Sticking to Your Health Goals While Grocery Shopping

By Heide Kennedy, Arizona Farm Bureau Communications Intern

Let’s face it. When you’re trying to maintain a healthy diet and only buy healthy food items, going to the grocery store can sometimes be hard. While there is nutritious food at the store, there are also shelves and shelves of sugary, carb-loaded junk food to tempt you. So, how can you ensure that when you go shopping, you stick to your guns and only buy the foods that you were intending to buy without caving to the inevitable junk food cravings? Read on to find out!

Woman shopping in a supermarket

Registered dietician Sherrie Shen provides the following tips and suggestions when it comes to sticking to your health goals while shopping at the grocery store.

Don’t shop while hungry

One of the most important tips Shen has is to not shop while you’re feeling hungry. Going shopping while you’re feeling like you could use a snack is a great way to make you more vulnerable to caving to temptation while at the store. When your stomach is empty, you’ll be more likely to buy yourself a snack and thus potentially ruin your health goals, depending on your snack of choice.

Use a list

Shen also advises that before you go to the store, stop and take inventory in your fridge, freezer, and pantry at home and make a list of the things that you need to replenish your stock. Try not to add extra items that you probably don’t need. Once you get to the store, only grab the items that are on that list and confidently walk right past the unnecessary extras. This also helps you to stick to your budget too!

Stick to the perimeter of the store

This tip from Shen really piqued my interest, as I had never really thought about it before, but I can see its truth after I think about it. She notes that in most grocery stores, all of the whole, real foods are located around the perimeter of the store. When you think about it, its actually true! The edges of the store is where you’ll find the fresh dairy, produce, meat, and bakery, while the center aisles are all filled with prepackaged foods. This makes it easier to just walk in, make your loop, and get out!

Read labels

Often when we buy foods, we don’t typically look at the labels on the back of the packages. But Shen advises that this becomes a grocery shopping habit, as it gives you a lot of good information concerning the healthfulness of that food product. You can see the list of ingredients, the amounts of carbohydrates, fats, sugars, protein, as well as the vitamin and mineral content, which all helps you to make an informed decision on whether or not to buy the product.

Sticking to your health goals while at the grocery store might be hard at times but is not impossible! Take a few proactive steps to make sure that you keep yourself from caving to those temptations and keep your fridge well stocked with healthy, nourishing foods!

For more health-related articles, check out the Fill Your Plate blog!

 

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AZ Agriculture Provides Fourth of July Staples!

By Heide Kennedy, Arizona Farm Bureau Communications Intern

One of the highlights of summer is celebrating the Fourth of July! It is always a great time filled with friends, family, fireworks, and food! When it comes to the food at a Fourth of July party, the go-to meal is almost always barbecued foods! Did you know that Arizona agriculture actually produces many of the Fourth of July barbecue staples? The following are all foods that are often featured on a barbecue menu that are grown and produced right here in our home state!

Arizona Agriculture produces for the Fourth! (photo credit: BigStockPhoto.com)

 

  • Meats – Such as beef, pork, chicken, lamb, and goat.
  • Corn – No barbecue is complete without corn on the cob!
  • Veggies – Such as lettuce and cabbage for coleslaw and salad.
  • Potatoes – Is it really a barbecue if there’s no potato salad?
  • Eggs – For deviled eggs of course!

Watermelon – The most iconic summertime fruit!

Dairy – You have to have butter for the corn, ice cream for dessert, and cheese for the burgers!

This is just a general list of some Fourth of July foods that Arizona farmers and ranchers grow and produce. There are many more that you can find as well! Make sure to look for Arizona-grown products at your local grocery store or farmers market when you’re shopping for your barbecue ingredients!

Want more information on what Arizona agriculture produces and where to find it? Check out the resources available on the Fill Your Plate website!

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Protein and Fats are Best Choice for Snacks

By Heide Kennedy, Arizona Farm Bureau Communications Intern

It’s probably safe to say that almost all of us experience that midday slump anywhere between 2 and 4 in the afternoon. Often, our solution to this slump is to grab ourselves a little snack, which usually helps to relieve those sluggish feelings. But, did you know that what you eat as your snack could potentially make that slump worse rather than alleviating it?

healthy snacks

(photo credit: BigStockPhoto.com)

According to nutritionists, it all comes down to the nutrients that make up your snack of choice. Overall, snacks that are high in protein and or fats are the best option for helping you through the rest of your day. According to Dr. Linda Anegawa, proteins, and fats will give you longer-lasting energy, as they provide a slower release of energy, giving your body a longer-lasting source of energy to use. Conversely, snacks high in carbohydrates provide quick, bursts of energy, as our bodies digest them readily, and snacks high in sugar cause sugar crashes, which actually diminishes energy.

