Trying to eat healthier and watch your waistline? Here’s a trick to use at the grocery store: eat a piece of fruit before you go.
The healthy snack helps keep you away from freshly baked sweets or colorfully packaged goodies. It also gets you into a health conscious frame of mind.
A study conducted by Dr. Aner Tal and Brian Wansink, researchers at Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab, showed that shoppers who ate a slice of apple before shopping bought 28 percent more fruits and vegetables than those who ate a cookie. Shoppers who received neither bought 25 percent less fresh produce than those who ate the apple.
A second study using virtual shopping confirmed the findings of the first – shoppers who ate fruit beforehand chose healthier items from pairs of 20 high calorie and low calorie foods. Tal and Wansink theorize that “simply thinking about healthy food prior to shopping does the trick.”
Here’s another tip – to boost your quotient of healthy foods, head for the edges of the supermarket. That’s where produce, dairy, juices, meat and seafood are located. The middle aisles generally sport carbohydrate-laden foods like chips, crackers, cereals and candy.
Most importantly, use your noggin’. The more you think about what you buy, the more you’ll choose healthy options.
Source: Daily Medical
Pamela Hasterok