Shop Talk Developing Your Supermarket Savvy

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Ah, those gleaming aisles filled with shiny eggplants and apples . . . those knee-high boxes of puffed cereal . . . those famous faces smiling on bottles of salad dressing and jars of spaghetti sauce. Where else can you get this close to Paul Newman but in your favorite supermarket--the place where dreams of creating delicious, healthy, low-fat meals are made.

And the trend is indeed toward smarter-than-ever food-buying habits. A survey done by the Atlanta, Georgia - based Calorie Control Council (CCC) revealed that the demand for "light" products is still growing, with nine out of ten American adults 18 years and older enjoying low-calorie and sugar-free foods and beverages, as well as reduced-fat foods. We're talking about 171 million fans of these products, one-third of whom are actively dieting to maintain and lose weight, says CCC spokesperson Russ Lemieux.

"Long-term weight control requires changes in eating behavior, and these products can give the dieter many of the foods she enjoyed all along without the unnecessary fat and calories," says Lemieux.

A survey conducted by the Food Marketing Institute in Washington, D.C., in connection with Prevention magazine, has equally good news to report. According to Tom Dybdahl, director of Market Research for Prevention, 47 percent of the supermarket shoppers interviewed were committed to good nutrition and said they consistently made healthful food choices.

But as heartening as these statistics are, there's no question that many waist watchers continue to find the supermarket a scary place. Why? Because it's all too easy to go astray, despite our best intentions.

Supermarket Shopping: It Isn't Kid Stuff How often have you been at the supermarket and watched a mother--her cranky, crying child in tow--grow so exasperated that she finally snaps, "Here! Eat this!" ripping open the first bag she can lay her hands on. Hmmm . . . maybe you've played that scene once or twice yourself. It's tough. How can you go shopping with your children and avoid feeding them or bringing home foods you wish they wouldn't eat? "Leave the kids at home!" laughs Judsen Culbreth, editor-in-chief of Working Mother magazine and the mom of two. But if you simply can't, she's got some savvy strategies for dealing with children who might try to lure you into feeding them the entire candy section or thwart your efforts to stick to your sensible shopping list. Feed 'em first. If you think it's bad for you to go to shopping when you're hungry, it's twice as bad if your kids are starving--they'll want to eat anything and everything they see on the shelves. Take the edge off their appetites by giving them a healthy snack--a piece of fruit, a frozen fruit bar, even a bowl of cereal--before you leave the house. Bring low-fat munchies. "Why not keep some things in your pocketbook for your kids to snack on if they get hungry in the supermarket?" Culbreth suggests. Pack up some pretzels, air-popped popcorn or breadsticks in case they get a snack attack while you're cruising the supermarket aisles. Involve your child. If your youngster is a preschooler, create a simple supermarket game by asking him to help you locate some healthy foods you plan to buy. For example, tell him, "Now we need to get some apples. Can you find the apples?" If it's an older child, make it more challenging. Turn your supermarket expedition into a scavenger hunt, and ask her to bring back to your shopping cart several items at a time. In both cases, your kids will learn to associate going to the market with selecting healthy foods. Don't say no all the time. If something your child wants is off your shopping list, you can simply and firmly say, "No, we're not buying that today." But, adds Culbreth, "there's a new way of thinking--that certain foods shouldn't be completely off-limits. There are really no bad foods, just some that we shouldn't have as much of. It's okay to let your child occasionally have that candy bar. Don't make food a bigger issue than you have to."

But we have to eat, and we have to buy food. How do we make our weekly outings to the market a more pleasant experience and be sure we come home with precisely those items that will do our diet good? Weight-loss and nutrition experts offer these tips.

Never shop when you're hungry. "It's dangerous, because your willpower is down and you might want everything in sight!" warns Jim Fobel, the author of Jim Fobel's Diet Feasts. "Sometimes just a glass of water and a carrot before leaving the house will curb your appetite."

Always shop alone. Doing your marketing with friends might be more fun, but you might also be inclined to take home the same high-fat, high-calorie foods that look so tempting in your friend's shopping cart.

