3 Rules I Follow While Grocery Shopping As A Holistic Nutritionist

As you're wandering through the grocery store aisles, do you ever wonder to yourself how you could make shopping for cleaner, healthier items easier? 

You know you would prefer having healthier options for your kids - ones you know won't lead to chronic disease and health issues - but you have no idea where to even begin, not to mention, you still need easy and don't have time to make everything from scratch!

Today I'm going to let you in on three easy-to-remember rules I follow when I'm grocery shopping. Following these three tips will really get the ball rolling on becoming aware of what is in the foods you and your family are consuming. 

Buying healthier options doesn't have to mean totally skipping all processed and packaged foods. Whole foods are ideal, but let's face it, eating all whole foods, especially for kids, isn't a very realistic goal for most. They should definitely be a part of your overall diet, but sometimes we just need the ease and convenience of something that is packaged and ready to eat. I buy plenty of processed foods for our family - I just prioritize which processed foods I buy using these three tips I'm about to share.

(P.S. If you'd like to take a look at the processed foods I buy for our family, check out a recent post I did on them by clicking here!)

Tip #1 - Look for short ingredient lists

Ideally, lists with 10 or less ingredients is what I look for. The less ingredients, the less chance there is that less-than-ideal things are included in the product you're looking at. This isn't a magic number. Occasionally there are things that have more than 10 ingredients, and as long as they fall under tips #2 and 3, I'm usually fine with purchasing those items.

Tip #2 - Be sure the ingredients listed are items you can pronounce

Most of the dangerous or less-than-ideal ingredients that are in our foods have long, chemical-like names. Names that are difficult for most to pronounce. So I make sure that I can easily say and, ideally, know what an ingredient is, which leads me to the last tip.

Tip #3 - Look for ingredients that could potentially be ingredients you have in your kitchen cupboards

If you can pronounce them and you know what they are, they are likely something that you could have in your kitchen cupboards to use as ingredients in food you would be making from scratch - which means the packaged food is as close to "from scratch" as you can get because it doesn't have the additional additives and preservatives and other less-than-ideal ingredients. It's similar to what would be produced by you in your kitchen!

I'm super confident that if you begin implementing those three tips the next time you grocery shop, your cupboards will slowly begin looking much healthier and you and your family will start seeing and feeling the results. 

Do you have any other little tricks you use while out shopping? If so, I'd love to hear about them! Use the form below to reach out 😊