Get Supermarket Savvy

Shopping Tips for the Stuck-in-a-Rut Shopper

Leigh Anna and her husband, Andrew, are vegans, and the diet's restrictions -- no honey or dairy, for example -- can make it tricky to choose packaged goods. Leigh Anna tends to buy the same foods every week because she knows they're vegan-friendly. She and Andrew have to work hard to get enough of nutrients such as vitamin B12, vitamin D, calcium, and iron.

Whole wheat bread, a variety of produce, canned beans, tea, pasta, pasta sauce, natural peanut butter, orange juice, chocolate and plain soy milk

Go with the Grain
Leigh Anna's already getting plenty of fiber from her vegetable- and fruit-rich diet, which means she can skip whole wheat pasta and go with the regular semolina kind instead. It's an especially smart choice for vegans, since it's got more iron than whole wheat pasta.

Scrutinize Your Pasta Sauce
Leigh Anna reached for a jar with nearly a tablespoon of corn syrup per serving. Instead, we recommended Classico Tomato & Basil pasta sauce, with no added sugar or sweeteners, which was on special for $2.50 a jar.

Get Smart About Soy Milk
Andrew likes chocolate soy milk, but it packs nearly 5 teaspoons of sugar per 8-ounce glass. Adding a tablespoon of light chocolate syrup to plain soy milk will give him the sweet taste he loves and cut the amount of sugar in half.

Comparison Shop
In the juice section, Leigh Anna makes a healthy choice for Andrew with a 128-ounce jug of calcium- and vitamin D-fortified OJ. But she can save $2 by buying two 64-ounce containers of Minute Maid Kids+ Orange Juice, which was on sale. Not only is it fortified with calcium and D, but it also has 20 percent of the daily value for vitamin E per serving.

Total savings: about $13

Originally published in FITNESS magazine, September 2009.