Grocery Shopping Tips

Planning equals success.  I create my meal plan every weekend before I head to the grocery store.  Sure, there can be some speed bumps each week, but I try to stick to this plan closely.  I also make my grocery list off of what my recipes and meal plans are.  These are some tips for shopping and navigating at the grocery store/famer’s market that will help get and keep you on the right track for eating clean and healthy!

1.  Create a menu - I usually do one week at a time. Know your recipes and shop from this list.  Don’t throw in that extra package of oreo’s.  It’s not on your menu and you don’t need it.

2. Eat before you go to the store - If you don’t, you will overbuy and you will also buy foods you normally wouldn’t if you had eaten before hand.

3. Shop around the perimeter of the store - go for the outside aisles first.  This is the fresh produce (fruits and vegetables), dairy and butcher/meats.  The packaged and processed foods are found in the middle aisles.

4.  Shop by yourself - you can get in and out quickly and no one is there to tempt you to buy cookies, candy and soda.

5. Stick to your list - Just because there is a sale on potato chips doesn’t mean you should get them.  Sale does not mean buy in this case.

6. Read labels -  look for and avoid hidden sugars.  The labels may say corn syrup, dextrose, fructose, glucose, gluco-fructose, honey (natural), molasses (natural), maple syrup (natural), maltose, sucrose, or any sort of artificial sweetener like aspartame.  Look for hidden fats as well.  You don’t want ANY partially hydrogenated or trans fats in your foods.  The FDA is beginning to phase these out so that’s good but it will take a few years.  If there is 0.5 g of trans fat or less, the package can say 0 on it, so read the list of ingredients.  Avoid things like palm oil, palm kernel oil, shortening, butter, chocolate, milk chocolate, cocoa butter, egg and egg yolk solids, lard, tallow, suet, whole milk solids, glycerol esters and mono or di glycerides. 

7.  If you buy bread and cereal, look for high fiber content.  Also look for low sugar.  I eat Ezekiel bread, which is made from sprouted grains, but if you buy whole grain or wheat bread, make sure wheat flour is the first ingredient.  You don’t want enriched as a first word.  This means the wheat has been stripped and then they tried to add some nutrients back in. 

8.  Just because the package says it is healthy, doesn’t mean it is so.