Shopping the perimeter; how to fill your cart

Laura Stout, MPH, RD

Yampa Valley Medical Center

Department of Integrated Health

Do not eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food

Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry

Avoid food products that contain high fructose corn syrup

Avoid foods that have some form of sugar or sweetener listed among the top three ingredients

Avoid food products that contain more than 5 ingredients

Avoid food products containing ingredients that a third grader cannot pronounce

Avoid food products that make health claims

Avoid food products with the words “lite”, low-fat or non fat in the title

Avoid foods that are pretending to be something else

Avoid foods that are advertised on TV

Eat only foods that will eventually rot

Get out of the supermarket whenever you can

If it came from a plant, eat it. If it was made in a plant don’t

It’s not food if it arrived through the window of your car

It’s not food if its called by the same name in every language (ie. BigMac, Cheetos, etc)

Shop the perimeter of the store and stay out of the middle