Grocery Shopping Beyond the Perimeter

Many “healthy diet” advocates will tell you to shop the perimeter of the grocery store. That’s where you’ll find the most whole and least processed foods. While this is certainly true, the rest of the grocery store also contains perfectly healthy items that can also help make life easier. Of course, other items are not so healthy, but they’re just fine for an occasional indulgence, especially if they help with sticking to weight and calorie goals. While I definitely find plenty of food items in the perimeter of the grocery store, I also get plenty of healthy and convenient items from the rest of the store.

• Rice cakes and chips: While these foods aren’t exactly considered healthy in and of themselves, they can make a good addition to an already-nutritious meal. Sometimes I’ll eat a serving of corn chips with a bowl of beans, meat, and greens and a piece of fruit. I also like to use rice cakes for topping with tuna salad or hazelnut spread. There are plenty of options with just whole-food ingredients.

• Peanuts, nuts, and seeds: These make great snacks as well as meal additions. I like to top yogurt with granola, dried fruit, and macadamia nuts. I will often eat pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, hemp seeds, or pine nuts on top of a bowl of oatmeal.

• Peanut butter: I love peanut butter! I love spreading it on top of iron-fortified bread or having it with a packet of hot cocoa mix (to add iron) and a sliced banana. I also like to have it with gluten-free waffles (cooked in a skillet with oil), sliced banana, and maple syrup. Powdered peanut butter is also a great option. I often use it in smoothies.

• Honey: I usually buy a small bottle of organic honey because it’s not something I use often. I’ll have it with green tea or on top of rye pancakes.

• Jelly: While jelly isn’t the most healthy thing, it’s also a great thing to include with peanut butter on a sandwich, on top of the hazelnut spread and rice cakes, and also on pancakes. You can find jellies with more natural ingredients if that’s what you prefer. I like Natural Smucker’s.

• Dried fruit: I love adding a single-serving box of raisins to a salad. I also like to have dried fruit with yogurt (or cottage cheese), nuts, and granola. It tastes great on oatmeal as well. It’s wonderful to add to cookies.

• Tea: I make my own tea with family-sized tea bags. I make a gallon with a cup of stevia/sugar blend and replace a cup of water with lemon juice, which is absolutely delicious! I also like to make an individual serving of hot tea with a green tea bag and stevia (or honey), and I also like to drink hot black tea.

• Canned and frozen fruits and vegetables: These options make it so much easier to prepare and eat fruits and vegetables. The frozen vegetables can be easily steamed in the microwave for just a few minutes. Canned vegetables often just have to be heated briefly before eating. Even stir-frying frozen vegetables in a skillet is very quick and easy. Frozen berries can be added to a blender to make a smoothie. I don’t even add ice since it’s already present on the fruit. Cracking open a single-serving container of fruit can add some nutrition to a meal.

• Canned and frozen beans and peas: The canned variety can just be warmed briefly, and the frozen variety can usually be cooked in boiling water for fifteen minutes or even less, at least for a single serving. These can be very helpful for whipping up a quick meal and are a lot easier to prepare than dried varieties. Also, with my wheat allergy, dried varieties are also a lot more likely to be contaminated. I’ve never had issues with canned or frozen varieties.

• Spices (single and blends): These add a lot of flavor to meats, fruits, and vegetables. McCormick has a lot of good mixes for adding to meat. Salt and pepper are obvious staples that, along with butter or a buttery spread, add a lot of flavor to vegetables.

• Sweeteners: I buy brown and white sugar, a stevia/sugar blend, stevia packets, and sugar packets. These come in handy for adding sweetness to foods and drinks.

