Healthy eating begins in the grocery store

Living Healthy – Shopping Tours

May 15 • 1-2:30 p.m. or 6-7:30 p.m. • Winn Dixie – Inverness Corners

May 20 • 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. • Winn Dixie – Inverness Corners

$5 per person. Limited to 10 participants.

Call 408-6550 for reservations.

Donna Sibley believes many U.S. 280 residents want to eat a healthier diet. However, she also knows it’s not always easy figuring out where to start.

“I run into people all the time who are paralyzed when they walk through the doors of a grocery store,” Sibley said. “They ask me, ‘How do I put it all together?’”

So Sibley, a dietitian at St. Vincent’s One Nineteen, kicked off a campaign in March to help answer those questions. Throughout the month, she led tours through the Winn-Dixie in Inverness Corners, introducing residents to the basics of a better diet.

“We’re just trying to let people know that healthy eating begins in the grocery store and help consumers learn more about what to look for when they shop,” she said.

From her perspective, that translates to knowing where to train your focus among the mass of products. To start, she said, shop the perimeter of the store. Supermarkets often stock their fresh produce, meats, seafood and dairy products around the outer wall and move processed foods to the aisles. 

But knowing where to look on a nutrition label can be just as important, and that knowledge brought Meadow Brook residents Sharon and Dan Hartzog to one of Sibley’s tours in March. Sharon is diabetic and has learned how to accommodate in her diet, but she said she could always use more help navigating nutritional facts. 

“We want the assurance we’re doing it right,” Sharon said. “We figure we need to know everything we can about reading a label.”

Sibley said for most shoppers, the items to watch on a label are saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol and sodium. If one of these shows up higher than 20 percent in the “% Daily Value” column, it’s considered high. In addition, Sibley said sugar has drawn the attention of dietitians.

“We’ve been looking at fat all these years, and now we’re keying in on sugar as a contributor to heart disease,” Sibley said.

Sibley also addressed fad diets during the tour, including the popular Paleo Diet and the recent trend of gluten-free foods. She said people should be more concerned about nutritional balance rather than adherence to these regimens, as the benefits of these diets can be overshadowed by the nutrients they don’t provide.

In addition, sometimes the market simply gets on board with the trend.

“Food manufacturers created a huge market for gluten-free, and most people don’t need it,” Sibley said. “And just because it says ‘gluten-free’ on the label doesn’t mean it ever had gluten in it to begin with.”

The tour lasts more than an hour and covers most of the store, during which Sibley reveals little-known information about many products. Through the experience she proves that there’s much to learn about healthy living, even in the place where the process begins.

Tips from a registered dietitian about finding healthy foods

Don’t let cheese fool you

Dietitian Donna Sibley said cheese in all its forms should be used sparingly. It has a similar fat content to pork sausage, and that goes for both white and yellow varieties. Swiss cheese is just as high in fat content as cheddar.

Treat your heart to less-fatty meats

Fresh seafood is your best option for healthy meats, but after that the options are severely limited. With beef, steer your cart toward ground round and tenderloin. If you’re craving bacon, buy pork tenderloin instead. It has about the same fat content as chicken, Sibley said. And if jambalaya is on the menu, pick up a turkey kielbasa.

Pledge to go Greek

Foods bearing the “Greek” label have increased in popularity, but it’s not a fad to avoid. Greek yogurts and cream cheeses contain more than twice the protein of their standard counterparts. The process for “going Greek” takes the water out during filtration and increases the product’s healthy benefits.

Margarine isn’t ‘one polymer away from plastic’

Rumors surfaced years ago that margarine and plastic are nearly identical. While both can be made from vegetable oil, any similarity ends there, according to heartfoundation.org. What shoppers should really watch for on the butter aisle is the amount of trans fat in a product. The lower the better, Sibley said. Buy butters with canola or olive oil, and stick to soft margarines.

Bring back the eggs 

Eggs should still be a limited part of a person’s diet, but now research shows they shouldn’t be completely cut out. Eggs provide all the recommended amino acids in one place. Sibley said it doesn’t matter which ones you eat, either. There’s no more nutrition in a brown egg than in a white egg. Brown eggs just come from brown chickens.

Vegetable medley

Bright colors help get people excited about many things in their lives, so why not vegetables? Increasing the variety of color in your diet improves your access to necessary nutrients. So, eat lots of berries. This applies to the frozen section as well as fresh foods, as Sibley said there’s no difference in the nutritional value.

Hate seafood? Eat walnuts

The National Institute of Health reports that people need more omega-3 acids in their diets. Fish and seafood are the best sources, but leafy green vegetables, canola oils, flaxseed and walnuts also contain omega-3 acids, which promote heart health in numerous ways.

To learn more tips about shopping healthy, sign up for a St. Vincent’s One Nineteen Healthy Grocery Tour by calling 408-6550.