With that being said, here are a couple of recommended snacks that will keep you fueled for the rest of your day!

  • Greek yogurt
  • Hard-boiled eggs
  • Hummus and vegetables
  • Nuts
  • Chickpeas

So, plan out your snacks for the week and make sure that you’re choosing foods that will help you through your midday slump rather than making it worse!

P.S. Did you know that Arizona agriculture offers lots of locally grown foods that are high in protein, fat, and nutrients in general? Whether it be fresh veggies, eggs, milk, or meats, Arizona agriculture has your snacking needs covered! Check out the resources on the Fill Your Plate website to find locally grown products!

Want to read more snacking articles?

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Phosphorous is an Incredibly Important Nutrient

By Heide Kennedy, Arizona Farm Bureau Communications Intern

We often hear about all these different nutrients that we should either start consuming or consume more of as they are important to our health. As if there weren’t enough nutrients and their benefits to remember already, let’s try adding another one to the list! Phosphorous is a nutrient that you’ve probably heard of but might not know too much about. So, let’s take a look at why we need phosphorous in our diets and some good sources to get it from!

beef Cattle On Arizona's Range.

Cattle roaming free on Arizona’s open range.

According to Dr. Melissa Prest, phosphorous has a wide variety of important roles within your body. It helps to build and maintain strong bones and teeth, activate enzymes, manage blood pH levels, maintain our respiratory and circulatory functions, and is a building block of DNA, RNA, and ATP and helps our bodies to process other vitamins and minerals properly. Clearly, phosphorous plays a HUGE role in our body’s health.

So, how might we increase our intake of phosphorous? Dr. Prest says that we can get naturally occurring phosphorous from the foods that we eat, or we can get it through foods that phosphorous has been added. The main sources of naturally occurring phosphorous include dairy, red meat, legumes, poultry, seafood, eggs, and nuts. She notes that we absorb the most phosphorous from animal products.

Lucky for us, here in Arizona, we have access to a wide range of locally raised animal products. Whether it be eggs from Hickman’s, dairy products, or meats from all of the many dairies and ranches across the state, getting our phosphorous from locally sourced products is pretty easy!

For more health-related articles, check out the Fill Your Plate blog!

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Nightshades – Inflammatory or Anti – Inflammatory?

By Heide Kennedy, Arizona Farm Bureau Communications Intern

Growing up, I absolutely LOVED hot sauce or anything spicy in general. Our fridge was stocked with all sorts of different hot sauces that I would put on anything except for sweet foods. In my opinion, the spicier the food, the better! But, as the years went on, I began to notice that I was incredibly sensitive to peppers. I also started to notice my body react to eating potatoes, tomatoes, and a few other foods. It turns out that I have a sensitivity to vegetables that are a part of the nightshade family. Nightshades have often been considered to be inflammatory, but then again, it is said that they have anti-inflammatory properties. So, here is a quick crash course on this family of plants!

What exactly are nightshades? According to Dr. Carolyn Williams, nightshades are plants that produce a toxic compound called glycoalkaloids, which is basically a defensive compound. Common nightshades include tomatoes, white potatoes, any kind of pepper, eggplant, tomatillos, and more.

There is debate as to whether these plants cause inflammation or actually help it. The main argument in favor of them causing inflammation is that solanine, the most prevalent glycoalkaloid found in nightshades, can actually cause poisoning if too much is eaten. But according to Dr. Williams, this is very rare. In terms of nightshades actually being anti-inflammatory, Dr. Williams points to all of the antioxidants found in these plants. She also notes that they are nutritious as well due to their great vitamin C and fiber content.

But there are people such as me who do experience sensitivities to nightshades. Thus, it is speculated that nightshades don’t necessarily cause inflammation, but rather the solanine triggers pre-existing inflammation. Dr. Williams notes that those who have an auto-immune condition or irritable bowel syndrome are more likely to feel irritation after consuming nightshades.

Ultimately, it comes down to how your own body handles nightshades. If you’re like me, then you’ll probably feel better staying away from them. But, if you can eat them without any inflammation, then enjoy them and the nutrients that they bring along with them!

For more health-related articles, check out the Fill Your Plate blog!

 

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