Hi, I'm Celia, and this is Macy, and we're a registered dietitian.
Today we're going to talk about healthy nutrition, including grocery store tips, the specific
food groups, and label reading to help you make the best choices in your diet.
We will begin with some general grocery store tips.
Plan ahead, decide on meals for the week, look at recipes, inventory what you already
have and what you need, and then make a list.
Planning ahead and making a list will make it easier to stick to healthy choices at the
grocery store and will help you to avoid impulse purchases.
Now we will discuss specific food groups to help you make the best choices for your health.
Starting with fruits and vegetables as these should make up a significant portion of your
daily diet.
Vegetables can be grouped into starchy and non-starchy categories.
Vegetables like potatoes and corn tend to be higher in calories than their non-starchy
versions like broccoli, peppers, carrots, tomatoes, and lettuce.
The more brightly colored vegetables are going to be higher in nutrients so they're
going to be better choices for you.
When looking at canned vegetables, the regular canned vegetables have very high sodium content.
This can of vegetables has 380 mg of sodium, this can says it's low sodium so it has 110
mg of sodium, but this can in particular is no added salt so it only has 10 mg of sodium
so this would be your best choice.
Even though this one says it's made with sea salt that doesn't mean it's low in sodium.
Also if you have a vegetable that is a regular sodium content you can rinse the extra water
off of it and get some of the sodium content out.
So now we're going to talk about meats.
When purchasing ground meats you're going to want to look to see the percent fat in
each of the meats that you're looking at.
This particular meat is only 7% fat whereas this meat is 27% fat.
You'll always want to choose the lower percent fat meat.
If you do select the higher percent fat meat go ahead and brown the meat and try to drain
off as much fat as possible.
These are two examples of two steaks that you can buy.
This being a sirloin and that being a ribeye.
What you'll notice is there's a lot of fat marbled within this steak and on the outside
of it.
So this is a much higher fat, higher calorie meat whereas this is a very lean steak.
There's a lot of difference in calories between the two of these and this is more of an appropriate
size steak for anyone to eat.
So I do recommend trimming off any visible fat on the outside of this steak before you
cook it so that you have a leaner meat when you're finished.
If you leave the fat on before you cook it a lot of the fat will cook into the meat and
you won't be able to remove it.
This also is a very lean looking piece of meat.
This is a boneless skinless chicken breast.
It's a better choice than chicken with skin on it because you're not going to have the
skin cooking the fat into the meat.
So this would be recommended as well as a healthy lean meat choice.
These are two examples of hot dogs.
This one is 160 calories and 15 grams of fat per hot dog and it is a beef hot dog.
This is a turkey hot dog and it only has 70 calories and 6 grams of fat so this would
be a much better choice if you're trying to cut your calories and your fat content.
As with any processed meats you're going to have to watch the sodium content especially
if you have high blood pressure.
Always try to select the lower sodium content foods.
Now we're going to talk about dairy.
In general with our dairy products it's best to choose fat free or light versions as this
will help you cut out extra fat and calories.
With our milks a whole fat milk is going to have about 150 calories per cup versus a fat
free or skin milk will be only about 80.
If you don't like a skin or fat free you could try a 2% which is about 120 calories per cup.
With your cheeses a part skin or light cheese is typically going to have about half the
fat of a full fat cheese helping you cut saturated fat and calories.
With your yogurts a light yogurt is typically going to have a lot less fat, sugar and calories
than a regular yogurt.
This regular yogurt has 230 calories, 12 grams of fat and about 20 grams of sugar while this
light yogurt only has 80 calories, 0 grams of fat and about 10 grams of sugar.
Now we're going to talk about grains.
These are three different types of sandwich bread.
This is a regular white bread, has less than 1 gram of fiber per serving and is made from
enriched flour.
This is a generic wheat bread and has about 1 gram of fiber per serving.
Now this is a 100% whole grain bread has about 3 grams of fiber per serving.
When looking at your bread it's good to compare the fiber content and then also look at the
ingredients list looking for 100% whole wheat or whole grain.
When looking for cereals you're going to want to choose one that's going to stick with you
longer and be higher in fiber.
This sugary children's cereal is not going to stay with you very long.
It's full of sugar and it's not very high in fiber.
Whereas this type of cereal is higher in fiber, it's also higher in protein and you're going
to get a cereal that's going to stick with you for a longer time.
This particular cereal has about 8 grams of fiber in it so that will stick with you for
a much longer time and give you the nutrients that you need from cereal.
There's lots of options out there for snack crackers but these two crackers are fairly
common.
We have a whole grain cracker that's actually made from only three ingredients.
So this has whole grain wheat, oil and salt in it whereas this is full of enriched flour.
So this is going to have almost twice the fat as this other cracker and not be full
of any good nutrients.
There's almost no fiber in this cracker.
Now we're going to talk about some common snack foods.
Here we have a sugar free cookie and a regular cookie.
It's interesting to note that both have about the same calories and a lot of times sugar
free products can have extra fat added.
So sugar free doesn't necessarily mean healthier.
A much better option would be something like fruit that's sweet and nutritious.
When picking out snack foods you often need that crunchy snack.
So just to compare this is a regular bag of chips and it's about 240 calories and 16 grams
of fat.
So you can go for a baked option of chips and it's going to be a lot less calories
around 130 calories and that's because the fat content is much lower.
So it's only going to have two grams of fat.
But if you want a larger quantity and higher fiber snack, popcorn is a great option.
You get five cups of popcorn per serving and it's only 100 calories and four grams of fiber.
So this is going to be your better option for you.
Also of note, sugar beverages are definitely loaded in sugar but I don't think any of us
know just how much sugar.
This is a 12 ounce soda.
This is how much sugar is in there.
There's nine teaspoons of sugar.
So it's really important to try and limit these sodas and high sugar beverages as much
as possible.
Always try to do water or a healthier alternative diet drink.
Now we're going to talk about condiments.
Trans fats are known to be the most unhealthy fat for our heart.
This stick margarine has about two and a half grams of trans fat making it an unhealthy
choice.
This regular butter has no trans fat but still has a significant amount of saturated fat
which is another unhealthy fat.
So your best option is to use a light soft tub margarine which has about half the grams
of saturated fat of butter and about half the calories but no trans fats.
When you're using mayonnaise, generally you're going to use about two tablespoons of mayonnaise.
So two tablespoons of regular mayonnaise is 180 calories.
But if you just switch to a light mayonnaise, you're only looking at 70 calories for two
tablespoons.
So it's a much better option.
Salad dressing is actually the best way to ruin a good healthy salad.
If you put two tablespoons of this ranch dressing on your salad, you're looking at 180 calories
and 20 grams of fat.
That's a whole lot of fat and calories.
But if you switch to this fat-free version, you're only getting 40 calories and no fat
or you could go with a light Italian or vinegarette type dressing and this only has 20 calories.
So it's very easy to cut the calories with your salad dressings.
Look for ones that are going to have vinegar or water as the first two ingredients and
ones that aren't going to have as much butter fat or oils in them because they will be
lower in calories.
We hope you've enjoyed this nutritional video to help you make better informed decisions
for your health.
This video isn't intended as a general healthy nutrition overview but remember to work with
your health care team to get their recommendations for your specific dietary needs.