• Flours and cereals: I include grains and pseudo-grains in my diet because I don’t have issues with them, except for wheat, and I don’t want to restrict my diet any more than is absolutely necessary. I buy rye flour, corn flour, and a gluten-free flour blend. As for hot cereals, I love cream of rice, grits, buckwheat, barley, quinoa, amaranth, oatmeal, and teff. I buy cold cereal as well, and, along with other nutritious items, it can be part of a great breakfast. I get a puffed rice cereal that I’ll have with a cup of whole milk, a peanut butter and chocolate chip Larabar, and some fruit. I also like to buy a cereal fortified with iron, such as Honey Nut Frosted Flakes, to eat with a fruit high in vitamin E like mango. I know that’s a breakfast loaded with sugar, but I don’t eat it often.

• Frozen dinners: These are my “fast food” options since I no longer eat at actual fast food restaurants due to my wheat allergy. There are plenty of healthy options available, and there are a good variety that I can eat.

• Gluten-free breads: It’s nice to have bread available without having to make it myself. While it’s not the healthiest option, it works great when adding it to meals that already contain nutritious items. Some are fortified with nutrients, like iron, that make it easy to balance with foods that have vitamin E, such as peanut butter.

• Canned meats and fish: These are also very convenient to have on hand for some quick and easy meals. Sometimes, when I buy certain vegetarian/vegan frozen dinners, I’ll add a can of meat to add zinc that balances out the copper in the plant foods. They are also really easy to add to soups and salads.

• Canned soups and chilies: I love quickly warming up a can of soup to have with a grilled cheese sandwich. Some soups that are high in copper and iron like bean and lentil soups can be combined with a can of meat and greens to create a very nutritious meal. Beef chili is also great. There are a lot of good options with just whole-food ingredients. There are also options lower in sodium for those who need to be mindful of salt intake.

• Ready-to-eat meal options: One of my favorite travel foods is Beanie Weenees. I can make a pretty good meal out of a single-serving can and an Ensure shake. I will sometimes add a cup of carrots. This is great for traveling, and I can just slip these items along with packaged utensils in my bag for a quick lunch on-the-go.

• V8: I love the original V8. It’s a convenient way to get two servings of vegetables and tastes great too. It has around 30% of the RDA of vitamin A (from beta carotene), so it also helps meet vitamin A requirements. There is also a low-sodium variety for those who need to be more mindful of salt intake.

• Sauces: I have a few varieties of sauces and salsa. These are great to add flavor to spaghetti or meat. I also love to pour them over certain types of legumes, like crowder peas or blackeye peas.

• Pasta: I can buy a few different varieties of gluten-free pasta at my local grocery store. Some are even made from beans, and these add a lot of nutrition that may be absent from the rice and corn pastas. However, I like to use the rice and corn varieties of pasta as well, and they seem to cook up just as well as wheat-based pasta.

• Diet soda: Diet sodas are not a health beverage, but they come in very handy when I want something fizzy to drink. Sparkling water just isn’t the same. These are great because they are very low in sugar and calories (or don’t contain either at all), so they’re much easier to fit in as a treat than regular sodas. I don’t drink them everyday, and when I do have one, I almost always stick to just one. There are studies that link diet sodas to sugar cravings and weight gain, but I’ve never noticed a problem with either or any other negative circumstance except when I had a temporary reaction to acesulfame potassium back in 2017. I keep Zevia and Tab at home and get the more mainstream varieties while away from home, like from the vending machines at work.

Plenty of healthy and convenient food items can be found outside the perimeter of the grocery store. These options are especially helpful for those who don’t have a lot of time to cook or don’t like to cook. Many of them contain just whole-food ingredients, and if they contain other types of ingredients, they’re usually minimal. They make it so much easier to plan and eat a healthy diet. People with celiac disease or allergies, like me, may have to be more careful due to cross contamination concerns. Certain types of fresh produce can easily be washed to remove any trace residues, but this is more difficult or even impossible for packaged foods. I’ve honestly not had any trouble with packaged foods that I know I’ve handled correctly and don’t have ingredients like distilled vinegar and xanthan gum. Whatever precautions are needed, there should be plenty of healthy food options beyond the perimeter of the grocery store to make planning and eating a healthy diet easier.

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