Paige Harris Become a supermarket savant! Five tips to maximize your health and cut back on time spent in the supermarket.
How many times have you walked into the grocery store without a plan and left completely content with all of your purchases? I’m going to guess not too many.
Luckily for you, I’ve put together a list of five tips that you can use the next time (and every time) you need to go food shopping. They will help you cut back on the time you spend in the store, maximize your health, and keep your wallet a little happier, too!
—
Go in with a plan. As the great saying goes, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Before you head to the grocery store, plan out your meals for the following week. What ingredients do you need to buy for those meals? List them out, and be sure to include the quantity as well!
Next, go through your pantry and be sure you have enough of the staples. For me, that usually means checking my supply of spices and condiments. Coffee is another purchase that happens almost weekly. Keeping the ‘usual’ stuff on hand will help prevent a meal upset later.
Also, be sure to give yourself some wiggle room! For example, I consistently keep some kind of ice cream in the freezer. It’s my favorite, so I never feel guilty for ensuring a consistent supply. Going in with a list doesn’t mean that you have to restrict to purely “healthy” foods. Tack on the ice cream if you want it! Putting treat foods on the list will help you steer clear from other sweet treats you may impulse buy.
—
Shop in season. Now that it’s late summer here in the states, tons of fruits and vegetables are in peak harvest. Buying from these local stocks usually means lower prices and better flavors, both great perks for buyers! Locally harvested foods only travel a short way before being purchased. Vegetables picked closer to peak ripeness have less of a chance of losing water (and flavor) along the way. In addition to benefiting you, shopping locally for in-season produce also aids local farmers around your area.
Don’t worry if you don’t know what’s currently in season where you live. Check out this chart from Popsugar or ask your local grocer; he or she is sure to know!
—
Buy under-ripe produce.Yup, you read that right. Think about how many times you’ve found the perfect avocado at the store, only to be thoroughly disappointed with mush when you try and slice into it a day or two later. Or how about when you go to grab a banana and find the skin blackened. Sure, it’d be perfect in banana bread, but maybe not so perfect to throw in your bag for a quick snack.
Think about when you’ll be eating what you’re buying, and choose a ripeness accordingly. For example, if you’re going to eat a banana as a snack every day for a week, grab two or three yellow ones and two or three green ones instead of one big bunch. This way, you’ll have perfectly ripened fruit all week long!
Of course, if you plan on eating that avocado or banana that day, it’s different. Feel free to pick a perfectly ripe one!
—
Watch out for hidden sugars. The American Heart Association recommends that we keep our daily added sugar intake below 37.5 grams (9 teaspoons) for men or 25 grams (6 teaspoons) for women. When it comes to purchasing foods that come with nutrition labels, you need to be conscious of two major points: sugar content and sugar names.
Products usually have two lines for sugar on their packaging. The first, usually just called “Sugars,” lists the grams of sugar that can be found per serving. These sugars are usually inherent in whatever you’re buying (meaning that they weren’t added in later). The second type of sugar, “Added Sugars,” lists the grams of sugar that the food manufacturer added to the food.
Why does this difference matter? Sugars that are inherent to foods usually come with a decent amount of fiber. This makes them slower to digest and prevents a quick spike in blood sugar. Added sugars, however, come without the added fiber benefit. They cause quick spikes in blood sugar, insulin release, and the typical “sugar coma” after-eating-effect. Though both of these levels are important to watch out for, added sugars are definitely where you should look to keep numbers lowest.
A second place to look for sneaky sugars is in the ingredient list. According to Max Lugavere’s Genius Foods, sugar can be found under many different names, including (but not limited to) cane juice, fructose, malt, dextrose, honey, maple syrup, molasses, sucrose, coconut sugar, brown rice syrup, fruit juice, lactose, date sugar, glucose solids, agave syrup, barley malt, maltodextrin, and corn syrup.
If that sounds confusing, it’s meant to be. Ingredient labels have to be arranged so that the most prominent ingredient in the food is first on the list. Manufacturers use these different names for sugar to sneak more of the white stuff into food without having to declare it as the first ingredient. By splitting up sugar into these names, other ingredients, like “Whole Grains,” can be listed first on products like breakfast cereal, even if sugar really is the number one ingredient. How rude!
This isn’t to say that you should avoid sugar like the plague if you don’t want to. I definitely make it a point to have dessert every night without fail, and you’d better bet it includes something with sugar as an ingredient! So while I leave my dessert habit as is, I try to moderate my sugar intake in other ways by choosing unsweetened drinks and yogurts as well as low sugar snacks. Where there’s a will, there’s a way!
—
Skip the checkout goodies. Once you have a cart full of nutritious foods, it can be tempting to throw a few chocolate bars or packs of M&M’s into the mix. Especially when confronted with them right at the end of your shopping trip. At eye level.
The food industry does this on purpose. Companies know that if you see a junk food, you’re more likely to crave it and buy it. They also know that after making so many other food decisions in the store, you’re more likely to lose the will to resist and buy.
Since everyone has to pass through the checkout lanes in order to exit the store, this problem can be hard to get around. Nutrition advocates have been fighting for the removal of these goodies (or for their replacement with higher quality, more nutritious snacks), but the fight hasn’t been won just yet. Until then, remember to hold strong and stick to your list.
—
Try and implement these five tips into your weekly grocery routine, and I’m sure you’ll see positive results!
