How to Find Clean Foods While Grocery Shopping

If you are anything like me when I first started (and even sometimes still!), when people told me that I should avoid processed foods, I wasn't sure what that meant. There are so many different things within every food product and even if it is good for you, you don't know what it is and it is some crazy name that sounds like a chemical or something. You know?!

Here is a simple guide of what you need to watch for:

Is that ingredient something that you can buy on your own and have in your pantry to cook with?
Here is an example from The Gracious Pantry: Spaghetti sauce. If the ingredients are, “tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and basil”, then you know it’s clean because you would buy JUST tomatoes to cook with. You would also buy JUST garlic to cook with. Same for olive oil and basil.
But if the ingredient list says, “tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, basil and maltodextrin”, you would want to pass it by. You would never go to the store for some maltodextrin to cook with at home.

This way of shopping can be really frustrating, I know, but this is going to actually allow you to find clean products.

You want to purchase less packaged products and replace them with whole food items, mostly from the produce section. This is because the actual item doesn't need an ingredient label because it is what it is.

Notice how I haven't said a word about all natural or organic here? Clean does NOT mean organic eating. However, like in the spaghetti sauce example, the pre-packaged foods will most likely be organic. SO if you don't want to pay the organic price, then you will need to by the ingredients themselves and make your own.

Also, in my area, Aldi and Trader Joe's have fantastic products and prices of a lot of things!