Healthy Grocery Shopping Tips

You have your healthy shopping list in hand. Now, how can you navigate the grocery store and choose the healthiest foods for you and your family?

Of course ideally you want to fill up your cart with as much fresh produce as possible. No food has been made more nutritionally dense through processing and packaging. However, when you do buy packaged foods, here are just a few important healthy grocery shopping tips.

Reading food labels:

1. Check the serving size. Often the information can be misleading. For instance, Vitamin Water made by Coca cola, 1 serving contains 13 grams of sugar. However, each bottle is considered as 2.5 servings. This cleverly hides the fact that each bottle contains 32.5 grams of sugar. This is more than 8 teaspoons (the same as a soft drink).
2. Check the percent daily value, or percent D V. Look for foods high in vitamins, minerals and fiber and low in sugar and salt. 5% and less is considered a small amount, 15% and more a high amount.
3. Check the kinds of oils used. Avoid hydrogenated oils and modified oils. Palm oil and modified palm oil has replaced many trans fats but it is actually a solid substance that, like trans fats, clogs arteries.

A few more grocergy shopping tips

Choose frozen vegetables over canned as many canned foods are high in sodium which is used as a preservative.

Multi grain or whole wheat can be misleading as it still may contain mostly refined grains. Better to find breads and other grain products made with whole grain.That way you can be assured that you are getting the whole grain including the bran, germ, more fiber, nutrients and vitamins.

By following these guidelines you can compare different products and find the healthiest foods.

Upcoming Conferences

For those of you living around Montreal, here are a few conferences I have lined up for next year. Mark your calendars!

Shopping for Health - How to Navigate the Grocery Store, Understand Labels and more. (Which inspired this ezine : )
Thursday January 17th, 7 PM.
Euro-Marché du Village
323 Ch Du Bord-du-Lac, Lakeshore, Pointe-Claire, QC, H9S4L6.

Stop the Clock! Natural Ways to Stay Young,
Thursday, January 31st, 1 PM
Prime Time, Cummings Community Center, 96 Roger Pilon, D.D.O. H9B 2E1.

If you miss that one, I’ll be doing it again, as written up in the Contact Magazine for Beaconsfield. This will be the 2nd conference in my Optimal Health Series:

Stop the Clock! Natural Ways to Stay Young.
Tuesday, February 5th at 10AM.
303 Beaconsfield Boulevard, Beaconsfield, Quebec, H9W 4A7.

Acid, the Body’s Enemy - Maintaining pH Balance
Thursday, February 7th 7PM
Coop des Bon Voisins,
247a Bord-du-Lac, Pointe-Claire, QC, H9S 4K8,

Stayed tuned for conferences planned at the Running Room Veaudreuil, The Beaconsfield New Comers Club, Clinique Psy Santé and more. I will keep you posted in upcoming e-zines.

To your natural health!
Sue-Anne

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