Supermarket Visits + Reading Labels

Grocery shopping plays an important role in a healthy lifestyle. The main reason is that whatever food you have at home is probably what you will end up eating. So even if you decide to eat only healthy food, but you have an unhealthy chocolate bar hidden somewhere in a kitchen cabinet, you may eventually find yourself eating it (and regretting it later, which makes things even worse).

Healthy food takes up about 25% of a supermarket’s space. The rest of the products are things you want to stay away from—not only for your own health but also because you don’t want to contribute to these harmful industries that are ruining people’s health by tempting them to buy “food” that really isn’t food at all. I always joke that there is no such thing as “junk food.” There is “junk” and there is “food.” And that’s it.

One more word about large supermarkets: I’m not a big fan of them, as you can imagine. I always prefer buying from farmers’ markets, where I get to support local farmers. Whatever you are buying (even clothing, shoes, home decor, and so on) — always prefer small local businesses instead of huge corporations.

This is how a typical visit to the supermarket looks for me:

I usually start with the fresh produce section, where I fill my cart with fresh fruits and veggies (which take up about 70%–80% of my cart). At the end of this section, I will find dried fruits (mostly dates), nuts, and seeds of all kinds.

Then I go to the dried food section, where I get the grains and legumes: beans, lentils, rice, quinoa, chickpeas, etc.

I try to avoid canned food as much as possible, so I limit it to coconut cream and tomato paste.
For the kids, I’ll add pasta (only from Italy, where it’s not genetically modified), hummus spread, almond milk, and bread. Occasionally, I’ll get them vegan burgers and other vegan processed foods that they like. Kids’ nutrition is different; they need more protein than a mature woman, and I also don’t forget that they are kids and I don’t want them to feel too different from their friends.
At home, we make them vegan-cheese pizza with cauliflower crust (I won’t eat it though!), burgers with whole wheat buns and natural ketchup, and Italian spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce.

At the spice section, I get my spices: pink Himalayan salt, paprika, coriander, dried oregano, dried basil, turmeric, and more.

Other than food, I also buy toilet paper, fragrance-free soaps, etc.

These are pretty much the things I buy. We go to the supermarket (or get deliveries) at least twice a week, as most of our food is fresh and perishable.

Reading Product Labels

My no. 1 rule when reading product labels at the supermarket is:
If you can’t understand the name of one or more ingredients, or if you wouldn’t eat that ingredient by itself, leave it on the shelf!
As simple as that.

These days, more and more companies are changing their product ingredients to reflect a newer, more natural, healthy approach, which makes shopping a bit easier.

Never fall for the product’s title or slogan. Words like “All-natural,” “Organic,” or even “Plant-based” can hide a long (or short) list of preservatives and other things you don’t want to eat.
The fact that a product is organic or vegan doesn’t automatically mean it’s healthy (though sometimes it is).

Sometimes the ingredients seem fine, but the quantities are unacceptable (to me!). For example, “All-natural” chips that only contain “potatoes, oil, and salt.” It may look innocent, but if you check the nutritional values, you’ll find that the amounts of oil and salt (sodium) are astronomical!
So watch out for these traps too.

Also, the oil used in most chips is, in most cases, the lowest quality and cheapest oil possible, as you can imagine. That’s because most food companies don’t actually care about your health — they care about their profits.