Grocery Shopping Strategies
Steer clear of common grocery shopping mistakes by using a few simple strategies. With a focused approach, you can stick to your budget and meet your nutrition goals. Learn how to create a cost-effective shopping list, select healthy foods, and shop with confidence.
Important Education Takeaways
Get organized and stick to the list. Healthy eating begins at the grocery store, as the foods placed into your cart ultimately become the available food choices within your home.
Think ahead by making a weekly meal plan and building a meaningful grocery list.
With a well thought out plan and determination to ‘stick to the list’, you are more likely to choose foods aligning with your dietary goals.
Find what type of list works best for you: a notepad, digital notes on a phone, grocery list app, or a kitchen calendar or white board where you can snap a quick photo to use as a reference at the store. Consider grouping foods by grocery department for a focused and efficient experience.
Before you leave home:
Inventory foods on hand to minimize food waste and to prevent overbuying. Don’t forget to include the pantry, fridge, and freezer.
Eat or have a healthy snack! Avoid grocery shopping when hungry to lessen impulse buys and to ensure more nutritious food choices.
Add variety and balance in your weekly menu. Using one of these strategies might help with planning and shopping.
5-4-3-2-1 method of buying:
5 types of vegetables: Varying colors and textures such as leafy greens, starchy veggies, and quick cooking options (fresh or frozen).
4 types of fruits: Varying colors and textures utilizing fresh, frozen, dried or canned varieties. As often as possible, choose seasonal fruits for best flavor and pricing.
3 proteins: Both plant- and animal-based options including meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, dairy, tofu, and legumes.
2 carbs: Choose whole grain as much as possible: rice, quinoa, pasta, breads, tortillas, crackers, and cereal.
1 fun food: This could be a bakery item, frozen sweet treat, favorite salty snack food, yummy dip, or a convenience item.
3-3-2-2-1 method of buying:
3 vegetables
3 proteins
2 grains
2 fruits
1 dip/spread/sauce
Go to the grocery store. Create a consistent schedule for your grocery shopping and block it on your calendar.
For most households, grocery shopping once a week is adequate to stock up on fresh foods while preventing overbuying and excessive food waste.
For shelf-stable foods, frozen goods, or bulk items, grocery shopping once or twice a month should suffice.
Keep in mind, weekends are often the busiest times at the grocery store with lots of people shopping, product outages, and long checkout lines. Alternatively, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are considered the best days to shop due to lower crowds, freshest produce and meats, fully stocked shelves, and early access to newly discounted or sale items.
Too busy or too tired to shop? Consider online ordering, store pick-up, or grocery delivery options.
Navigate your grocery store with a plan. Prioritize foods that reside on the perimeter of the grocery store, while thoughtfully selecting foods from the inner aisles.
The perimeter of the store is where many of the fresh and whole foods are found. Fill your grocery cart with whole foods such as fresh produce, unprocessed proteins, reduced fat dairy products, and whole grains.
Processed and packaged food items are often found in the middle aisles of the grocery store. When choosing more processed food products, opt for those that have shorter ingredient lists and lower counts of saturated fat, added sugar, and sodium.
Be aware of clever advertising and store placement, such as with eye level treats and aisle end cap items.
Consider avoiding aisles that only offer tempting snacks, sweets, and sodas.
Ask a grocery store employee how their store is organized to help you more efficiently navigate the aisles when shopping.
Read food labels to decipher food claims. Get all the great details on food labels from our previous education highlights.
Shop with confidence. Select the most nourishing foods using these helpful pieces of advice.
Produce: Select in-season produce for best quality, flavor, and price. Choose items that smell fragrant, feel firm not soft or mushy, feel heavy for their size, and look vibrant in color. In addition to fruits and vegetables for meals and snacks, make sure to stock up on essentials cooking items such as garlic, onions, celery, carrot, bell pepper, tomatoes, fresh herbs, lemons, or limes.
