Shopping for Health

Ceramic tiles made by Lorraine Bauman Pottery

Recently, a friend asked me to write a post about meal-planning and eating healthier. Since there is so much to say about this topic, I decided to break it up over the next few weeks. This first part is about the most important step in ensuring a balanced diet: shopping for the right foods.

While exercise keeps you fit and toned, 90% of your body's health depends on what you eat.

As Michael Pollan says, "If it came from a plant, eat it. If it was made in a plant, don't." This isn't something to be taken literally, but it should give you a good idea for what's a smart choice and what to stay away from.

You don't have to spend tons of money to eat clean. What you do have to spend is energy making the right decision for your body. The decision you make today will affect you tomorrow and the day after and the month after, and years after. It might sound silly but your future self really does depend on if you go for the potato chips or the broccoli. We are building a better, healthier future you and that starts now with these five guidelines:

1. Shop the peripheries: Most refined foods can be found in the middle of the store while the real foods like fruit, vegetables, and meat are located around the perimeter. Focus on the outer sections as much as possible to make sure you're buying food that isn't processed or filled with added sugar.

2. Look at the labels: If you can't pronounce the ingredients on the packaging, you probably should not be putting that into your body. Pay attention to things like aspartame, which is often found in "sugar-free" foods as a sugar substitute. This includes all of those "diet" sodas and artificial sweeteners. Aspartame is a chemical that is metabolized into formaldehyde in your body (the same chemical used to preserve cadavers like the ones in my med school's anatomy lab). While you may not consume enough to cause severe damage, there is some question if aspartame, in combination with glutamate, can lead to neurotoxicity and brain damage.

3. Eat fresh: Don't eat something that never goes bad. Nothing that is good for you should last that long. That would defeat the whole purpose of eating fresh. Most likely these types of foods are stock full of chemicals and preservatives that can be harmful to your body. One of the reasons I love cooking and baking is because I know every ingredient that I am eating. The only exception to this rule at least for me is canned goods like beans, chickpeas, and tuna fish.

4. Bring bags: Cut down on waste from those plastic shopping bags and focus only on things essential to your meal-planning - bring one to two bags if you're shopping for just yourself and see if you can fit everything you need for the next couple of weeks in there. This will help when it's time to carry everything back to your kitchen. If you're like me, you prefer to make only one trip from the car to your door.

5. Don't buy food where you buy your gas: Shop at stores with quality - it doesn't have to be a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. Just make sure it's a place that sells good produce and reliable ingredients. Most of all, avoid eating in the car. Take the time to sit down and enjoy your meals.

Every bite counts toward that new and improved you! Special thanks to my friends Arun and Allison for inspiring me to write this series.

Tune in next week for how to start meal-planning...