People say it’s expensive to eat healthy. But a grocery cart full of bad health is way more expensive long term. How to shop for nutrition and good health!
We work hard for our money and the things we have. In general, life can be expensive, and eating and living optimally well can certainly increase some costs. Because we want to get the most out of each hard-earned dollar, it can be easy to sometimes let our eyes fool us. Below, I’m going to let you in on a little secret of how to truly get the most “bang for your buck” when it comes to your nutrition and health.
When we are at the grocery store, we want to fill our cart with as much food as we can possibly get for the money we’re going to be spending, right? Well, to most of us, when we think in terms of getting the most for the cost, our minds instinctively think of quantity. Let’s look at an example. If we have a shopping cart overflowing with food items such as chips, crackers, cereal, other highly processed and refined grain products, energy bars, canned foods and other very common household food staples, what true nutritional value is coming from these foods? Though our cart in this example is very full, and in terms of bulk we’re getting a lot for our money, when it comes to truly nourishing our bodies and getting as much nutrition as possible, our cart is actually close to empty.
If you consider real food in this scenario, the amount you’re actually getting is very low, because in place of the real food, we’re getting processed “Frankenstein” grains, processed sugars, highly processed and unnatural oils, chemicals, preservatives, coloring agents, and a host of other ingredients.
Furthermore, if you actually take into consideration the additional, sometimes ‘unseen’ costs of these ‘bulky’ foods, such as depression, ADHD, diabetes, cancer, and other health problems strongly linked to food choices, the actual amount of money you’re spending for these foods is astronomically high!
Now let’s examine the alternative scenario. If we have a second cart, this one containing kale, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, apples, garlic, raw nuts and seeds, and other similar foods that are fresh, real, and whole foods, the two carts look vastly different. While cart number two looks much less full to the eye, when we look at this cart in terms of what we are getting nutrient-density wise, we are actually getting so much more for our money!
Cart number two is actually providing us with a host of things missing from cart number one, such as fiber, enzymes, vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, and many other essential nutrients. Because we are getting so much more powerful nutrition in cart two, we are most definitely getting the very most for each dollar, because we are also helping to prevent and treat any lack of wellness, such as fatigue, diabetes, cancer, headaches, ADHD, and many other common ailments.
So, next time you are at the grocery store, try your hand at filling your cart for nutrition rather than bulk to really maximize the use of each dollar, as well as to maximize the best results you can get for everything you put into your mouth! For some, this might be a considerable mindset shift. But begin by asking yourself this question with every item you put into your cart “How much true nutrition is this offering my body and what effect will this food likely have on me?” With practice, it will get to the point of being a no-brainer to only put the highest nutrient-dense foods in your cart.
A helpful guide to help you know which foods are highest in nutrition per serving is something called the ANDI Guide. This guide gives different foods a score, and the higher the score, the more nutrient dense that food is per serving. This tool can be a helpful guide for you in your journey to start shopping for the most nutritious foods, so that you can get the most out of your resources!
To take a look at the ANDI Guide, please see this link from Whole Foods: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/healthy-eating/andi-guide
