Nutritionist Marion Nestle tells you how to keep junk food from sneaking into your cart.
- Always shop the periphery.
Don’t go into the center aisles. - If you do go into the center aisles, don’t buy anything with more than five ingredients.
- If you can’t pronounce the ingredients on the package label, don’t buy it.
- Don’t buy anything with a cartoon on it.
- If you don’t want your kids eating junk food, don’t have it in the home.
But wait…
What kind of changes would most improve mainstream grocery stores?
- I would like to see a complete restriction on health claims on food packages. I think that they confuse customers. They’re misleading.
- I would also like to see a complete cessation of direct marketing to children. That means no cartoons on food products. Period.
- I would like to see some restructuring of stores to make it easier for people who are seeking healthier products to find them. Start by putting healthier products at eye level.
- Have occasional cut apples out to taste so you could tell what the differences are before you buy them.
- Make cooking instructions available for the more exotic things that people do not know what to do with. Show customers how easy it is to cook.
- I’d also like to see country-of-origin labeling on produce so that people can have an idea of how far it has traveled. In November, a store near me in Manhattan had four ounces of blueberries for $6. They came from Patagonia. I thought that there was something quite strange about that.
So all this parsing of this vitamin vs. that vitamin — you’re basically arguing is not as important as generally eating a bigger variety…
…of healthy food. Yes, and not worrying about it so much. Just enjoy it.
Read the rest of the interview with Marion Nestle.
