Groceries & Nutrition Labels!!

Eating healthy can be really tricky, so here are two simple steps you can use in making good food choices:

1) Shop the outer aisles of the store.
    I understand that different stores have different layouts but the major grocery stores that people shop at typically have fruits, veggies, greens, eggs, milk, meats around the perimeter and you have to deliberately go into the aisles to find items like chips, cookies, sodas, and other processed foods. What grows on a farm, in a tree, on a vine? Look for that stuff. Walk the perimeter for 90% of what you eat and get a few fun items so you have balance.

2) Read the label.
     When I'm not shopping for fresh produce, fresh meats, etc. and I'm looking for more processed foods, I always check the label.  Do your apples come with nutrition labels?  I bet your yogurt, oatmeal, protein bars, etc. do.
What to look for:

• Brevity.  Do you want a man made chemical concoction going in your body or do you want something that came from nature in your body.  If your food label contains twenty ingredients and ten of them are multi-syllabic man-made items that you can't pronounce, do you really want to put that in your body?  The fewer ingredients, the better. How bout one ingredient? A short list is a good list.

What to look out for:

• Sugar.  You will be AMAZED at how many foods contain sugar once you start reading your food labels.  Go check your protein bars.  Check your soda cans.  Check your low-fat foods, blended spices, flavored Greek yogurt, sauces. Sugar sugar sugar making your body spike & crash & hold on to fat.  If you get nothing else out of this post, fine, read this. Stop stuffing your body full of sugar.  I challenge you to go read your labels and see how much sugar is in each item in your pantry.  Most items in my pantry have 0 to 5g of sugar.  What's left in your pantry if you throw out everything that has more than 5g of sugar per serving?? Show me.  Take a picture of what you removed - or take a picture of what's left - once you empty your pantry and fridge of everything that has added sugar. There are naturally occurring sugars in fruit & other natural foods but that's not the type of sugar I'm referring to.  I'm talking about added sugar, corn syrup & high fructose corn syrup.

Two tips. See where they take you.