Bright lights shine overhead as babies cry, mothers scold, and small children grumble to themselves, foiled again in their master plan to simply hide the sugary fruit snacks in the cart under the lettuce when Mom isn’t looking.
You got one of those carts with a broken wheel and it squeaks with every step, but you’re too exhausted to go back for another. Have you heard? Some people actually find grocery shopping to be relaxing! But that’s not the case when it comes to you.
And on top of the sensory overload, you have no idea what’s for dinner. Ready-made snacks and meals beckon to you from the center aisles, touting convenience and deliciousness in bright, bold packaging. Put down that box and step away from the Hamburger Helper—it’s time to learn how to make a healthy grocery list (and stick to it, too!)
Plan meals before you shop
Most of us eat twenty-one meals every week, with some snacks thrown in here and there. Since you’re shopping for yourself (rather than, say, planning a restaurant or cafeteria menu) you have some definite advantages—you already know what you like to eat, approximately how much food you tend to consume at every meal, and whether or not you enjoy eating leftovers.
You also know the dietary preferences of your family members, and unless you just moved to a new area, you’re probably already familiar with the availability of certain products at your favorite grocery store, as well as the availability of seasonal produce and other items in your region.
It’s helpful for some individuals to plan out every single meal, whereas others prefer a more flexible menu. Taking into account the availability of time to actually devote to cooking is also important—old standbys may be easy to prepare quickly, whereas new recipes tend to demand more time and focus.
Cooking a quick dinner every night works for some, but there are times when setting aside a few hours every weekend to do all of the cooking is the better option.
When you plan out your meals for the week, be sure to get enough food (but not too much, as this leads to food waste), and try to purchase everything you will need to prepare your weekly menu in one shopping trip. There’s nothing worse than realizing you forgot the tahini, and having to run back to the grocery store after work when you’re already exhausted.
Buy on sale & buy in bulk
Coupons for healthy items like fruits and vegetables are rare. Instead, it’s the branded, heavily marketed shelf-stable items that stare up at us from the pages of those glossy coupon circulars in the Sunday newspaper. My advice? Don’t fall for it.
Though you may find a bargain clipping coupons for olive oil and shampoo, avoid falling into the trap of purchasing sugary cereals and frozen prepared meals just because Kellogg or Kraft is offering $1 off if you purchase three boxes. Non-nutritive food is still unhealthy, even if you get a good deal on it.
Scan the weekly grocery store circulars that show up in your mailbox or in the newspaper at least once a week for sales on produce, meat, whole grains, legumes, eggs and dairy. If you’re one of the privileged few who isn’t inevitably overwhelmed by the clutter of all of that excess paper week after week, check out the advertisements for your local grocery stores online.
When canned beans or 5 lb. bags of oranges are on sale, buy in bulk. Always keep in mind the number of people who actually live in your household, and go from there. Don’t buy enough chickpeas to last five years unless you’re actually planning to make homemade hummus every week (and you have a place to put all those cans, other than your mom’s house).
If flats of strawberries are on sale at the local farmer’s market, that’s great! But consider first whether you’re actually prepared to wash and freeze (or can, if you’re that ambitious) all of those strawberries in the next couple of days. Chances are that you and your husband are never going to be able to eat them all before they begin to rot, unless you’re professional competitive eaters.
Saving money counts only if you’re not creating food waste in the process. Wasted food, even if it was cheap, is money (and precious natural resources) down the drain.
Choose a varied diet
In order for your shopping list to truly be healthy, remember to mix it up a little. Just because you would be perfectly content eating a bowl of oatmeal, a turkey sandwich and a salmon-topped salad every day for the rest of your life doesn’t mean you necessarily should.
It’s okay to include your standbys week after week (like milk and eggs) and various grocery list apps and online stores can help you to indicate the things that you’d like to keep in your culinary rotation on a weekly basis, but it’s a good idea to try something new once in a while.
I like to create a set of categories that I need to fulfill every week and go from there. Knowing that I need to buy three green vegetables, two orange vegetables, two types of fruit, some meat or fish, some dairy and some sort of whole grain every week keeps my healthy diet on track, but it also allows me to fill in the blanks as I go, creating a varied meal plan.
