Incorporate Healthful Ingredients

This week, we'd like you to focus on incorporating healthful, high quality foods into your daily eating habits.

Here are some great ways to add more healthful foods into your diet:

• Choose fresh instead of processed foods. Limit the foods that come in a box or package. Shop mostly along the perimeter of the store where fresh & refrigerated foods are found. Fill your shopping cart with plenty of fresh produce.
  

• To increase your vegetable & fruit consumption, purchase a variety of frozen produce. Check the ingredient list to ensure that nothing has been added to the produce. As long as nothing has been added, frozen veggies & fruits are just as healthful as fresh - sometimes even more so since they are frozen at their peak.

• Purchase raw, unsalted nuts & seeds.
  

• When you buy processed foods, choose products that have whole, natural, nutrient-dense ingredients. The shorter the ingredient list, the better. When purchasing bread, look for the ingredient "whole wheat," not "wheat" or "enriched wheat".
  

• Avoid products with artificial flavorings, artificial colorings and hydrogenated oils.
  

• Limit products that contain sugar & salt. If your product does contain sugar or salt, make sure it is listed toward the end of the ingredients list.
  

• Check the expiration date of all foods, especially beef, poultry & fish.