The Raise the Hope gals hit the Renton Thriftway for a grocery store tour with Stephanie Lecovin. Stephanie is a certified nutritionist and registered dietician. She owns a business that you can find at www.nutritionhousecalls.com. Below is a summary of what they learned. Great nutritional information for all of us summarized by Angela Meeks..
I think one of the most basic concepts she hit right away is that we have moved away from eating what is really food. Some of the things have so many ingredients that it is not real food at all and therefore is not fuel for your body.
In a conversation with the Seafood guy, we learned that Thriftway buys their seafood direct from the Fishermen. He talked about the importance and safety of buying fresh fish. Stores like Safeway, QFC, Albertsons, and Fred Meyer - get theirs from a warehouse. all the seafood gets shipped there and then to the store, which means it is not a fresh, has more time to pick up bad stuff and spoil. He said both with fish and meat always ask what is fresh. He also said only buy wild fish; with the exception is shellfish which is almost always farmed. Seafood should be used within 3 days of purchase the sooner the better. With Fish look at the color - it should be bright and consistent throughout. One side should not be darker than the other. The lines in a fish fillet should be red not brown. When you buy fish it should be the last thing you buy before you leave the store. It spoils the fastest.
Also buy fish that comes from the longer rivers - those fish spend about three more weeks swimming up stream which means they have a higher amount of omega 3 oils in them. There was just a ton of information on seafood alone.
> > Next we talked about Meat - Natural, Local, No Hormones, Grass Fed - she explained the importance of all that - all the meat at Thiftway is hormone free. Grass fed beef is high in Omega 3's.
There were whole sections that she said - just avoid it - like bacon, processed meats, sausages. There were a couple exceptions like Wellshire all natural Turkey Bacon.
> > We had fun reading labels and discovering all sorts of terrible things.
> > We looked at salad dressings - again look for real food - which means you understand everything on the label and the label should not be very long with ingredients. She suggested making your own salad dressings. Same thing the Mayonnaise - she suggested Spectrum. Yogurt - again not full of sugar or dyes - Nancy's is a good choice.
> > Eggs - not caged, Omega 3, look to see how they are feed.
> > Fruit and veggies - try new, see list of what you should buy organic on handouts, eat the rainbow (not talking skittles either)
> > Tortillas and Salsa - wow, watch the ingredients here too - there were > not very many good choices but we did find them.
> > Deli Meat - all has Nitrate - don't eat it.
> > Bread - watch what is in it and choose high fiber.
> > Snack Ideas: > > Popcorn with flax seed oil and salt and pepper, Apple with Almond butter, Carrots with Hummus
> > Watch protein bars too - there are bad and good choices there as well.
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