FOOD
If you're anything like I used to be, the thought of "healthier food" conjures up visions of dollar bills.
Many of us are running our household budgets on a shoestring and those of us who can afford organic products don't always want to spend our hard-earned cash on something as mundane as food.
During my quest for a healthier lifestyle, I have developed a strategy that improves the healthiness of the foods I eat, without breaking my bank.
- Produce is an important aspect of a healthy diet. The EWG.org Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen lists have become more well-known in the past few years.
- These lists identify the twelve types of produce that tend to have the most pesticides and other undesirable chemicals. For these 'dirtiest' items, it might be beneficial to consider buying organic. The Clean Fifteen are obviously those with the lowest pesticide levels, so a consumer needn't feel as compelled to buy organic. These lists aren't hard and fast rules, but do provide good guidance when selecting your produce.
- Organic products are becoming more mainstream and offered at discount stores, such as Walmart, allowing those on the tightest budgets to have some organic options.
- As a rule of thumb, "natural" is a good place to start when you are browsing the supermarket shelves. The word "natural" is not government regulated and doesn't have formal criteria that it needs to meet. However, I have found that products labeled "natural" will generally contain a "real" sweetener, no artificial colors, and a natural preservative. You still need to read the ingredient labels, but I find that many products labeled "natural" are a good balance of better ingredients at a reasonable cost.
- High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is one of those brilliant scientific ideas that helped to keep costs down on food, but seems to be detrimental to our health. I avoid it - and it's hard. You will be shocked at the places you find it once you start reading labels. One common use is in bread. Consumer pressure is motivating many bread manufacturers to remove it from their products and they proudly state that on the label. If it's not clear from the front of the packaging, read the ingredients.
- Cheese is cheese, right? Yes, but no. Read the ingredients on a block of cheese, then read the ingredients on sliced pre-packaged cheese and grated cheese. The sliced and grated cheeses will generally contain mold inhibitors and the grated cheeses usually contain an anti-clumping additive. We buy cheese sliced fresh at the deli and grate our own block cheese as we need it. Let this be an example that things may not always be what they seem. Get in the habit of checking the labels.
- One of my favorite healthy finds was Daisy® cottage cheese. Ingredients are: cultured skim milk, cream, salt, vitamin A palmitate. By comparison, a leading brand contains: cultured pasteurized skim milk, milk, whey protein concentrate, salt, whey, natural flavor, xanthan gum, locust bean gum, guar gum, vitamin A palmitate, sorbic acid and carbon dioxide (to maintain freshness). YIKES! This example proved to me that even foods that seem to be very basic can vary dramatically in their ingredients and it's worthwhile to compare as you make choices for your healthier you.
- Don't just go by brand. Triscuit is one of my crackers of choice. The ingredients for the plain crackers are: whole grain soft white wheat, soybean oil, sea salt. I was unpleasantly surprised when I wanted to try a spiced up version and found artificial colors and other ingredients I didn't want.
Hopefully you have seen that there are many cost-effective ways to healthier eating and that healthier eating doesn't only mean costly organic.
Are you still with me? Join me for the remainder of the series where we will continue to explore various ways to a healthier lifestyle, with a tight budget in mind. Next is HEALTH AND BEAUTY PRODUCTS.
Shirley Alarie
Author: Losing the Girls - My Journey Through Nipple-Sparing Mastectomy and Beyond
Check out my website for more healthy living tips and my favorite simple, decadent, and healthy dessert!
Or learn more about nipple-sparing mastectomy and my journey that led me to my healthy lifestyle transformation. Hope to see you there!
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