How to make your food shops healthier

It’s all well and good saying you’re going to try and eat a bit more healthily this year, but what does a ‘healthy’ basket of shopping at the supermarket actually look like?

Well, for starters, it’s far more sophisticated than simply having lots of bags of salad in your trolley. The contents of our weekly food shop is a stark representative of our diet. It reveals to us all - in some cases far too clearly - exactly what we get through in a week, and just how healthy it really is.

Although you shouldn’t be embarrassed by having a few treats in there, there are a few key areas and ingredients that you could modify on the shopping list. In fact, taking a closer look at your trolley might just be the secret to finding out where you’re going wrong.

Eating well is a wonderful way to improve your day-to-day wellbeing. It’s not about trying to achieve your ‘summer body’ (after 2020, we’re going to enjoy lounging on the sands this summer without spending a second worrying about what we look like). Instead, our aim is to help you recognise how important the foods we eat are in terms of the way that they influence our moods.

Ensuring that we get a healthy, balanced, nutrient-rich diet is essential, not least of all because it has such a profound impact on the way that we feel. It’s the key to unlocking a happy, energetic and stable mindset.

So, if you want to dedicate this year to improving your diet, we would suggest the first place that you start is taking a peek inside what you add to your weekly shopping list.

In this blog post, we’ve broken down the basics to provide you with some great take-home tips that you can use next time you head out to the shops. These will ensure that you and your family have a balanced, well-rounded and delicious diet, which is sure to keep everyone’s spirits up.


First up, how much of your basket is organic?

Have a peek through your shopping basket, and see how much of the food that you buy is organic produce. Now, you may be wondering, why buy organic foods? Organic is a certification which, when you see the label on a product, means that the farming methods used with this product have minimised the usage of chemicals (such as man-made fertilisers or pesticides), and the food is not a GMO (a genetically modified organism).

This trait in your food is important for maintaining a healthy diet because, by eating organic food, you are not inadvertently consuming harsh chemicals (which are used in pesticides). Furthermore, you are avoiding additives and preservatives, which are often used to extend the life of non-organic food stuffs.

Not only does eating organically help you, but it also does wonders for the environment, too. It helps to protect wildlife, ensures that a higher standard of animal welfare is adhered to, and that a far less destructive method of farming is used, which is far more respectful to the planet.

Organic foods are a great addition to a healthy shopping basket. To help you on your way with this healthy eating ethos, below are some key organic items that you can buy next time you head to the supermarket.

Five of the most commonly-found organic products that you can buy in the UK and in the USA are:

Gluten free bread, Cream cheese, Coconut yogurt, Organic broccoli, Organic envy apples, Almond flour grain-free tortillas, Organic hummus, Ghee, Cashew almond butter and Almond flour crackers.

During your next food shop, we’d recommend popping a few of these items into your basket.


Next, what items should be added to make a basket healthy?

We’re not going to give you a naggy list of what’s ‘bad’ for you and should be axed from your shopping list. We all need snacks to look forward to during the day, and a few little treats aren’t going to ‘ruin’ your healthy eating goals.

So, rather than focusing on elements to take out, below you’ll find a list of what to add in to your shopping basket.

Organic cucumbers
Apples - these are almost always in-season, so they’re a great way to shop seasonally
Coconut yoghurt
Vegan shredded cheese
Ghee
Nutritional yeast
Popcorn
Nutrient-rich alternative milks - like almond milk, pea milk or cashew milk
Nut butters
Hummus
Superfood bars - natural bars, which contain a variety of nuts, seeds and fruits
Coconut oil
Matcha powder
Turmeric
Pumpkin seeds
Chickpeas
Whole wheat flours
Whole wheat pastas
Brown rice
Oats


This list contains a mixture of unusual ingredients and common foods that are a great way to eat healthy. The combination of the items above will help you to easily establish a clean eating regime and a healthy and balanced diet for you and your family.

Now that you’ve tackled the matter of your shopping, the next step is to think about how you’re going to store it all. Our secret to achieving an organised kitchen is installing a FridgeCam into your cupboards as well as your fridge - your pantry will certainly thank you.

A FridgeCam is a smart camera for your fridge which works by sending a snapshot of the inside of your fridge, cupboards or pantry to your phone. This means that when you head out for a shop, you know exactly what you’ve got in stock.

Users of the FridgeCam have seen a significant drop in the amount of food waste that they are responsible for, as well as notable savings each week (as they aren’t buying anything in double, or adding anything to the basket that they’ll end up binning later on).

The FridgeCam is the perfect investment for anyone who is looking to improve the way that they go about their food shop. What’s more, right now you can make the most out of our free delivery offer to homes across the UK. Have a browse through the Smarter online shop now to find out more.

 

Written by Josephine Walbank 

*FridgeCam is available to EU, UK and Australia.