You walk into the store, good intentions, list of healthy items in hand and intimidation! You know better than to shop in the center of the store, but this is the first time in your life that you’re trying to eat healthy and cook for yourself, how can you not feel overwhelmed?! You do your best to stroll just the perimeter a few times and find items like butter, eggs, meat, and vegetables, but there are some things on your list that are missing …coconut oil? almond butter? *sigh*
Not only that, but every time you find something and move on to seeking out the next item on your list, it seems like you have to walk back across the freaking store to find it, or up and down 2-3 aisles until you by some miracle stumble across whatever you’re looking for.
If you’re one of those people who gets a mild panic attack when the bright florescent lights of your local supermarket hit you, try not to panic…once you’ve got the sections of your store down, it’s a breeze. We’re going to help you dominate the supermarket sweep and shop like a boss.
The general layout of the store.
Let’s take a walk through an average store just to survey our surroundings. Every store is diverse, but generally, your fruits and veggies will usually be on one side as you keep walking around the perimeter and you’ll come to either meat or dairy. Keep walking and you’ll likely stumble across things like lunch meats, cheeses, or a frozen section. Keeping to the outer edge of the store is key, trust that those aisles of “snacks” and the like in the middle are OFF limits.
After a couple trips you’ll know the lay of the land and be able to breeze in and out. If grocery shopping is a chore then stock up on non perishable items and staples that you can freeze! Hit weekend farmers markets where you can grab produce items to take the chore feeling out of the equation.