Food Shopping 101

The MyPyramid Food Plan was created by the USDA to help Americans select a healthy diet. It separates the foods we need to meet all of our nutritional requirements into six basic food groups. In theory, if you eat the recommended number of servings of food from each group every day you can satisfy all your nutritional needs. But how can you tell what belongs where in the maze of choices in the store today?

Grocery stores have been super-sized into supermarkets to fit all of the new and improved foods now available at the same time that gas stations and drug stores have started selling food. So why do people complain they have difficulty “buying food?”

The problem most are struggling with is over choice and all the complex decisions they must make when faced with hundreds of different breakfast cereals and even more varieties of salad dressings on a routine trip to the market. To help ease our pain, the government requires consumer information on food packaging in the form of nutrition facts, ingredient lists and health claims.

Supermarket chains, health care organizations and food manufacturers also entered the education arena by adding rating (aka “profiling”) systems to the food packages to help guide us to the healthiest choices. With so much information to sort through, many consumers are complaining it takes more time than money to do their shopping today.

Let’s cut to the chase and see what really matters.

Buy Basic Foods, Minimally Processed and Packaged

If you build your shopping list around those foods found in the groups represented in the Food Pyramid, most of your time will be spent on the perimeter of the store, where the fresh foods are displayed. You can also venture up the aisles for many wholesome products, but the more things you buy with excessive packaging and/or processing that are being sold for their convenience value, the less food value you’re getting. Use these shopping tips to purchase the recommended servings per day for a woman 19-30 years of age.

The Grain Group: 6 ounce equivalents per day

This includes all forms and varieties of bread, rolls, crackers, breakfast cereals, tortillas and side-dish grains like rice and pasta. The key here is to select those made primarily from whole grains instead of enriched or highly milled (usually white) and processed grains.

Look for 100% whole wheat flour as the first ingredient on sliced bread, pita pockets, flat breads, sandwich rolls and English muffins. Reach for cereals that just contain grains, like wheat, corn, oats and barley, and skip the “nuggets,” “clusters,” fruit bits and other add-ins. If you want nuts and fruit in your cereal, add them yourself.

Brown rice is available in very convenient quick cooking forms today and there are plenty of choices in whole grain pastas and couscous. Just be careful of the highly seasoned versions that end up being highly salted.

Snack foods like crackers, pretzels, corn chips and popcorn also count as grain foods and some are even made with whole grains, but even if they are, you must still control the portion you eat and what you’re pairing them with. One corn tortilla topped with a ¼ cup of reduced fat cheddar cheese and melted for a quick quesadilla is much easier to keep track of than 13 baked corn chips buried under an unknown quantity of nacho cheese.

The Fruit Group: 2 cups per day

While all of the fresh fruit and most 100% fruit juices are found on the perimeter of the store, there are great values in the freezer case and in the aisles as canned and dried fruit. The best choice in fresh fruit is whatever is in season and locally or regionally grown since fruit that has been shipped from halfway around the world is not that fresh by the time you eat it.

Frozen berries are picked when plentiful and frozen after fully ripening on the vine, so they can be enjoyed all year long and will retain their nutritional value as long as they remain frozen. Canned fruits packed in a fruit juice are a good substitute for fresh and frozen fruit when they are not available or affordable. And no matter what, a dish of canned peaches is always a better dessert than another cookie.

The number of dried fruits on the market today has expanded way beyond raisins and prunes (now known as “dried plums”). Reach for some dried mango slices or red cherries to be sure you always have fruit on hand that won’t bruise, brown or blemish.

The Vegetable Group: 2 ½ cups per day

The focus here is the same as that when shopping for fruits, but with vegetables you also have to pay attention to the sub-groups in order to cover all your nutrient needs. That means you must add to your shopping cart some vegetables that are classified as Dark Green, Orange, Beans and Lentils, Starchy and Other. You can find complete lists at http://www.mypyramid.gov/pyramid/vegetables.html.

The shortcut here is to get the most vegetable variety in your diet that your budget will allow. This can be done by tossing canned chick peas into your salads, simmering sliced mushrooms in your tomato sauce, bulking up sandwiches with roasted peppers from a jar and stretching canned minestrone soup with a box of frozen peas and carrots.

The Milk Group: 3 cups per day

In addition to milk, this group includes yogurt and cheese, all found on the perimeter of the store. Calcium fortified juices and soy drinks and milk-based desserts like ice cream, frozen yogurt and puddings do not deliver the same nutritional profile as milk, yogurt and cheese.

Attention should be paid to the fat content of the foods in this group since that is the one nutrient we don’t need from them. Opt for reduced, low or fat free versions whenever possible and beware of added sugars in flavored milks and yogurts since they can raise the calories to that of an indulgence food. Why not buy plain low fat yogurt in a quart container and add your own honey, thawed berries and/or wheat germ? Yum!

The Meat and Beans Group: 5 ½ ounce equivalents per day

Even though most college women are not huge fans of the meat foods in this group, the daily requirement is not that big nor that difficult to get from just one typical serving from this group. Plus, there are plenty of non-meat options, such as eggs, beans, veggie burgers, nuts and fish – whether fresh, frozen or canned

That said, the emphasis here must be on selecting cuts of meat with the lowest fat content, then opting for cooking methods don’t add fat. You must also pay attention to the serving size. Even “good’ alternatives to meat, like salmon and nuts, have lots of calories, so portion control must be observed since eating more of a healthy food does not mean you get healthier, it means you get fatter.

The Oils Group: 6 teaspoons a day, including that naturally found in oily foods like nuts, avocado and certain fish.

Yes, there are “good” fats and “bad” fats, but the best rule of thumb is less fat.

Anything that does not readily fit into one of these groups is either a food combination, like macaroni and cheese in a box (highly processed and packaged) or a food creation, like cheese flavored corn puffs, all of which introduce lots of extra fat, sugar, salt and/or calories to your meals.

This is just a basic overview and does not include a complete discussion of the choice between the organically versus conventionally grown food, but long before that matters you have to figure out how you’re going to make your food selections add up to the recommended number of servings from each food group every day. And if you can do that, you’ve got little else to worry about when it comes to good nutrition.

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Robyn Flipse, MS, RD

Author, Fighting the Freshman Fifteen

Available at www.FreshmanFifteenBook.com

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