Healthy Dinner Recipes: Shopping Tips by:Deborah Prosser
We all know that when we're doing some grocery shopping
, it can be extremely hard to find the right food for your healthy dinner recipes. Here are some tips you can keep in mind the next time you find yourself in the grocery.
1. Shop in the Natural Health Food section of the supermarket to find better food choices. Always select the organic products whenever they are available.
2. Start in the fresh food section of the supermarket. In fact if you shop around the perimeter of the store you will end up making healthier food choices.
3. Because vegetables lose their vitamins and other nutrients very rapidly, buy only the freshest ones.
4. Quick frozen vegetables can be more nutritious than 'fresh' ones that have been on the store shelves for a few days.
5. Stay away from the canned goods whose contents are preserved in brine, oil or syrup. Go with those packed in water, but pay attention to the amount of salt or sodium in them.
6. Learn to read the product labels. Be on the lookout for terms like "hydrogenated" and "partially hydrogenated". The earlier it appears on the list the higher the amount or portion of trans fatty acids there are in the product.
7. Try to buy skinless chicken and turkey. If you do buy one with skin, make sure that you remove the skin prior to cooking. If you are buying beef, only buy the leaner cuts.
8. Since calcium is essential for your body, consume adequate amounts of dairy products or go with calcium-enriched beverages.
9. Keep the sugar content low when selecting products, being especially careful with dairy and drinks.
10. Avoid white flour based products like bread, bagels and spaghetti. Instead introduce in your diet the whole grain versions of these products.
11. Finding healthy snacks can be difficult. Watch out for the partially hydrogenated oils and sugar used in the coatings. There are protein bars and healthy varieties of snacks available in the health food section.
12. Fruits are high in vitamin C. Eat more melons such as cantaloupe if you are trying to lower your calories. Cantaloupe is not only high in vitamin C, but has plenty of beta-carotene that helps defend against diseases such as cancer.
13. For frozen dinners, buy the ones with low cholesterol, sodium and fat.
14. Don't go to the grocery store without a list, or if you are hungry. Being prepared with a list of food items will help guarantee that you'll end up with more healthy choices than if you buy on the impulses of a growling stomach.
Keep these tips in mind whenever you are shopping for food. Grocery stores are full of healthy products for your dinner recipes; you just need to know which ones they are, and make a conscious effort to avoid the unhealthy ones.
About the author
Copyright 2007, Deborah Prosser.
Deborah is a partner in Ipcor Publishing and Personal Logs.com (
http://www.personallogs.com ). She is publisher of the website Get In Shape (
http://www.getinshape.ipcor.com ). You can find more information about healthy food choices on her webpage Healthy Dinner Recipes at
http://www.getinshape.ipcor.com/healthy-dinner-recipes.htm
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