8 Ways To Avoid Sneaky Supermarket Tricks

Enjoy a healthier and cheaper trip to the grocery store with these easy tips

By: The Editors of Prevention 

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Photo Credit: Thinkstock
You walk into a grocery store expecting to buy only the items on your list, yet you leave with a cart full of extras you may not really need—and a considerably lighter wallet. An accident—or lapse in judgment? Actually, the store setup is likely to blame. "You want to get in and out quickly, but the folks in charge want you to linger as long as possible, spend as much as possible, and ideally spend it on the highest-profit items," explains Ali Benjamin, co-author of The Cleaner Plate Club: Raising Healthy Eaters, One Meal at a Time (Storey Publishing, 2011). How, exactly, do they make you stick around and load up on items you never meant to buy? Here are eight ways to guarantee a healthier (and cheaper) shopping experience every time.

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Skip The Supersized Carts

"We don't feel like we are done shopping until we have some sort of visual cue—like a full cart," says Benjamin. So the trick is to look at the cart like a dinner plate. "Choose the smallest cart you can," says Diane Henderiks, RD, a personal chef and culinary nutritionist in Oakhurst, NJ. "It's like choosing a smaller dinner plate—only here you'll save calories and money." Or, ditch the cart entirely. "Our studies from Project Brandwashed show that a typical family needs only what they can carry," says Martin Lindstrom, author of Brandwashed Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy (Crown Business). "I tell families to have kids help carry items."

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Bring A C-Note—And Leave Your Credit Cards Behind

Cash is king when it comes to avoiding impulse buys. "I know that I spend way less when I use cash rather than credit," says Benjamin. And the research proves her right—Lindstrom advises shoppers to use a 100-dollar note for grocery purchases. "We find it emotionally harder to break a larger bill, so we spend less," says Lindstrom. "We don't have an emotional connection with numbers on a credit card statement." (Search: How to save on groceries)

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Watch Out For "Health-Washing"

You may not read labels with as critical an eye in a store like Whole Foods as in, say, Super Target®, says Rabbi Issamar Ginzberg, president of Monetized Intellect Consulting, Inc, in Brooklyn, NY. "The atmosphere in Whole Foods Market® makes you feel like everything in the store must be healthy," he notes. "In Target®, you'll look at the calorie count on the same package of granola you buy without thinking in a 'healthy' grocery store."

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Listen To The Piped-In Music

Typically, the store manager is piping in music to keep you on her schedule. "Slow hours mean slow music—they want you to linger and buy; fast music at the busy hour means they want moving, moving, buying," says Ginzberg. "And it's not unusual to hear, say, Spanish music if salsa is on sale." Tote your own tunes to set your pace, but opt for pop or house music—really! "If you're using a music player and headset, it removes you from sensory stimuli," says Linstrom, "and if you play music you don't like at a fast beat, it will shorten your trip—and make you shop in a more rational way."

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Shop Alone

Whenever possible, leave the kids at home. Even if they're not begging for their favorite goodies, parenting while pushing the cart can drive you to distracted buying, so you miss the best values.

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Beware Of Bulk

"Stores advertise pricing in a way that encourages you to buy in bulk," says Janel Ovrut Funk, MS RD LDN, a Boston-based dietitian who writes eatwellwithjanelblog.com. "Just because you can purchase 10 jars of tomato sauce for $10 does not mean you have to buy all 10 at once! You can still get the sale price when only buying one jar. This can prevent you from overbuying and, in turn, overeating, especially when it comes to sale item foods that never should have made it into your grocery cart to begin with!"

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Read Every Price Tag

Many markets have lower prices on staple items like milk, eggs, and toilet tissue so that you come away with the impression that the whole store is cheaper. But they mark up other items by 10% because you've already decided you're getting a better value in that store.

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Look Up, Down, And All Around

Impulse items are stocked at eye level on the shelves—so if you're hunting for healthy choices, or even a lesser-known organic or all-natural brand (that doesn't have the bucks to buy primo placement), avert your eyes from their natural sightline, says Ginzberg. "A store like Walmart marks down items on the end cap to draw you down the aisle too," he notes. "Once you are there, they don't have any reason to give you the best price."

 

 

"All of your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them." -  ºoº Walt Disney ºoº  

 

5 Foods That Can Trigger a Stroke

By Melanie Haiken, Caring.com
Tue, Sep 06, 2011

Few things feel more terrifying and random than a stroke, which can strike without warning. And fear of stroke -- when a blood vessel in or leading to the brain bursts or is blocked by a blood clot, starving brain cells of oxygen and nutrients -- is well founded. After all, stroke is the number-three killer in the U.S., affecting more than 700,000 people each year. Here are five foods that cause the damage that leads to stroke.

1. Crackers, chips, and store-bought pastries and baked goods

Muffins, doughnuts, chips, crackers, and many other baked goods are high in trans fats, which are hydrogenated oils popular with commercial bakeries because they stay solid at room temperature, so the products don't require refrigeration. Also listed on labels as "partially hydrogenated" or hydrogenated oils, trans fats are found in all kinds of snack foods, frozen foods, and baked goods, including salad dressings, microwave popcorn, stuffing mixes, frozen tater tots and French fries, cake mixes, and whipped toppings. They're also what makes margarine stay in a solid cube. The worst offenders are fried fast foods such as onion rings, French fries, and fried chicken.

