Guide helps shoppers navigate supermarket aisles better

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One of the book’s helpful tips is right on the cover: Eating Breyers’ Chocolate Chunk Cookie Dough, instead of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, will save you 30 calories and 9 fat grams.

Updated: February 5, 2012 8:04AM

A lot of us start out the new year with the intention of eating better.

Then we hit the supermarket and are overwhelmed. All those choices, with one after another claiming it’s good for us for this reason or that. It’s hard to figure out what products to put into our carts. Even the most seasoned shopper can be stymied.

And then, once we’ve got our “healthy” food home, what should we do with it?

That’s where the Eat This, Not That (Rodale, $19.99) comprehensive guide to supermarkets is a real lifesaver. Authors David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding call it a supermarket survival guide, and that’s no idle boasting.

They tell us in the book there are some 38,000 items in the average supermarket. No wonder we’re confused! But the authors go beyond the pretty packaging and alluring promises to determine what’s good and what’s not, showing that often what we think is good for us is anything but.

Take the Healthy Choice Roasted Sesame Chicken. Folks who buy that frozen entree probably think they’re eating healthy; after all, that’s what is implied on the package. Roasted chicken, a small serving of pasta, petite offerings of fruit and veggies. That sounds good for you, doesn’t it?

Yet while the package says the chicken is roasted, the fine print shows the meat is coated in flour and cooked in vegetable oil, according to the authors. Hey, when my granny from Oklahoma used to make fried chicken, that’s exactly what she’d do!

The pasta is soaked in pineapple juice;; the fruit side dish is sweetened with syrup. There are 27 grams of sugar in this dish. The layman reads that number and doesn’t know if that’s good or bad. Zinczenko and Goulding spell it out: this is the sugar equivalent of three Krispy Kreme doughnuts. That’s why the book rated it the worst “healthy” frozen entree.

It’s helpful to know what not to waste your food dollars on at the supermarket. But Eat This, Not That also offers recommendations on what to eat, then takes it one step further. Sure, Zinczenko and Goulding give Al Fresco Chipotle Chicken Sausage a thumbs up. But then they show readers that by teaming it with just three other ingredients, you can make grilled Mexican pizza in minutes.

The book is jammed full of photos, so next time you’re in the supermarket you’ll recognize the good guys (and bad). Little arrows point out what’s wrong (say, too much sodium) or what’s good (packed with fiber). Spend enough time going through this book and you will begin to recognize the attributes one should want in food.

Readers may be tempted to skip over the first few chapters and go straight to the photo pages. Don’t. It’s here that Eat This, Not That explains the mind-set of grocers and lets consumers in on the little strategies used to make you buy more of food your body doesn’t need.

This book is great for those wanting to truly eat better as well as those who want to make the most of their food dollars. Avoiding foods that provide empty calories leaves us wanting more; good foods, the authors point out, leave us fuller for a longer period of time.

A good lesson for us all.