Help your client shop right in your office with this Virtual Supermarket of “healthy” foods. They can leave this counseling session with a personalized list of brand-name foods that will assist them in meeting their specific goals. Reinforce your counseling with copy-ready Aisle-by-Aisle Tip Sheets and Comparison Charts.
Supermarket Front Door
After you have evaluated your client’s needs and developed a food plan for them to follow, you can use the Virtual Supermarket to help your client make a shopping list of foods that meet specific nutrient goals—lower dietary fat or sodium or eat more fiber. Help them set short-term, realistic goals and then choose foods that will help them meet those goals.
Aisle Diagram Page
For instance, if you have recommended that your client increase their intake of fiber, look for aisles that contain high fiber foods--the Cereal Aisle, Bread Aisle, Cracker Aisle, or Bakery Aisle.
Food Category Aisle Page
When you get to the aisle you want, look at the supermarket shelf with shelf signs that give specific categories of foods. Click on one that interests your client to see a list of brand-name foods. You might also want to point out the Tips along the bottom of the page that give useful information on Food Preparation, Shopping, Label Reading, and Food Safety.
Food Lists
Each food list that pops up gives the specific nutritional criteria that foods must meet to be listed. For the most part, the criteria used are the national requirements of the FDA for a food to be labeled “healthy.” (Insert a link to a page that gives the criteria for healthy.) In addition, foods that are high in fiber (>5 g) and low in sodium (<140 mg) are designated.
Click on the foods that your client would like to put on their personal shopping list. When you are done with this list, click on “Add to Shopping List” on the bottom of the page. You can either go back to the same aisle by clicking on “Previous Aisle” or go to a different aisle by clicking on the arrow under “Choose a different aisle.”
Your Shopping List
This is your client’s personalized shopping list that they can print out and take to the store with them. The shopping list can also be saved so that you can access it at another counseling session and refine the list by adding or deleting foods.
Healthy. A "healthy" food must be low in fat (<3 g per serving) and saturated fat (<1 g per serving) and contain limited amounts of cholesterol (60 mg per serving) and sodium (<480 mg per serving). If a serving is 30 g or less or 2 tablespoons or less, then the nutrient restrictions are based on a 50 g portion. In addition, if it' s a single-item food, it must provide at least 10 percent of one or more of vitamins A or C, iron, calcium, protein, or fiber. Exempt from this "10-percent" rule are certain raw, canned and frozen fruits and vegetables and certain cereal-grain products. These foods can be labeled "healthy," if they do not contain ingredients that change the nutritional profile, and, in the case of enriched grain products, conform to standards of identity, which call for certain required ingredients. If it's a meal-type product, such as frozen entrees and multi-course frozen dinners, it must provide 10 percent of two or three of these vitamins or minerals or of protein or fiber, in addition to meeting the other criteria. The sodium content cannot exceed 360 mg per serving for individual foods and 480 mg per serving for meal-type products.
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