Why it's bad

For years scientists have known trans fats are dangerous artery-blockers, upping the concentrations of lipids and bad cholesterol in the blood and lowering good cholesterol. Now we can add stroke to the list of dangers. This year researchers at the University of North Carolina found that women who ate 7 grams of trans fat each day -- about the amount in two doughnuts or half a serving of French fries -- had 30 percent more strokes (the ischemic type, caused by blocked blood flow to the brain) than women who ate just 1 gram a day. Another recent study, also in women, found that trans fats promoted inflammation and higher levels of C-reactive protein, which have been linked to an increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

What to do

Aim to limit trans fats to no more than 1 or 2 grams a day -- and preferably none. Avoid fast-food French fries and other fried menu items and study packaged food labels closely. Even better, bake your own cookies, cakes, and other snacks. When you can't, search out "health-food" alternative snacks, such as Terra brand potato chips and traditional whole grain crackers such as those made by Finn, Wasa, AkMak, Ryvita, and Lavasch.

2. Smoked and processed meats

Whether your weakness is pastrami, sausage, hot dogs, bacon, or a smoked turkey sandwich, the word from the experts is: Watch out.

Why it's bad

Smoked and processed meats are nasty contributors to stroke risk in two ways: The preserving processes leave them packed with sodium, but even worse are the preservatives used to keep processed meats from going bad. Sodium nitrate and nitrite have been shown by researchers to directly damage blood vessels, causing arteries to harden and narrow. And of course damaged, overly narrow blood vessels are exactly what you don't want if you fear stroke.

Many studies have linked processed meats to coronary artery disease (CAD); one meta-analysis in the journal Circulation calculated a 42-percent increase in coronary heart disease for those who eat one serving of processed meat a day. Stroke is not the only concern for salami fans; cancer journals have reported numerous studies in the past few years showing that consumption of cured and smoked meats is linked with increased risk of diabetes and higher incidences of numerous types of cancer, including leukemia.

What to do

If a smoked turkey or ham sandwich is your lunch of choice, try to vary your diet, switching to tuna, peanut butter, or other choices several days a week. Or cook turkey and chicken yourself and slice it thin for sandwiches.

3. Diet soda

Although replacing sugary drinks with diet soda seems like a smart solution for keeping weight down -- a heart-healthy goal -- it turns out diet soda is likely a major bad guy when it comes to stroke.

Why it's bad

People who drink a diet soda a day may up their stroke risk by 48 percent. A Columbia University study presented at the American Stroke Association's 2011 International Stroke Conference followed 2,500 people ages 40 and older and found that daily diet soda drinkers had 60 percent more strokes, heart attacks, and coronary artery disease than those who didn't drink diet soda. Researchers don't know exactly how diet soda ups stroke risk -- and are following up with further studies -- but nutritionists are cautioning anyone concerned about stroke to cut out diet soda pop.

What to do

Substitute more water for soda in your daily diet. It's the healthiest thirst-quencher by far, researchers say. If you don't like water, try lemonade, iced tea, or juice.

4. Red meat

This winter, when the respected journal Stroke published a study showing that women who consumed a large portion of red meat each day had a 42-percent higher incidence of stroke, it got nutrition experts talking. The information that red meat, with its high saturated fat content, isn't healthy for those looking to prevent heart disease and stroke wasn't exactly news. But the percentage increase (almost 50 percent!) was both startling and solid; the researchers arrived at their finding after following 35,000 Swedish women for ten years.

Why it's bad

Researchers have long known that the saturated fat in red meat raises the risk of stroke and heart disease by gradually clogging arteries with a buildup of protein plaques. Now it turns out that hemoglobin, the ingredient that gives red meat its high iron content, may pose a specific danger when it comes to stroke. Researchers are investigating whether blood becomes thicker and more viscous as a result of the consumption of so-called heme iron, specifically upping the chance of strokes.

What to do

Aim to substitute more poultry -- particularly white meat -- and fish, which are low in heme iron, for red meat. Also, choose the heart-healthiest sources of protein whenever you can, especially beans, legumes, nuts, tofu, and nonfat dairy.

5. Canned soup and prepared foods

Whether it's canned soup, canned spaghetti, or healthy-sounding frozen dinners, prepared foods and mixes rely on sodium to increase flavor and make processed foods taste fresher. Canned soup is cited by nutritionists as the worst offender; one can of canned chicken noodle soup contains more than 1,100 mg of sodium, while many other varieties, from clam chowder to simple tomato, have between 450 and 800 mg per serving. Compare that to the American Heart and Stroke Association's recommendation of less than1,500 mg of sodium daily and you'll see the problem. In fact, a nutritionist-led campaign, the National Salt Reduction Initiative, calls on food companies to reduce the salt content in canned soup and other products by 20 percent in the next two years.

Why it's bad

Salt, or sodium as it's called on food labels, directly affects stroke risk. In one recent study, people who consumed more than 4,000 mg of sodium daily had more than double the risk of stroke compared to those who ate 2,000 mg or less. Yet the Centers for Disease Control estimate that most Americans eat close to 3,500 mg of sodium per day. Studies show that sodium raises blood pressure, the primary causative factor for stroke. And be warned: Sodium wears many tricky disguises, which allow it to hide in all sorts of foods that we don't necessarily think of as salty. Some common, safe-sounding ingredients that really mean salt:

·         Baking soda

·         Baking powder

·         MSG (monosodium glutamate)

·         Disodium phosphate

·         Sodium alginate

What to do

Make your own homemade soups and entrees, then freeze individual serving-sized portions. Buy low-sodium varieties, but read labels carefully, since not all products marked "low sodium" live up to that promise.

 

 

"All of your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them." -  ºoº Walt Disney ºoº