Grocery List How-To???

kimd2090

Bump for later! Thanks for the tips!

Ideabaker

My neighbour shops every two weeks. He calls his first week "fresh week" and his second week "frozen and tinned food week". In particular, frozen broccoli, brussels sprouts, green beans and corn are his frozen staples.

He buys carrots, apples, bell peppers and other "hard" fresh fruits and veggies, keeping them in the fridge in their plastic bags, and says they last the whole two weeks like that.

arghbowl

A typical grocery list for 2 weeks:

10 bunches of kale
6 containers of baby spinach
Tons of asparagus
Apples
Baby carrots
P28 bread
100 cal sandwich thins
Organic PB
2 jugs of egg whites
2 family packs of chicken breasts
2 family packs of pork chops
1 lb extra lean ground beef
1 lb ground chicken
Braggs liquid aminos
Rice. Lots of rice.
Frozen broccoli
Frozen spinach
Cottage cheese
Whole milk
Frozen blueberries for snacking before bed
2lb no salt added sliced turkey


It varies some, but that's a pretty basic one where you can whip together any number of things depending on your taste. Throw in a few low/no sodium seasonings and you're set.

SassyCalyGirl

I would stay away from canned soups. Make your own loaded with veggies and chicken. You will get way less sodium and much more protein.

check out crockpot.com for some awesome recipes that you can tweak, also allrecipes.com

make your own stock-way less sodium.

my must haves are

chicken
cottage cheese
fresh fruits
organic power greens
fresh veggies
Greek yogurt
Healthy Life Bread ( high in fiber & protein)
beef jerky


you can make healthy delicious tacos, soup and casseroles and so much more with just a bit of planning. Crock Pot cooking is a great time saving option-come home and dinner is ready! Just takes minutes in the morning to put a meal together.

FrauHaas2013

If you Google "healthy grocery list" you'll find a lot of stuff that comes up - I think even the Mayo Clinic offers a healthy grocery list. My husband and I usually buy everything fresh as well, but we love our Progresso soups! He buys the regular ones, I buy the light ones that are "Biggest Loser" approved. The veggie and rice one is only 60 calories per serving and not very much sodium.

Sometimes he'll make a stew, but honestly, it winds up being pretty expensive once you buy all of the ingredients; so it just depends on your finances and the time you have available.

We freeze a lot of stuff, too, and we portion it out first. That way, I can just grab a bag and know that it's the correct portion.

If you want to eat fresh veggies and fruit, then yes, some of them will keep for 2 weeks and some of them won't; just depends on what you're buying. Maybe buy your bananas and avocados a wee bit underripe and let them ripen - they'll last longer.

hstoblish

I've never thought to grocery shop quite like this! My husband and I (I've got to give him full credit for this) plan out a week's worth of meals (breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks) and pick it up every Friday after work. It's taken us some time to get the amounts exactly right, but we're at a point now where we don't have things go bad. If we need extra we might need to take 1 more trip to the store. I'd recommend planning it out week by week and meal by meal. Eating clean (MFP folks might appreciate this more as eating nutrient dense foods) means eating fresh, so you need to check your pantry and your fridge every week to see what needs top ups. It does mean more thinking about what to eat, but it also means really knowing what you're going to eat.

You also save gas with the minimal grocery store runs, and you can plan for some treats too (for those of us who just can't eat clean all the time!)

hstoblish

Her list has a lot of meats -- which will also go bad quickest, so in the freezer they go. You can't keep a lot of produce for 2 weeks. I'd say lettuce (my primary veggie) lasts about a week. Many can be purchased frozen, though... maybe look into that (frozen is usually as good as or better than fresh).

Bread can also be frozen.

Can't you go to the grocery store weekly?

I don't usually openly disagree with someone on this, but all my research has pointed to the fact that the sooner after something has been picked that it's eaten, the higher the nutrient availability. I've never read anything to indicate that freezing can be equivalent or somehow increase the nutrient profile. I'd highly recommend trying to buy the right amount to eat over the course of a week rather than buying frozen if you can help it.

MickeyCastello

I
Crock Pot cooking is a great time saving option-come home and dinner is ready! Just takes minutes in the morning to put a meal together.

Another tip, if you have a pot that is removable from the cooker part, is to put your concoction together the night before and store it in the fridge, then alls you gotta do is take it out, put it in the cooker, set it and leave. Of course this doesn't work for every ingredient of every recipe, but it works for many of the things I make. I think the flavors mix better setting overnight too. Just my $0.02

pinkiemarie252

Apples last quite well. I buy one of those big bags of them and just eat one a day until they're gone and the last apples are just as good as the first ones. Also I like to dip carrots in hummus. If you only use a little hummus it doesn't add too many calories but makes the carrots a lot more fulfilling.