How To Grocery Shop Like a Pro
Tedi Nikova, BASc, MPH ( c )
I believe grocery shopping is the first step in incorporating healthy eating patterns into your daily life. It is often very hard to navigate what exactly to buy in a grocery store, with the overwhelming amount of options, misleading health claims and increasing food prices! I am going to be sharing some of my top tips to reduce the cost of your bill as well as to choose a variety of healthy options while grocery shopping.
- Have a 10-minute brainstorming session
Before going grocery shopping, take the time to brainstorm what types of meals you want to have, as well as if you want to try any fun new recipes.
2. Make a list
Digital or handwritten, lists are essential! Once you know the types of meals you want to have, make a list of all of the ingredients you will need to create those meals. I like to divide my list up into the meal categories, this helps me remember why I need each ingredient and for what dish. This also helps me to not to get distracted or pick up miscellaneous items that will be hard to incorporate into meals. Here is an example of my meals and accompanying grocery list for my weekly grocery shop:
Breakfast: Oatmeal, Greek Yogurt Parfait
Lunch: Chicken/tofu salads
Dinner: Chicken/salmon brown rice bowls, Tofu Quiche
*Disclaimer, these are not all of the ingredients needed for these recipes, since I did have a good amount of the ingredients at home.
3. Go for fresh leafy greens and frozen vegetables and fruit
I buy the large majority of my vegetable and fruit frozen over fresh. I love to do this as frozen vegetables and fruit are cheaper, they are pre-chopped and are easy to prepare. I pop my veggies in the air frier or on a pan with a drizzle of olive oil and salt, and use this as a base for most of my meals. Certain vegetables and fruit I do prefer fresh such as salad greens, onions and apples. This is all up to your personal preference!
4. Pick a mix of fresh and frozen meat
I tend to pick up the more affordable meat options, such as chicken. fresh, however my trick is to pick up the more expensive meat and fish frozen! For example, I love to pick up frozen salmon fillets and shrimp. There are two main advantages to this, firstly frozen products can stay in your freezer for months and secondly the cost is a lot cheaper for these meat/fish products!
5. Try tofu
Including more plant based proteins is recommended by Canada’s Food guide, due to the health benefits including choosing more plant based proteins has been shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. (1) I recommend finding an interesting tofu recipe to aid in incorporating tofu into your diet. My go to is a tofu quiche . Tofu is not only great for our health but also for our wallet; tofu is one of the most affordable protein sources
Recipe for tofu quiche: https://meatfreeketo.com/low-carb-spinach-pie/
Check out my tofu chilli recipe:https://www.instagram.com/p/CIJVnl5BF2Y/
6. Pick up a high protein yogurt for snacks
My go to filling and satisfying snack is greek yogurt or cottage cheese parfaits! One serving of one of these dairy options is packed with almost 20 g of protein! I like to pair my cottage cheese or greek yogurt with a lower sugar granola that is high in fibre or blend my cottage cheese with frozen berries to make a sorbet. I skip the low fat yogurts, and usually go for 2% and higher. This is because these are more satisfying, filling and creamy!
To note: If looking for a dairy-free option be aware that most plant based yogurts are low in protein, try to go for a soy-based yogurt, these contain more protein. Check out my 2-Ingredient Cottage Cheese Sorbet recipe: https://www.instagram.com/p/B_8GSbulQVV/
7. Have some ready-made food
Let’s be honest, sometimes we don’t have time to prepare all of our meals from scratch! This is frozen/ready made products are ready to go. I like to pick up chicken wings, ready made potato wedges and some frozen style meals that can be ready to go when I am in a pinch! These dishes to tend to have an increased salt content, however having these once in a while is totally okay!
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