My Plan For Health

Shopping healthy requires knowledge and organization.

That was the lesson of the Lunch & Learn seminar on healthy grocery store shopping.  Jenny Anderson, a registered dietitian and newest member of the OSU Wellness team, offered tips on how to shop smart.

Surveys show that 70 percent of people bring lists with them to the grocery store, but only 10 percent actually adhere to them, Anderson said. And for every item on our shopping list that we put into our carts, most of us add two impulse items. Where do those impulse items come from?

“From the moment we pull into the parking lot, we are marketed to,” Anderson said. In the aisles and in the check-out line, products are placed to get our attention. These are not necessarily healthy products; they are the products that bring grocery stores the most profit.

Healthy foods on display at the Lunch & Learn

Not surprisingly, Anderson said that a healthy diet contains low-fat, high-protein foods and whole grains, and lots of fruits and vegetables. The easiest way to get all these foods into your diet is to cook healthy food at home.

This is usually where I stall out of the healthy eating process… I don’t do all that much cooking from scratch. I buy a lot of convenience foods.

But, to my surprise, Anderson mentioned some healthy convenience foods, and I was pleased to find that I already had most of them at home: frozen edamame, whole wheat couscous, low-fat yogurt, and frozen veggie burgers. She also mentioned grains such as quinoa, which I can happily cook in my rice maker with little effort.

Quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah) is a South American grain, and it’s unusual in that it contains a complete protein. We can get complete proteins from meat, but getting them from vegetables requires a little ingenuity (just ask a vegetarian) and combinations of foods, such as rice and beans. Quinoa has the protein goin’ on all by itself.

Red quinoa -- has kind of a red pepper flavor

Anderson handed out sample grocery lists and menus for cooking at home. Click here for a PDF. She advocates planning a week’s worth of meals ahead of time, and buying only the fresh food you need for that week. Pantry staples like grains and canned goods make up the rest.

All this healthy shopping and cooking is easier if you’re organized, and Anderson recommended cleaning and prepping your food as soon as you get home. Her coolest tip: store lettuce in your salad spinner (note to self: buy a salad spinner). When you bring a fresh head of lettuce home, pull it apart and wash it in the salad spinner, then leave it there in the fridge. The sald will have just a little moisture with air freely flowing around it — the ideal conditions for keeping it fresh longer.

She also recommended buying pre-chopped vegetables (from salad bars and such) to save time. I was way ahead of her on that one. I joke that I like my food pre-washed, pre-chopped, and hermetically sealed… Actually, now that I think about it, I’m not joking. Pre-prepared foods are incredibly convenient. One lesson from Anderson’s Lunch & Learn was that prepared foods don’t have to be unhealthy if you know what you’re buying.

Bonus: Today on one of my favorite blogs, I’m an Organizing Junkie, a guest blogger shares some tips on kitchen organization for healthy eating.

Yes, I read a blog called I’m an Organizing Junkie. I like to optimize, thankyouverymuch!