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sauce, etc.) are healthy enough to go in your shopping basket, although you might want to check the sodium content on such items. Be more cautious of items in boxes and bags. Crackers, cookies, chips, macaroni and cheese dinners, frozen pizzas, microwave meals, sugar cereals and other such items should stay out of your cart for the most part. On the other hand, staples such as whole-wheat flour, oats, high fiber cereals, frozen vegetables and rice are green light items. Truly, it comes down to common sense and, sometimes, a bit of sleuthing because the healthier items aren't always the ones at eye level.

Finally, if you want to eat a healthy diet, two of the best things you can do for yourself is avoid products that carry health claims and shop beyond your grocery store. It may seem counter-intuitive to turn away from food products that carry health claims but almost without exception these health claims are marketing gimmicks to mask the fact that the product has been heavily processed and contains many artificial ingredients and additives. In fact, many of the foods you find at the grocery store are more products of a food laboratory than they are of fertile soils, water and sunshine, and your body was not designed for laboratory foods, it was designed for nature's foods. So, if you truly want to eat healthy, you might also consider bypassing the grocery store for other places where nature's food can be found. Farmer's markets, natural food stores, local grocery stores, butchers, local bakeries, ethnic food markets and specialty food shops all offer an excellent array of foods that are more likely to have come from nature and much less likely to be full of artificial flavours, bad fats and added sugars. If you really want to try something out of the ordinary find out if there are any community supported agriculture (CSA) options or weekly vegetable box schemes in your area. These relatively new ways of getting your weekly vegetables guarantee you'll get the healthiest, freshest, and most flavorful produce possible while also supporting a local farmer.

Shopping for healthy food doesn't require you get a nutrition degree or become an expert in label reading, it simply calls for you to seek out the vibrant colors of nature, search for food that is closer to the source and use your common sense when it comes to putting items in your cart. It's just that simple.

Learn more about this author, Shannon Courtney.
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