Archive for June 10th, 2010

I’ve learned over the years the majority of my food choices actually occur in the grocery store, not when I open the fridge or the cupboard. Chances are, if I buy it someone in my house, will inevitably eat it. This means the important decisions I make about my diet are made as I nonchalantly load up my shopping cart, while carrying on a dialogue with my daughter about why we are not getting Cocopuffs or Count Choculas.

Here are ten tips I try to keep in mind so I don’t lose it in the cookie aisle. Some of these are adapted from Ramona Josephson’s Heart Smart Shopper, and others are gleaned from my own tumultuous experiences in the supermarket.

1. Always make a list, to avoid the spur of the moment and impulse decisions.  If you have tips on how to remember or not lose the list, please share because I am not sure my list has ever actually seen the inside of a grocery store, something I inherited from my mother. 
2. Never go shopping while hungry. It’s absolutely unbelievable how much more I spend and how many truly bad decisions I make while roaming the isles at Thrifty Foods with a gnawing, growling stomach.
3. Shop Wide. Typically the perimeter of the store contains all the essential items and the aisles contain evil, but irresistably seductive, items like Presidents Choice Chocolate Chip Cookies and Lindt chocolate, so I try not to go there unless I absolutely have to. 
4. Load up on grains, veggies and fruit (not Pirate Peanut Butter Cookies) and store them in the biggest area of your cart. When shopping for produce, variety in colour indicates a variety of nutrients.
5. Be discerning in your choice of dairy, meat and meat alternatives and store these in the child seat area to help minimize how many you buy. (I’ll get to where the child should go in just a moment.) Low fat options for dairy are preferable and a good rule of thumb when selecting meat is the faster the animal the leaner the meat. No, cows are not fast.  Nor are pigs. Fish and legumes are good though.
6. Foods like oil and sugar should be limited, so put them in that bottom undercarriage of your cart. This limits how much you can carry and maybe you’ll even forget about them.
7. Read food labels, particularly of products you consume regularly. I always check ingredient lists as they are listed in descending order, so if sugar is first on the list, which it often is with many packaged cereals, (and cookies) there is a problem. I also check  for percentage of fat content and total calories per serving. Ideally no more than 30% of total calories ingested should come in the form of fat, and not more than 10% from saturated fat. Serving sizes vary from product to product, so if comparison shopping you’ll need to do some basic math.
8. Watch for terms like “light’ or “lite“. This can actually refer to taste or texture and not calorie content.
9. Don’t be seduced by products promising to be fat free. They can still be loaded with sugar, and therefore calories.
10. Avoid trans fats, hydrogenated fats and saturated fats. All of these terms indicate your body can not break the fat molecules down, consequently they get deposited in your body.

 N.B. – Oh and tip number eleven. I love my daughter more than life itself, but grocery shopping is much easier when I go by myself. I know this isn’t always possible, so until she was almost five, I used to shop with her in a backpack. Product shelf placement is a science. Ever notice kids meltdown more in grocery stores than anywhere else on the planet…

Okay, and maybe I melt down in the cookie aisle, which reinforces my shop wide strategy, avoiding the chocolate covered Hob Nobs when they taunt me from the centre aisles.