Use a list, but be flexible. A well-thought-out shopping list is always a good idea. But, says Fobel, who has lost more than 100 pounds, "you might see something at the store that's lean and wonderful, like some fresh fish or a lean cut of meat. Something might be so perfect that you may want to deviate from your list sometimes."

Buy the makings for a one-pot meal. "I love soups," says Nancy Clark, director of Nutrition Services at SportsMedicine Brookline in Brookline, Massachusetts, and author of Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guidebook. "So once a week I might make a big pot of soup and add different vegetables to it each day--lentils one day, cabbage the next--it varies according to my mood. Or I'll make a week's worth of chili and eat it plain one day, add some ground turkey another day, make it into a taco salad the third day or serve it with rice the fourth day."

Fobel does something similar with his "perpetual pot of chicken stock," to which he adds veggies, tiny meatballs or egg noodles, depending on how he feels that day. Stocking up at the market for the various ingredients you'll need for this meal in a pot means less work once you get home.

Shun the free samples. You don't need to eat that wedge of Swiss cheese to know how it tastes. Passing up that one-ounce chunk means saving a whopping 105 calories and eight grams of fat.

Check out the fresh herbs and spices. "There are so many more of them to choose from now and they're found in so many supermarkets," notes Marie Simmons, author of The Light Touch. "The more fresh ingredients you use, the less you miss the fat."

Go easy on the additives. Fobel is a fresh-food fan and an avid label reader. "If the ingredient list is too long, I'm automatically suspicious! I tend to put the package right down. My favorite cereal is shredded wheat, and the only ingredient listed is wheat!" Low-cal and low-fat products are certainly a boon to dieters, but don't omit "real" things--fresh fruits and veggies and other unprocessed foods--from your daily diet.

Buy foods in season. "During asparagus season," says Fobel, "I eat asparagus almost every day--it's wonderful. You can never go wrong buying fresh produce in season." If you live near a greenmarket where farm-fresh fruits and vegetables are available, better yet.

Buy the best. Select the highest-quality foods you can afford, insist the experts, and your taste buds won't miss some of the fattening items you're trying to avoid.

Don't buy things "just in case." The words "just in case"--just in case company drops by, or just in case the kids want something sweet--have scuttled many a weight-loss program. Choose only those items you know are tasty yet low-fat and low-calorie, and shop with you and your immediate family in mind, not some phantom guests who may or may not show up. Even if they do, you can serve them the same delicious, low-fat foods you have on hand.

The Food Label Lowdown "Low-fat." "Low-calorie." "Light." "Lite." It was enough to make anyone light-headed. How were you supposed to make smart supermarket selections when food product descriptions were so downright confusing? The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agreed that there was a dizzying array of misleading terms being tossed around grocery stores everywhere. And so as of May 1994--courtesy of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990--a uniform system for labeling just about every type of processed food has been making life a lot easier for weight-conscious consumers. Says FDA spokesperson Brad Stone: "Congress passed this law in response to concerns that it was hard for consumers to figure out what a lot of the terms really meant. It was also hard for people to compare different foods because many products did not have nutrition information at all. In other cases the serving sizes varied from one brand to another. The aim is to give people a clearer, more reliable way to understand the nutritional values of the foods they eat." As a result, every serving size for some 140 food categories is now uniform, product for product. It therefore makes it far simpler for you to compare the fat and caloric breakdowns of everything from pudding to peanut butter. Suddenly, deciding whether Heinz tomato soup, Progresso minestrone or Campbell's chicken with rice is the best bet for your diet is a cinch. In addition, all health-oriented claims found on food packaging must now be fully substantiated. "For instance," says Stone, "a container of milk may carry the message that the calcium in the milk may help reduce the risk of osteoporosis only if the milk meets FDA requirements--that is, if it has the required level of calcium per serving." Perhaps the best news of all for confused dieters: Any diet-oriented product description must conform to standardized FDA definitions. They include: * Calorie-free: up to five calories per serving * Sugar-free: up to 0.5 gram of sugar per serving * Fat-free: up to 0.5 gram of fat per serving * Low-fat: up to 3 grams of fat per serving or per 100 grams of the food * Light or "lite": products containing one-third fewer calories than usual