Deli & Grab n’ Go Items: These foods are often highly processed and can be high in fat and sodium. Opt for fresher options such as veggie salads, pre-cut fruits, hard boiled eggs, and grilled or roasted proteins. Skip the fried foods, deli meats, and salads made with creamy sauces or dressings.
Meats/Poultry: Choose lean cuts of meat such as those labels round, flank, loin, sirloin, lean or extra lean ground meats with <15% fat content, skinless chicken, and ground turkey. Choose fresh meat and poultry instead of heavily processed options like deli meats, bacon, sausage, ham or other cured/smoked varieties.
Seafood: Choose fatty fish such as salmon, trout, or tuna for highest omega-3 benefit. Consider fresh or frozen seafood options such as fresh clams and mussels, or frozen fish fillets and shrimp.
Dairy: Choose reduced fat or fat free dairy foods such as milk, yogurt, and cottage cheese. When choosing yogurts, creamers, flavored milks, or milk alternatives, look out for high counts of added sugar and/or food additives. Check the sodium content on cheeses including cottage cheese. Stock up on quality protein foods such as tofu, eggs, plain Greek yogurt, and reduced fat cottage cheese.
Grains & Dry Goods: Choose whole, minimally processed options such as oats, brown rice, barley, farro, quinoa, dried beans, peas, and lentils for higher nutrient content as well as fiber counts. Look for grain products that are lower in added sugar and sodium such as whole wheat or sourdough bread, whole wheat flour, corn tortillas, whole wheat/lentil pastas. Choose healthier snack foods such as unsalted nuts/seeds, popcorn, rice cakes, whole grain crackers, or dried fruits with no sugar added.
Canned Goods: Choose reduced sodium or no salt added canned vegetables, beans, soups, broths, sauces, and canned proteins. Look for canned fruits packed in juice instead of syrup.
Dried Herbs, Spices, Oils/Vinegars, Condiments, & Baking: Buy dried herbs & spices, salt-free seasoning blends, nutritional yeast to add flavor to your foods. Make sure to choose healthy cooking oils such as olive oil or avocado oil. Incorporate a variety of flavors with specialty oils and vinegars such as sesame oil, balsamic, apple cider, or rice vinegars. Choose vinaigrette-style dressings instead of creamy options. Stock up on cooking essentials including Dijon mustard, coconut aminos, hot sauce, kosher salt, maple syrup, honey, or agave. Have whole wheat flour and dark chocolate chips on hand for baking.
Freezer aisle: Frozen foods can offer great flavor and nutrition at a fraction of the cost compared to fresh. Great frozen aisle buys include fruits, veggies, meats, and seafood. Skip the convenience meals (especially those with more than 500 mg of sodium per serving), breaded protein items, highly processed meat substitutes, saucy or salty side dishes, and frozen sweet treats.
Bulk bins: Bulk bins are great for stocking up on shelf-stable items like whole grains, beans, lentils, nuts, seeds, dried fruits, and dried spices.
Recipes
Recipe of the month: Super Greens Pasta Bake
As always, this recipe is the showcase of our live taught, virtual cooking class. Our chef and registered dietitian bring the recipe to life as they walk you through food prep, swaps to meet dietary or taste preferences, plus tips and tools to support you being your own healthy chef at home.
Bonus recipe: Curry Chicken Salad
From Jamie’s kitchen to yours, our monthly bonus recipes are published on our website and social media the 4th Wednesday of each month. We invite you to browse our recipe collection and come back often to find more flavorful and heart-healthy recipes.
We invite you to join us for the live taught, virtual nutrition classes each month to gather more information on our nutrition topics. This is also an opportunity to ask topic-related questions of our experts as well as connect socially with attendees for idea sharing. As a registered participant for our In the Kitchen program, you receive a few reminders ahead of each scheduled monthly classes, but here’s an easy to remember schedule: Nutrition Education (30-minutes, 2nd Wednesday, 12pm), Cooking Class (up to 60-minutes, 3rd Monday, 12pm).
Contributing author: Jamie Libera, RD, LD, CCTD, registered dietitian, Providence.