Healthy eating rebounds -- on a budget
Posted
Aug 06 2009, 12:39 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
A Seattle Times story about changing eating habits in the recession -- store brands are in, people eat out less (you know the drill) -- contained this little morsel:
Healthy foods were all the rage before the recession struck. For a while, they took a back seat to coupons and bargain shopping, according to recent surveys sponsored by ConAgra Foods on behalf of the National Grocers Association. Now, healthy is coming back.
The article also quotes Phil Lempert, the Supermarket Guru, who says people have learned how to prepare healthy food at bargain prices -- for instance, making their own pasta sauce with canned tomatoes instead of buying sugar-laden sauce-in-a-jar.
How do you pick out the healthy foods in today's marketplace?
Even foods marketed as healthy alternatives to our normal indulgences can have a downside. One example is those 100-calorie "snack packs." AJC.com reports that "new research published in the Journal of Consumer Research found that smaller ‘snack' packages encouraged participants to eat nearly twice as much, often without hesitation, than people who ate from larger packages."
We think "healthy" when Whole Foods comes to mind. But Whole Foods, which is launching a campaign to educate shoppers about healthy eating, admittedly sells stuff that's bad for you too, The Guardian reports. CEO John Mackey told The Wall Street Journal, "Basically, we used to think it was enough just to sell healthy food, but we know it is not enough. We sell all kinds of candy. We sell a bunch of junk."
But there's help if you want to select nutritious food that doesn't cost a lot. Lauran Neergaard of The Associated Press reports that "there are healthy cheap eats, and new research aims to show how to eke the most nutrition out of every buck." Lauran interviewed Dr. Adam Drewnowski, director of the University of Washington Center for Public Health Nutrition, which produced a list of nutrient-rich affordable foods (scroll to nearly the bottom of the .pdf file). The center's Web site is also a must-read if you shop for food in the Seattle area.
The foods on the list are pretty basic. They include: eggs, lean ground beef, low-fat milk, peanut butter, beans (dried or canned), tortillas, white rice, bananas, apples, white potatoes, iceberg lettuce and canned tomatoes.
Related reading:
Supermarket Guru: Get the scoop on grocery shopping
20 healthy foods that cost less than a buck
You can save food dollars without using coupons
Eating healthy while clipping coupons: The dos and don'ts
