foods (i.e. fruits, vegetables, dairy, meat, fish) line the walls. If you avoid the middle aisles you'll likely end up with much healthier and less processed foods.
4. When possible, shop away from the grocery store
Farmer's markets and CSA (community supported agriculture) boxes are a great way to support local farmers and get high quality foods that are minimally processed. These foods will also be in season and thus higher in nutrients, plus you'll have much less of an environmental impact when you shop locally.
References
Pollan, M. (2008). In defense of food: An eater’s manifesto. Penguin Books.