There's absolutely no one in this whole wide world who doesn't like going on shopping! But did you know that in order to stay healthy, we need to shop for healthy food! In this blog, we are going to look at the 5 smart shopping tips that will lead you towards a better lifestyle.
Nowadays, we generally buy our groceries, food grains and other essential items from the supermarkets. The good thing about supermarkets is that we get everything under one roof. However, we tend to buy things mindlessly by falling prey to the lucrative marketing strategies, attractive packaging, and the retailer tricks. To avoid becoming a victim of such schemes and curb impulsive shopping, let’s look at the 5 simple tricks you can incorporate the next time you go on shopping.
1. Create A Shopping List
Earlier, it was quite common to make a list before buying groceries at the grocery stores. Now that supermarkets have come in the picture, the practice of creating a shopping list has been long forgotten. These days we just enter the supermarket and start buying things randomly. Since supermarkets have a variety of items in store, we might tend to get lost and buy unnecessary things if we don’t have a shopping list handy. So, remember the next time you head out for shopping, create an exhaustive shopping list.
2. Categorize The Shopping List
In order to ease our buying process and avoid mindless shopping, you can categorise the list in sections. Doing so would help you know which section you need to visit exactly to get the item you wish to buy.
The shopping list should be divided into five sections like:
Section 1: Cereals, Grains and Flours
Section 2: Pulses and Dals
Section 3: Tea, Sugar, Jaggery, Oil
Section 4: Vegetables, Fruits and Dry Fruits
Section 5: Milk and Dairy Products
3. Stick to the walls
Consider the design of any supermarket. All the healthier things like grains, cereals, Pulses, Masalas, fruits and vegetables and dairy products are generally placed near the walls or sides of the store. Whereas, all the unhealthy, ready to eat food, packed food are placed in the centre. So, if we decide to stick to the walls, our cart would already be full by the time we reach the centre. This would force you to buy lesser unhealthy things whilst shopping.
4. Read the Nutrition Labels and Ingredients
You need to make reading nutrition labels a habit, if you wish to buy healthy things. Food companies often make baseless claims on certain products and label them as Healthy, Diet food or Low cholesterol. However, if you read the labels and ingredients carefully, you may realise that the product extensively uses maida, margarine, artificial sweeteners, harmful food colors, preservatives etc. So, everytime you are trying a new product, remind yourself to read nutrition labels and ingredients.
5. Do not head to shopping with an empty stomach
Research has proven that if you go shopping on an empty stomach, you tend to buy more sweets, ready to eat food, and salted snacks etc. Since the food doesn’t need to be cooked, our brain starts demanding for these easily available sources to satisfy our hunger pangs. Instead of that, you can go shopping post lunch or post breakfast. Even if you have a bowl of salad or fruit before shopping, you might consider buying raw and healthy food.
Remember to use these tips the next time you head out shopping for groceries! Do let us know how effective you found them in the comment box below.
Happy shopping!
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