One week I might choose salmon with brown rice and carrots, whereas on another trip to the grocery store I might buy chicken with millet and asparagus. Take the time to see what looks good. If you’re able to visit a local farmer’s market, that would be even better. I love asking the farmers directly what’s good on a particular week, and what they like making with their featured produce.
Stick to the outer ring of the grocery store
Creating a shopping list ahead of time can help you to do this. If you’re too tempted by the snacks and sodas that line the inner aisles in seemingly endless rows, avoid them altogether.
Create a list that helps you to follow the typical refrigerated grocery store track that wraps around the perimeter in a big U, from produce to dairy and meat. Refrigerated generally equals fresh, and you’ll find a higher concentration of whole, unprocessed foods there.
Just remember not to go too far—some stores use this opportunity to lead customers into the frozen foods section, which is largely dominated by highly processed items. If you just can’t resist the siren’s song of the sugary, salty and fatty processed items, cut anything found in these areas of the store off your list completely.
Instead, create a separate list, and consider purchasing shelf-stable items like whole grains and flour, beans, spices and lentils online. Many companies offer free shipping, and buying these items in bulk, as mentioned before, will help you to save money.
Let someone else shop for you
The easiest way to do this is to shop online! And this time I don’t just mean those shelf-stable bulk items. No, I mean everything. Services like Peapod, Amazon Fresh, Instacart and others are cropping up all over the place now, making lives easier and plates healthier to varying degrees of success. Do a quick web search to find out what’s available in your area- the results may surprise you!
Impulse purchases are a problem for everyone, and the marketing experts who create product packaging and organize the layout of grocery stores know exactly how to get you to throw items into your cart that never would have appeared on your shopping list.
With online grocery shopping, you can eliminate this possibility entirely. Even if you do choose to browse those digital aisles and add a few items to your order, you will be forced to take a moment to look through every item again before you make the purchase.
Granted, you do this at the grocery store, too, sometimes gawking in disbelief as things you swear you’ve never seen before roll by on the conveyor belt, but you’re too embarrassed to shove those unwanted items into the candy display under the watchful eye of the cashier, and there certainly isn’t time to put them back on the shelf.
With online grocery shopping, there’s plenty of time, and no judgment. Sometimes I even like to put everything in my cart ahead of time and then set it aside until the next day, to give my order its final review at a moment when I’m not hungry or harried.
The best of these services allow you to choose your items as well as acceptable replacements if they are out of stock. Some delivery services will replace out of stock items with something their employees deem to be acceptable, whereas others will simply refund the customer for these items.
The best delivery services permit you to add notes on each item, so you can indicate for your personal shopper whether you would like ripe or green bananas, for example. Then, the shopper will call you while they are still in the store, to discuss any possible replacements or other issues. Many of these services even offer recipe and meal suggestions on their websites, as well as ingredient lists and nutritional information for every product.
The main disadvantage here is that grocery delivery services often charge some sort of fee for the convenience of using the service, and store sales are not passed along to the customer. If you do a quick cost-benefit analysis, you’ll probably decide (like I did) that a $4 delivery charge, plus tip, is a bargain in comparison to the time and effort required for me to get to the store, agonize over my choices and lug all of those heavy groceries up the steps myself.
I am also able to see exactly how much everything in my cart is going to cost before I click that order button, so there aren’t any surprises at the register. Some grocery delivery services offer their own discounts and special offers as well, such as referral programs that pay you for recruiting new customers. A few even allow customers to give coupons to their delivery person once the food arrives.
Let someone else shop for you (option #2)
Some grocery services take away the element of choice, but this can benefit the customer in different ways. You still make the list, but it will be very basic. You want your whole fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and perhaps meat or dairy. Rather than filling in most of those blanks yourself, leave it to the professionals.
Depending on where you live, there are various ways to accomplish this. I like to rely on my local CSA (or Community Supported Agriculture) delivery service to send me a weekly box of farm-fresh produce that’s roughly enough to sustain two people for one week. It typically includes salad greens, greens for cooking like spinach or kale, scallions, citrus, another type of fruit like apples or persimmons, squash, and a root vegetable or two like carrots, radishes or beets.
