Strategies for shopping healthfully and frugally

The following is an excerpt from chapter 2 of The Cleaner Plate Club, the book Ali Benjamin co-wrote with Beth Bader (Storey Publishing, 2011).

Strategies for shopping healthfully and frugally

Shop the pantry at home first. Planning meals around the ingredients you have on hand helps keep the list short, and it also keeps your grocery bill lower than your mortgage payment.

Plan ahead, then stick to your list. Plan your meals in advance. If you begin planning meals while you’re in the grocery store, you’ll probably get overwhelmed. Knowing what you need before you enter the store is critical. But sticking to a list is even more important. It can also help to set a budget before you go, and then to keep a running tally on a calculator as you add items to your cart.

Don’t go hungry. If you enter the supermarket on an empty stomach, you’ll make more impulse purchases.

Never bring children who are hungry or tired. Trust us on this one: It is always a mistake. Fill them up with good food before you arrive. When in doubt, stop by the deli area for some sliced cheese that you can feed to your child as you go.

Stick to the outer aisles. The healthiest items in the store are almost always on the periphery — the produce, dairy, fish, and frozen sections. With few exceptions — dried beans and rice, olive oil, and seasonings among them — the center aisles are filled with highly processed, nutrition-poor alternatives.

Beware of anything making health claims. A health claim emblazoned on a box is, ironically, usually the telltale sign of something you probably don’t want to eat. Fresh broccoli doesn’t brag about its high iron and fiber content, and you’ll never find apples boasting about their calcium levels.

Bulk up. If you’re lucky enough to shop at a store with a bulk aisle, you’ll find delicious, healthful whole-food options, without the extra packaging, at a great price. From quinoa — an amino acid–rich seed that can be cooked like rice — to whole-grain flours, dried beans, and nuts, most bulk products are good for your health, your wallet, and the planet.

Explore the produce aisle. If there’s one place to get adventurous or to make impulsive purchases, it’s the produce aisle. This section is a smorgasbord of health-boosting phytochemicals, vitamins, minerals, fiber, and great tastes.

Ali is the co-author of The Cleaner Plate Club: Raising Healthy Eaters One Meal at a Time. She and co-author Beth Bader also blog at a website with the same name.