Have you ever made the list of grocery shopping? Now I repeat the same question with adding healthy to grocery. Yes healthy grocery shopping. We do put green vegetables and healthy oats in the list but we are tempted to buy canned vegetables and fried packed snacks. And with limited budget to spend on grocery shopping we often end up with maximum of unhealthy things in our monthly grocery shopping like packs of maggi’s or other easy to cook food.  This happens because beyond the safe walls of health, one is dealing with family likes and dislikes, store temptations, and limited budgets.

Next time you are doing grocery never go on an empty stomach. Hunger and stress make you more susceptible to temptations. Everything that’s bad for your health will look twice as inviting.
Eat before you step into a Food Mall. That will allow your choices to be guided by your brain instead of your grumbling tummy.

Ignore the displays at the entrance. The idea is to cover the least glamorous but most essential items early so that you don’t overlook the basic ingredients necessary for a balanced meal. Plus, with the cart half full and most of your budget spent on healthful stuff, there is less scope for over-the-top impulse shopping.

Put into the cart pulses (dals like toor, arhar, moong, urad, masoor) as per need of the family.
Semolina (suji), sabudana, gram flour (besan) and rice. Opt for pack of refined Oil like Safola, Sunflower etc. One easy way to limit your oil intake is to buy less, you make do with less, and you consume less. Olive oil is good for garnishing but not cooking. For daily use go with unrefined, double filtered groundnut oil.

Go for good quality wheat flour. A mix blend of jowar, bajra, nachini and husk is perfect. Don’t be swayed by freebies of  the millets, cereals and legumes.  It does not mean that you ban your temptation food but sneak in some healthy as well, so that the child can develop a taste for both. Buy them also but a blend of the two would be great. Make a better choice but not totally devoid of oil. Go for wheat pasta and make them with lots of fresh vegetables. The kids would love it.
Soy biscuits are great for your body. They have energizing effect and are not at all fattening like other biscuits. Pick them along with regular biscuits. It will help the family to develop the taste.
While doing shopping do check whether the percentage of ingredients is in keeping with the claims. Read food labels closely. Ingredients are typically listed in order of importance. The higher an item is placed, the greater its percentage in the product. A serving of potato chips contains only 130 calories, which looks good until you notice that the figure is for 30gm or 8 chips.