What to Steer Clear From at the Grocery Store

Hey ya’ll! I hope you’re having a wonderful week so far! I know that the weather in South Carolina went from Spring to scorching hot Summer VERY quickly but we are enjoying it by spending a lot of time at the beach and the pool. With the end of school getting closer and closer, I am hyper focused on groceries. I don’t know about you and your family but when the kids are home more, they just want to snack 24/7. It’s helped me find new hiding places in my house to ratio snacks (#momlife) and get back to a cleaner and more healthy grocery store haul.Your food is your medicine and it IS important to think about what you are using to fuel your body with.

I love going to Costco once or twice a month and grabbing all of our organic favorites – you can see my haul by clicking here. But on a regular basis we hit up the local Walmart and eat out of our backyard garden. Ya’ll ask me so many questions about switching to safer via our food that it only makes sense to share more about it here. When I transitioned to a healthier lifestyle, my first focus was the food I was eating. To be honest, I was a drive through McDonalds or Hardees type of girl so getting outside of that mindset and really grocery shopping was a whole new world. I had honestly never had the money to get a lot of groceries so when I started grocery shopping, I got very overwhelmed.

What I’ve learned about the grocery store is that when you go in, you want to shop what’s in season and stay as close to the outer isles as possible. The more unhealthy and processed items are in the center isles of the store. I have also realized that whatever I buy to stock our fridge and pantry with is completely up to me and my children will follow suit with eating whatever I provide for them. If I buy junk, they go for the junk but if I give them healthy options they reach for those! Not everything that comes in a box or bag is bad but most are and I want to help make it easier for you all to shop healthier.

There are so many food companies that continue to mislead people into buying products that look healthier than they actually are. Words with no legal definitions whatsoever (meaning they can’t be held accountable for lies using these words) like “natural” and “fresh” are used along with pictures of real fruits and vegetables on foods that actually only contain toxic chemical replacements for these foods. Serving sizes are manipulated so that food companies can make their products seem harmless to consumers who haven’t yet educated themselves about the ingredients food companies are using.

Here are a few helpful tips:
– don’t use canola oil, margarines or other processed fats. You can read more about why to steer clear of these by clicking here.
-try making your own dressings. Most dressings are full of sugar and the ones that are “sugar free” use other toxic ingredients to replace. You can read more about that by clicking here.
-focus on shopping the outer isles verses the ones in the middle. That’s where more processed foods are placed. Doing this can help you focus on a fresher and cleaner food line up.
-sugars are hidden EVERYWHERE so check your labels. I’ve seen it especially high in tomato based products even organic. Think spaghetti sauce.
-don’t buy many canned foods even ones that are BPA free because there is still a chance the company is using BPA. Read more about the dangers of BPA in canned foods by clicking here.
-skip the milk and cheese. Most milk products aren’t even real milk and have several yuck ingredients (milk really isn’t just milk) and same for cheese. These are two of the most toxic food items in a grocery store. Did you know that there is actual sawdust in most name brand shredded cheese? Read more here.
-wanna get eggs? First check and see if you can buy from a local organic chicken farmer. If that’s not an option then get the organic free range in the grocery store. Here’s the scoop about regular eggs.
-When you get bread, have you ever thought about it being processed? Ditching refined flour and going to wheat is so much better and will also help you loose weight! Whole grain or sprouted are the way to go for health benefits.

This is seriously just the tip of the iceberg and I promise I would love to go into more detail but I don’t want to make this the longest post in history, ha! You can read more about why you want to eat a healthier and organic diet here. Comment below with any questions you have and what other areas you’d like for me to focus on next!