Grocery stores are full of unhealthy food. Don't think that because it's in
the store, it's good for you. Remember, the grocery store is in business to
make money. With most Americans unknowingly addicted to sugar, the grocer
plays on that addiction. Your grocer loves it when you do your grocery
shopping hungry. Then those sugar cravings really kick in. Most people have no
idea what they're eating. They don't know if it's processed, if it contains
saturated fat or unsaturated fat, if it has a lot of sugar or a little sugar,
etc. They buy food that they have been programmed to buy by commercials,
magazine ads, and in-store displays. Good marketing works in America, and it
sells a bunch of junk full of sugar, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium,
additives, and chemicals.
Whether you know it or not, this marketing and
your addictions are slowly causing you to kill yourselves from long-term,
degenerative diseases. Hopefully there will be a time when the public will
stop buying the poisonous food that fills the aisles of our grocery stores. If
we don't buy it, they won't make it.
You should have a pretty good idea of what kind of foods you should be
looking for in the grocery store-natural foods that are low in sugar and
saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium; foods made from whole grains; fresh
fruit and vegetables; and lean meats.
Your first mistake when you go grocery shopping is not to bring a list.
This means you are basically walking up and down aisles and throwing whatever
strikes your fancy into your grocery cart. Stores thrive on impulse buying.
Why do you think they have all of that junk-magazines, candy, chocolate,
knick-knacks, etc.-by the checkout lines? They know that a certain percentage
of you will pick at least one extra item from that area and throw it in your
cart.
Go through your kitchen and pantry and make a list of exactly what you
need. The list helps battle impulse buying. Go to the grocery store and buy
exactly those things you have on your list and nothing more. The longer you
are there, the more likely you are to leave with extra junk. If you bring it
home, you'll eat it. Keep your environment free of bad food. Also, try not to
shop between 4 PM and 7 PM-that's when the stores are the most crowded.
How can Americans be consuming less fat, yet become fatter than before?
There is a whole new marketing craze in grocery stores now. In every aisle,
you see the words "fat free." These labels cleverly disguise this food as
healthy. People blindly buy anything fat free, thinking it is okay. But
because something is fat free doesn't mean you can eat unlimited amounts of
it.
These fat-free items are simple carbohydrates (mostly sugar) that have
little or no nutritional value. The fat is removed and replaced by sugar.
People are gobbling down cookies, cakes, and other sugar-loaded carbs by the
truckload. The simple carbs are broken down in the body and stored as fat if
they are not used for energy. Most candy is fat free. Does that mean it's
healthy for you? Once again, it is simple sugar, which is stored as fat if not
used by the body. Look at the amount of sugar in candy like Twizzlers and
Skittles. Eat just a few, and you've ingested twenty to over thirty grams of
sugar. Remember going to the movies and consuming half a box of candy, such as
Dots, Junior Mints, or Milk Duds? You put between 50 and 100 grams of sugar in
your body. Ten grams of sugar is equal to one teaspoon of sugar. Do you think
you could eat five to ten teaspoons of sugar?
When you see an item in the grocery store labeled fat-free, check the sugar
content. If it is over six to eight grams of sugar per serving, let it stay on
the grocer's shelf. If you make a conscious effort to break the sugar habit,
you'll see and feel a whole new you. This is a scientific proven fact, not a
guess.
Learn to read labels. Almost every food item sold in the grocery store has
a "nutrition facts" panel on it that shows how many calories, fat, saturated
fat, cholesterol, sugar, sodium, and other nutrients are in the item. When you
start checking nutrition facts of the foods that you've been consuming for
years, you might be a bit startled. Chances are a lot of it is loaded with all
the bad things we've been talking about. This could be the single most
important health habit you could practice. Know what you are putting into your
body instead of blindly trusting your grocer and the food manufacturers. Start
eating healthier and exercising daily to reduce your chances of chronic
disease to almost zero!
I don't know why people, when armed with information like this, continue to
sabotage their health and cut years off their lives! All I can say is I want
to live the longest, healthiest life possible-don't you?
