By Sam Bennison

To Your Health

The secret battle between grocery stores and your budget

Apr 9, 2024 | 1:09 PM

PRINCE GEORGE— A war is being waged as grocery stores use every psychological trick possible to get you to impulse buy food and often nutritional quality pays the price. However, armed with knowledge you can escape the aisles while keeping extra cash in your wallet.

“People that shop with lists tend to not get influenced into those impulse buys, and they actually spend 23% less walking out of the grocery store than those people who just go in and want to be inspired,” says registered dietitian Sherry Ogasawara.

By creating a shopping list it allows you to preplan your meals and check flyers to see what’s on sale. Ogasawara continues that even the layout of the grocery store is designed to suck you into an impulse buy, making it even more important to follow your list of groceries.

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“Think about it. If you have to go just for a carton of milk, generally speaking, because grocery stores are laid out on a universal grid. You have to get to the other side of the grocery store. So, you have to run the gantlet of everything that’s set up to cause you to buy more,’ explains Ogasawara.

It also helps to avoid purchasing prepackaged items like shredded cheese and carrots as it’s something that is easy to do at home. Ogasawara notes that one should never be afraid to buy frozen or canned vegetables as they have the same nutritional value as fresh and are often cheaper.

Her final tip is to use what’s called the ‘Inflation Cookbook’. The ‘Inflation Cookbook’ is an online website that indicates what’s gone down in price and what has gone up in price to better meal plan.

“It also creates recipes based on those ones (groceries) that have dropped and are economically priced within your region,’ says Ogasawara “So, you come out with a bunch of recipes.”

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Email: sam.bennison@pattisonmedia.com