Grocery Shopping Tips

We work very hard to eat REAL food in our house. We understand the dangers of processed food and we do our best to grow, buy, chop and prepare REAL food on a daily basis. Many of the recipes on this blog will support you in your journey to eat REAL food. We make our own granola, tomato sauce and we bake with honey, applesauce and maple syrup (for the most part). We buy from local grocery that are family owned for our vegetables and meat and try to avoid the BIG stores where meat and vegetables can be more processed and not as locally procured. It is touch, time consuming work and we are not raising a family and trying to put decent food on the table while working full time and dealing with how expensive food is. Government does not make REAL food a priority and sugar is both addictive and added to SO many products in so many different ways. It is WORK to avoid processed white sugar. Given all these barriers, our family is still committed to doing the best we can to eat REAL food as much as possilbe.

In the book, Metabolical by Robert H. Lustig, he gives these tips for grocery shopping:
1. Don’t go shopping hungry.
2. Shop the edges of the supermarket.
3. Don’t buy from the endcaps of the aisles – the companies pay to have their products placed there to
lure you in and they are usually highly processed.
4. Any food with a logo you’ve heard of or a Nutrition Facts label is processed.
5. If a product lists a structure-function claim, don’t buy it. i.e. low-fat, no trans-fat
6. If the carbohydrate to fiber ration is great than 10-1, don’t buy it.
7. If any form of sugar is one of the first three ingredients, it is a dessert.

We need nutritional education (not from government or food companies) and real-world strategies to help us move away from process food. Real food is achievable. Work to change your grocery and buying habits. We need a food revolution. Food is powerful. Doing the right thing is hard, no matter what you say or do, you are going to upset someone. Food is everyone’s business, and so everyone has an opinion, informed or not. Processed food is hedonic – it is all about pleasure and fun, but it is actually causing metabolic disorders and ruining our health. Small changes can make a big difference .

There is a great website that will help you plan a menu that supports REAL food:
Foogal
It is a free app with recipes that will help you on your journey to better health through better eating.