Good, Better and Best: How to Navigate Your Grocery Store
You do not have to eat an organic diet to eat healthy.
You do need to stop eating potato chips and ice cream on the regular.
Grocery shopping rule of thumb: shop the perimeter and stay out of the center aisles.
1. Protein
GOOD: Go to the dairy section and get the highest quality eggs available or better yet, find a farmer who raises free range chickens. Eggs are an excellent source of protein and, even at $4 or $5 per dozen, are one of the least expensive ways to add protein to your diet.
BETTER: Buy the highest quality of the protein you eat the most. Next add beef, lamb, goat, wild game, fish and eggs, and then chicken and pork. Choose the leanest cuts, or trim the fat from the cuts you buy as toxins are stored in fat tissue.
BEST: Look for labels reading “grass fed and finished,” 100% grass fed, pastured, organic, and wild caught seafood (remember to avoid shrimp, tilapia, and farm raised salmon altogether). Also, organ meats, even organic or pastured, are often inexpensive because the demand is fairly low. If you can only afford a certain amount of grass fed or pastured meats, purchase those in the fatty cuts since the fat will be cleaner.
AVOID: Commercially raised bacon, sausage and deli meats. A few brands that are widely available and acceptable are Applegate and Plainville Organic.
BUY LOCAL: Find a local farmer and compare prices—it may be cheaper to purchase from the farmer than from the grocery market. Some great online resources for finding proteins include:
- eatwild.com
- localharvest.org
- eatwellguide.org
2. Produce
GOOD: Fruits—eat them, but sparingly. Frozen fruits are flash frozen at their peak and will be the most nutrient dense and generally less expensive. Plus you don’t have to worry about waste.
BETTER: Vegetables and more vegetables. Leafy greens are a great source of vitamins C, E and K and many B vitamins and minerals too. Buy frozen veggies because they have more nutrients than produce that is sitting in the store waiting to be purchased. You can also stock up on staple veggies and freeze them yourself.
BEST: Purchase produce based on the Environmental Working Group's list of Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen. Vegetables and fruits contain essential nutrients, vitamins and minerals. The fiber in them is so very important for regulating hunger hormones and helping feed the good bacteria in the gut. If purchasing from this list is too cost prohibitive, stick to high quality meats first and foremost and just start eating more veggies.
BUY LOCAL: Fruits and veggies should be purchased locally and in season if possible as produce picked at its peak has more nutrients than produce picked a month before it has ripened. Some great resources for buying local produce include:
- Farmers market -- you can purchase fresh picked vegetables for about the same or less than in the grocery store.
- CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) -- produce will be delivered throughout the growing season. This is often the most affordable way to get food for your family.
- Bulk buy through groups such as local food cooperatives – a large amount of an item is purchased and consumers share the cost.
3. Fats
GOOD: Healthy fats are important for your cellular structure. Some of the best sources of fat are also the cheapest. Canned coconut milk is around $2 per can and gives you around 70 grams of fat per can!
BETTER: Stock up on coconut oil and olive oil when you find it on sale or when your budget allows for these things. Organic and pastured butter or ghee are also great fats to consume but are a bit pricey, but a little goes a long way.
BEST: Nuts are a good source of fat and are super easy to rely on for a quick snack of quality fats. However, they are not meant to be consumed in large quantities, so stick with two tablespoons or a small handful per day. Go for raw (soak and sprout them, then dehydrate them) or dry roasted nuts.
You might be a little shocked at your grocery bill the first few times you shop, but in the long run, it’s worth it. If you can fill your cart with items from these three essential categories, you will be off to a great start for eating healthier and feeling better.
Feel like you need more help? Cutting sugar out of your diet is a vital step towards better health, but often it's hard to know what sugar is in since it hides behind so many ingredient names. Check out my FREE 4 Types of Sugar Guide
to help you learn where sugar lurks and be equipped to choose foods that don't contain sugar.
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Did you know most people didn’t have refrigerators in their homes until well into the 1900’s? It wasn’t even invented for large scale commercial use until the mid 1800’s [1]. So how did people keep their milk cold and make their food last longer? Fermentation. It sounds like a gross concept, because we often associate fermentation with a bad odor, but foods like cheese, yogurt, sauerkraut and pickles are all fermented foods. And those aren’t gross, are they? Well, some might disagree with me about sauerkraut, but that’s beside the point. Fermented foods are digestive aids. Microscopic living organisms in fermented foods help extend the food’s shelf life, enhance flavor, and help the body absorb minerals. These organisms pre-digest the food, getting rid of harmful components, and create more vitamins and enzymes than the food began with. Enzyme-rich foods have many benefits including [2]: Increase digestibility of food we eat Boost immune system Increase alkalinity; neutralizing pH levels Provide a healthy balance of friendly flora in the gut (Learn more about your microbiome in my other blog posts ) Tone the colon and help with elimination Control cravings for unhealthier foods Eliminate toxins and undigested wastes in the body In the “old days,” people use to ferment all kinds of foods through pickling, canning, pasteurization and added salt. Nowadays, however, large scale fermentation has lost many of its nutritious benefits due to the need for speed to get the product on the shelf as fast as possible and as cheap as possible. The only true fermented foods you will find are sauerkraut, kombucha, yogurt and kefir, beans, wine and beer, some meats (such as salami and pastrami), legumes and nuts (such as tofu, soy sauce and miso), sourdough bread, and various kinds of vegetables [3]. Fun facts about sauerkraut: The Germans “stole” it from the Chinese! Sauerkraut (probably not labeled as such for the Chinese, but the same recipe) was one of the main foods for those who built the Great Wall of China. Genghis Khan brought it to Eastern Europe during an invasion. It also contains high levels of vitamin C, and sailors often took it on long journeys to prevent scurvy.
How can we best keep blood sugar stable? Do what our body is designed to do – use fat for energy. Our species did not survive the Ice Age because of vanilla coffee lattes and cheesecake. Throughout most of our history, we ate a diet that was likely 50-70 percent fat. Look at the old family photo albums, specifically pictures of people in the first half of the 1900s, before we had so many processed foods. You won’t see many fat people--in fact, most look darn skinny. If they lived on the farm, they ate lots of eggs, meat, milk, and vegetables out of their own backyards. “Diet foods” were non-existent. Heart disease was almost non-existent. Our metabolism is designed to work much better with fats better than with sugar. Fats provide the slow and steady fuel our body likes to use for energy. Think of fats as a slow-burning log on the fire. One log (i.e. one meal containing fats) lasts for hours. Starchy carbs, on the flip side, are like kindling. You constantly have to throw more twigs (chips, pasta, bagels) to keep the fire burning. The first step is to know your sugars by reading the labels, and then avoid said sugars as much as possible.
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