Shopping for a Whole Food, Plant-Based Diet with Tom Campbell, MD

so when I talk to patients I tell them that some of the most important health decisions they make are actually in the grocery store so let's go ahead and walk around the grocery store and learn some tips and tricks on how to navigate this area safely come on alright so the healthiest section of the grocery store by far is the produce section this is where you're gonna find your fruits your vegetables everything that you can eat in abundance and freely and there's lots of convenience items in here so look for things in bags that are pre chopped and ready to cook you just throw it in a pot for example there are some chopped greens here that you can just throw in a pot or throw in a salad no work required this should be a staple in your fridge so in most grocery stores around the country now you're gonna find a section that's sort of the health natural section and I talked to a lot of people once they start getting healthy they feel like they have to do all of their shopping here in the natural section that's not true there are some very useful things here in this section generally you're gonna find 100% whole grain products you're gonna find some pre-made salsas or sauces that are very low sodium no oil added that type of thing but generally there's also a lot of processed food and we want to stay away from the processed packaged food so you have to navigate this section carefully and get out of here pretty fast we also have some oats for example you find a hundred percent whole grain steel-cut oats or whole wheat products and of course you have some non-dairy milks which should be a staple as well in your fridge ok so here we are in the pasta section which becomes very popular once you give up the meat and the dairy but you got to be careful here because a lot of the pastas are refined flours so make sure that you're eating 100% whole grain pasta which means 100% whole wheat or maybe even brown rice pasta for those who are gluten-free for the sauces you've got to really read labels carefully there's a lot of added salt sugar and fat a lot of added oil so you can either make your own for example you can find the canned no salt added just plain old tomatoes sometimes with flavoring and there may be a few brands of tomato sauce that actually have very little added fat and not a lot of added sugar so let's take a look and surprisingly there's actually some heart-healthy versions of some popular national brands like ragu Newman's Own or even classic oh that have very little or no added oil low sodium and not that much sugar and every store there's usually an ethnic or world section and you can find some pretty interesting things in here so you can find some of the canned beans that have low or no salt added and a huge variety of beans and occasionally you can find some different types of food that you've never heard of before never tried before and it can be a fun experiment to try some of these new foods so breakfast is the simplest meal of the day but if you go to the breakfast aisle in every grocery store I think it's the most confusing aisle in the grocery store there's a lot of cereals that are labeled as natural or healthy and they're really not very natural and they're not very healthy so you got to read the labels really carefully either if you're gonna have the box cereal make sure you're getting really low sugar cereal which is pretty rare and whole-grain as much as possible but the healthiest the healthiest is the oats all right and here they are so just a canister of both just like this plain oat so you cook it up with some fruits and raisins and you have a very easy very fast healthy breakfast okay so we're in the aisle with the canned vegetables a lot of people ask whether it's okay to eat canned vegetables I think it's okay but you have to be really careful about the salt content most canned vegetables have very high sodium content so if you can find the no salt added or low-sodium it might be a safe bet personally I'm not a huge fan of the taste of canned vegetables but hey for something easy recipe fillers take a look all right so we found ourselves in the spices section this is where the chef's really get excited and as you learn how to eat healthier and you start exploring new foods this is where you're going to shine I really encourage you to try new spices and make new foods this is where your tastes are gonna expand just enormous Li one other thing as you're trying new spices think about checking out your natural health food store or maybe even in the ethnic market near you sometimes they have spices in bulk that are unbelievably cheap compared to your normal grocery store so the frozen section is usually my last stop at the grocery store I stay in the frozen section just with the frozen fruits in the frozen vegetables you're gonna find a lot of prep prepared nicely chopped vegetables here that are full of nutrients and very very convenient you can find mixes like southwestern style or stir-fry style that requires zero effort for very easy dinners but the rest of the frozen section stay away all the prepared meals and the frozen meats and convenience foods be very careful don't even look at those alright so we went through the entire grocery store completed all our shopping and we didn't even go in the bulk section so a lot of people think when they become healthy that suddenly they have to live in the bulk section and buy weird food that's just not true but there can be some useful food in the bulk section so you can find some food that is unsalted and raw and totally natural some nuts if you choose to use some nuts but you got to be careful because there's a lot of sweetened foods and a lot of prepared unhealthy foods in the bulk section like candies and sometimes really oily granola that type of thing trail mix with a lot of sugar so be careful but you can stop here for a few things so notice that there were entire aisles of the grocery store that we didn't even go down we avoided the soda aisle the cracker aisle the potato chip aisle a lot of the snack foods stay away from those foods they're highly processed they're mostly just fat salt sugar you don't need those and they're not healthy we also avoided the meat section and we avoided the dairy section too so we're ending where we started in the produce section this is clearly the healthiest section of the grocery store get most of your food here this food is what I call medicine I hope this has been helpful as you get better you'll navigate the store with ease with convenience and with speed be healthy and good luck

Channel: T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies

Views: 198,348

Keywords: WFPB, T. Colin Campbell, vegan, nutrition studies, cns, whole foods plant-based, health, Dr. Tom Campbell, the china study, shopping guide

Id: eGZRSCkly-4

Length: 7min 8sec (428 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 08 2018