Healthy Grocery Shopping 101

To be healthy, you have to eat healthy and shop healthy.  What you shop is what you see in your ref and pantry and what ultimately gets cooked.  You need not just time- and money-saving grocery shopping tips, but healthy grocery shopping skills as well.

Take this crash course on the basics of healthy grocery shopping and shop your way to health.

Shop for balanced meals.

Cooking up balanced meals starts with shopping for the ingredients of a balanced meal.  Does your grocery shopping cart contain carb sources such as pasta, rice, couscous, crackers, noodles, taco wraps and potatoes?  Does it also have protein sources such as whole grains, beans, meat, poultry, fish, eggs, tofu, milk and cheese?  How about multivitamin and mineral sources such as fresh fruits and crisp vegetables?

Shop for variety.

Do not torment you tastebuds with the same tastes and textures each week.  Healthy foods need to be varied enough or else taste fatigue sets in.  Keep your palate interested with different tastes, textures, temperatures and colors of food.

Shop for healthy ingredients.

Read food labels and go for these healthy keywords on food labels: low-salt, low-sugar, low-fat, low-cal, decaf, organic, grass-fed beef, free-roaming chickens, lean meat, 100% natural, MUFA, whole-grain, fortified, enriched and fiber-rich.  In general, hard-to-pronounce and cryptic sounding names are unhealthy.

Shop for single-serving pre-cut veggies and fruits.

Fill your shopping cart with single packs of pre-cut carrot strips, cucumber slices, berries and lettuce.  At home, stack these packs right on the top shelves of your ref, where you can easily reach for them whenever you feel like snacking.

Shop for convenient healthy foods.

Canned vegetables can be just as healthy as fresh produce and are much easier to cook.  Just toss them into your soups and salads and you’ll have healthy meals in less time.

Shop for meat substitutes.

An excess of meat is the modern-day diet’s curse.  Try tofu, nuts, edamame, veggie meats and textured vegetable protein to sub for pork or beef in some of your recipes.  

Shop with your stomach full.

When you are ravenously hungry when you shop, your body clamors for sugary, fatty foods and you are more tempted to fill your grocery cart with all the wrong stuff.  So before you go to the grocery, eat something.  When you are not hungry, your head--not your tummy--  will make the decisions.