To add to that, I have a standing weekly bread and milk order, and I supplement with whole grain pasta, lentils and dried or canned beans, plus some cheese and eggs to round out my diet and enable myself to prepare balanced, healthy meals.
When the shopping is done for me, I am able to eat locally, seasonally and healthfully. For some, the downside of this plan is that you have to cook, and you have to get creative. I personally enjoy the fun of not knowing exactly what I’m going to get in my CSA box every week. On the other hand, this can be repetitive and somewhat intimidating. Zucchini again?!
If you’d prefer to plan your meals and then shop, rather than waiting for your box of produce to arrive and planning meals specifically to use up those items, then letting someone else do the shopping in this way may not be for you.
However, there is another option. Companies like Blue Apron and Plated provide healthy, pre-measured ingredients along with recipes, delivered straight to your door. A box typically provides enough food for several meals for two people, and larger boxes are also available. A quick search online should reveal whether similar services are an option in your area.
This is a great alternative for beginners in home cooking, for individuals who travel a lot for work but stay in places with private kitchen access, and for the time-strapped-yet-health-conscious individual. Though this is certainly not the most economical option, (imagine buying all of your spices a tablespoon at a time versus buying in bulk!) it can be tons of fun.
The stress of shopping, meal planning and prep is almost entirely done for you- just chop, mix, apply heat, and you’re ready to eat. Additional disadvantages here are of course a matter of personal taste- if you don’t like what’s on the service’s menu then you’re out of luck. On the other hand, meal-oriented grocery delivery services like these can usually be catered to personal tastes and dietary preferences, including food allergies.
If you really want to go all the way with this, personal chef delivery services are now widely available as well. Though they’re expensive, you can cut down on the hassle of grocery shopping, healthy meal planning and prep by leaving the shopping and the cooking entirely in the hands of a pro. Full meals arrive ready to heat and serve, and chefs with a background in nutrition can work with you to create meals that meet your nutritional needs.
Don’t shop when you’re hungry, tired or stressed
I know, we’re all busy, so this can be difficult to pull off. The fact is, when we’re hungry, tired or stressed, we’re likely to eat more. Though only a handful of us will actually open up a bag of potato chips or graze the salad bar while we’re browsing the aisles, we are far more likely to toss unhealthy foods into our cart when we’re craving something delicious or soul-soothing.
Even if we do make the effort to carefully plan out our meals for the week and create a shopping list, we’re unlikely to stick to that list if we’re primed to respond to the unhealthy temptations of the grocery store. The same goes for those times when we’re sitting on our couch at home while placing that order. The caramel-covered popcorn just snuck in there, I swear!
Somehow, the healthy choice is an easier choice to make when we’re feeling good, and feeling positive about ourselves. If you are a person who enjoys online shopping, this can be a great opportunity to scratch that itch without going crazy. I find it just as satisfying to get a good deal on fresh green beans and look forward to their arrival as I do splurging on a new pair of pumps and hoping they’ll actually fit. Well, almost.
Give yourself freebies, but only healthy ones
I’m a personal believer in the value of treats, and I also believe every meal and snack should be enjoyed. The key is to find a way to reward yourself with nutrient-dense foods. Like that coveted pair of pink pumps bought for a bargain online, every grocery shopping trip should include at least one item that you will truly enjoy, an indulgence that may serve as a reward at some point later in the week.
Stick to convenient ready-to-eat items found around the outer ring of the grocery store rather than shelf-stable convenience foods that are packed with sugar, salt and fat. Splurge on those perfect strawberries or the pre-cut fresh pineapple (Make sure to read our article on the benefits of eating pineaple). Or maybe wander over to the bulk bin section and get a small bag of those yogurt-covered almonds that you’ve had your eye on, or the crunchy kale chips. Save it for later. You’ll be glad you did.
Today’s grocery stores are well stocked with consumers of all kinds in mind, from the healthy home cook to the time-strapped convenience junkie. Whether you choose to shop in the store or online, just a bit of forethought is required to develop a healthy meal plan and to ensure a happy shopping experience, week after week.
Cover photo: weheartit.com
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