Did you know that grocery stores strategically place their products?

Supermarkets are intended to make you spend more money.. yes even more then you already do.. and time inside. They hide the healthy things on the obscure shelves in the sections no one visits in order to create food traffic and lure people into purchasing things they don’t need and aren’t nutritious.

To shop smarter you need to know what to look for when you go grocery shopping and know where to find it. Doing this will keep you on the right path toward healthy living.

Use these tips next time your in the grocery store:

#1: Look high and low.

Sections are divided as follows:

Bottom shelf = bulk – lower profit yielding and obscure products

Middle = kid appealing foods and packaging – adult foods

Top shelf= healthy foods

This puts the kid-friendly, sugary products at kid eye level and the expensive branded products at your level. The food that doesn’t earn the store much money will be passed over for stuff that doesn’t need too much bending or stretching to reach… if its at eye level it will get purchased more.

More often than not, you will find the products with the least amount of sugar or sodium on the bottom and top shelves.

#2: Do a dry run.

One crucial step in the process of changing your shopping habits is to make a quick scouting trip ( dry run) , at your own pace, and explore where things are. Once you are inside the store, you can walk at an unhurried pace and take a mental note how the supermarket store is designed. This will prevent those hurried impulse buys of less healthy choices when you are in a rush.

#3: Be cautious of “healthy” labels.

Remember specific products are placed at eye-level for a reason. Even those advertised as ” healthy” choices that may be full of other ingredients ( like sodium and / or sugar). When you pick something up at the store that looks ” healthy” take your time to read the ingredient list and see what is in it. Is sugar the second ingredient? What is the sodium content on the label? Can you pronounce the ingredients?