by Lynette Crawford

Created on: January 30, 2008   Last Updated: April 09, 2011

Buyers Guide to Healthy Groceries

My personal quest for healthy groceries began a few years ago. I wanted to feed my family nourishing, healthful meals as well as improve some medical conditions I was facing. The first step, a well-meaning fit friend told me, was to purge my kitchen cabinets of all the bad foods. Well, tossing all that food was not my idea of good, so I started to add good for you foods to my pantry and refrigerator on my next shopping trip. I will admit, my kitchen is not yet totally free of all the unhealthy food items, but I will proudly say that my family and I are eating much healthier foods than before.

So with all that in mind, let's go shopping! To begin, fresh is best, frozen is next. Let's take a traditional grocery list and make it more wholesome and healthy.

VEGETABLES: Vegetables are healthy, filled with fiber, antioxidants, calcium and vitamins. Keep them healthy by skipping the cans, buy fresh or frozen or dried.

FRUITS: Fruits are nourishing, packed with fiber, vitamins, antioxidants, minerals. Though the canned fruits (lots of added sugar) and single serve snack sizes are tempting pass them up and buy fresh, frozen (great for smoothies) or dried (great in your cereal).

POULTRY: Fresh turkey and chicken are great protein choices. Turkey is leaner. White meat is lower in fat. You can now find ground turkey and chicken, turkey and chicken sausage and turkey bacon. You can prepare meat for sandwiches, chicken nuggets for the kids, even chicken salad and these will be much healthier than deli meats (high in salt), fried fast food nuggets or deli chicken salad. You can substitute ground turkey/chicken into your meatloaf, spaghetti sauce, or tacos for a good for you' rendering of these traditional recipes.

MEAT: Lean, organic beef is best. Lean Pork is okay and so is Venison. (I will make a note here organic is hard to find in my area but if you can get it you can taste the difference)

FISH AND SEAFOOD: Fish and seafood are great protein choices and are full of Omega-3's. Fresh again is best, frozen fresh is good, too. Salmon and shrimp are the healthiest.

DAIRY: Low fat cheeses replace the full fat versions, yogurt, 2% milk or less (or you could go non-dairy and get Soy Milk)

SWEETENERS: Natural sweeteners are healthiest, avoid artificial if you can.

GRAINS: Whole wheat flour replaces white enriched flour (if you don't care for the texture of wheat flour try whole wheat cake flour), whole wheat pastas replace the enriched version,

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