If there is something that I think is essential for eating healthy, it is to start with shopping.
If there are only healthy ingredients in your home, you will tend to eat healthy, because if you have a craving for not-so-healthy food, not having it at home will make it more difficult for you to fall into temptation.
I’m going to give you my advice so that your shopping is healthy:
1. Most foods should not have a barcode. What do I mean by this? Well, most of them should be vegetables, fruits, fresh fish, legumes… In short, they should be real food. I am often asked what to do to eat healthily, and really, if we stop to think about it…
Healthy
We all know it! WE SHOULD EAT FOOD, not boxes of stuff that looks like food.
2. Buy organic and in bulk. This is not necessary, but it does help. In the end, it will change your concept of shopping in a supermarket: you will stop frequenting these establishments, and this will also avoid the temptation of buying commercial.
And now you ask yourself: And if I don’t buy in the supermarket, where do I buy? Well, you can go to organic stores (I like them more than herbalists because they have more variety of things), online stores, you can look for fruit in cooperatives or consumer groups (if you don’t know if you have one in your neighborhood or city, google “YOUR CITY/NEIGHBORHOOD consumer group”), among others.
Note that there are many more options than you think, and in addition to saving a lot of money because you avoid middlemen, you will know the product firsthand and you will also be able to buy in bulk.
With the latter, you save on plastic and thus we pollute a little less, but it is also great for trying new ingredients and buying just the right amount for the recipe itself and not having open packages in your pantry that you don’t know when you will use again.
3. Eat healthy processed foods. Mind you! I’m not saying you should base your shopping on processed products, right? What I want is for you to avoid ultra-processed foods and buy healthy processed foods.
How can you tell the difference?
- Do not buy foods that have more than 5 ingredients, and the ingredients that they have are known.
- The list of ingredients is always in order from most to least, which means that the ingredient that appears first is the one with the largest amount. Therefore, the first ingredients should not be refined flour, sugar, trans fat,s or palm oil. Be careful with the amount of sugar allowed. The maximum allowed per day by the WHO is 25 gr.
- That does not contain strange additives that you do not know or understand.
If you put these four points into practice, you will get rid of more than half of the supermarket aisles (that’s why I say you won’t need supermarkets as much anymore). But then, what are healthy processed foods? For example cans of cooked legumes, canned crushed tomatoes, organic mustard, vegetable kinds of milk… And so on!
