Supermarket Shopping: Decisions and Dilemmas – The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans LLC

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Question: How many food decisions does the average person make in a day: 25, 80, 100, 200? According to Bonnie Taub-Dix RD, weight loss specialist in New York and author of Read it Before You Eat It: How to Decode Food Labels and Make the Healthiest Choice Every Time, the answer is 200 food decisions a day. No wonder grocery shopping can be mind-boggling and a source of overwhelming confusion!

Time and again, my clients wistfully comment, “Nancy, I wish I could take you food shopping with me.” They are confused about which foods to buy so they can eat healthfully. They wonder if they should buy organic or standard foods? fresh or frozen vegetables? low-fat or fat-free milk? Their list of questions seems endless. While I can answer their questions about food shopping, Taub-Dix’s newly released book can guide everyone through the grocery store. Read it Before You Eat It is a handy resource for hungry athletes. Here are just a few tidbits that I gleaned from this easy-reader.

  • Supermarkets are set up in the way they want you to shop, which means lots of unplanned purchases. That’s why loaves of freshly baked bread or pretty flowers greet you as you enter the store. Be sure you have a plan (and your guard up) when you enter! Sixty to seventy percent of what ends up in a shopping cart tends to be unplanned.
  • Beware of descriptive labels such as freshly bakedhomemadenatural, and wholesome. These words make products appear more attractive so they jump into your food cart. The same holds true with menus:  Succulent Italian Seafood Fillet sells more than Fish of the Day.
  • Don’t be tempted by “fat-free.” When food manufacturers take out the fat, they generally add extra sugar. You’ll end up with a similar amountof calories, and sometimes even more. A smaller portion of the “real food” can create a better taste-memory than a larger portion of a substitute that is low in taste.
  • Your goal should not be to eliminate dietary fat; you need some fat to absorb certain vitamins, provide fuel for endurance exercise, and contribute a nice taste and texture to foods. Rather, strive to enjoy more mono- and poly-unsaturated fats, while staying away from trans fats, listed on the label as “partially hydrogenated oils.”  Even if the label says “0 grams trans fat”, it might contain