Food Shopping

Making Performance Choices

Performance Food Shopping
Do you Know Where Your Power Foods Are?
Tips for Successful Shopping
At the Grocery store: Work your Way From the Outside In
How Reading Food Labels Can Help You Shop for Performance

Performance Food Shopping

Shopping for performance food is getting easier all the time. Commissaries and grocery stores are stocking more and more food choices that fit into a performance diet of:

    HIGH Carbohydrate
    LOW Fat
    moderate protein
    VaRiEty of foods

Shopping for a performance diet has also been made easier with food labels. Most packaged foods have labels that show you exactly what nutrients you are getting in a product.

By reading food labels, you can see how a food fits into your total diet. Use food labels to make product comparisons so that you can make the best performance choices.

Do You Know Where Your Power Foods Are?

These kinds of foods are always good performance choices - lowfat, high carbohydrate, or a good supply of protein. And you can find them in any commissary or supermarket.

Breads and Rolls
Especially whole grain for extra nutrition.

Pasta
Whatever the shape - spaghetti, macaroni, ziti, or dinosaurs - pasta is a super performance food, dense in carbohydrates to replenish glycogen stores.

Fruits and Vegetables
They supply carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals. Fresh are best, but frozen or canned are O.K. too.

Milk, Lowfat Yogurt & Cheese
Go with skim or 1% - a lot less fat, but all the protein and other nutrients of whole milk.

Cereal
Light on the sugar. Read the label. If the sugar content is more than 8 grams per serving you know it's sweet. Try high fiber.

Fish & Seafood
Excellent Source of protein. When canned, packed in water is best.

Dried & Canned Beans
Try different kinds. Beans are a good source of protein and fiber.

Graham Crackers, Pretzels, Baked Corn Chips, Animal Crackers, & Fig Bars
High-carbohydrate, lowfat snack foods.

Fruit Juices & Sports Drinks
Can help replace carbohydrates during and after endurance activity.

Some Tips For Successful Performance Food Shopping

1. Shop in the commissary or supermarket instead of a convenience store. Large grocery stores stock a much wider variety of foods, which you need to get a balance of nutrients. Supermarkets have more of the high-carbohydrate, lowfat foods that help your physical and mental performance. Convenience stores, on the other hand, are designed for speed...which often means high fat and lots of sugar.

2. Make a performance shopping list and stick to it - especially when you are in a hurry. It's easier to pick up convenience foods when you are on the fly and haven't thought out your food choices. Writing out what you want helps cut down on those impulse buys of foods that might not fit into your performance eating plan.

3. Eat before you hit the grocery aisles. It's hard to stick to your performance food list when you are hungry.

4. Read food labels. They tell you exactly what you are getting in a product. Compare labels on similar products to find the better performance choice.

At the Grocery Store: Work Your Way From the Outside In!

The Goal...to leave the store with a variety of performance foods that are high in carbohydrate, low in fat, have adequate protein, and a balance of nutrients! Try some of these food shopping tactics.

The Strategy...work your way from the outside in. All commissaries and grocery stores put their freshest foods on the outside aisles. Fresh foods are where you find many of your nutrients. Fruits, vegetables, dairy products, meats, and often breads...usually on the store perimeter.

• Milk: Skim and 1% milk are the performance choices. Lower in fat than whole milk by 6 grams a glass.
• Yogurt's not all the same. Look for low- or nonfat yogurt for a high protein, high calcium snack.
• Lowfat spreads can cut the fat. Butter, margerine,and cream cheese come in lowfat versions.

• Chicken and turkey without the skin. Low in fat, high in protein.
• Beef: look for cuts graded "SELECT." It means less fat. "CHOICE" and "PRIME" mean higher in fat. The more it is marbled, the more fat.
• Ground beef labeled 90% fat free. Or try ground turkey for lower fat burgers.

 

FISH & SEAFOODS ARE HIGH IN PROTEIN, LOW IN FAT!

 

Many lunch meats and cheeses are clearly marked with fat content. Look for 95% or more fat free.

 

Lots of good choices at the salad bar. Get the ones without creamy dressings, including mayonnaise.

 

Fresh fruit: sweet carbos. Good for restoring energy during a road march or hike. Dried fruit: easy to pack for a performance snack in the field.

  Read the labels on prepared foods.

 Look for dinners with fewer than 15 grams of fat.
 Get frozen vegetables without the sauces. They add fat.

Ice milk and lowfat frozen yogurt are lower in fat than ice cream. If it's hard to resist eating the whole quart of ice cream in one sitting, get ice cream bars or popsicles instead.

• Tuna: Get water packed. Oil packed adds fat.
• Canned and dried beans: For soups, chili, salads. High in protein and carbohydrate.
• Stew, chili, soup: Read labels on prepared foods like these. Some of them are high in fat.
• Pasta and rice: PRIMO for CARBOS. Any shape will do. Whole grain has even more vitamins, minerals, & fiber.
• Pasta and rice sauces and mixes: Read the label. Could be high in fat and sodium.
• Refried beans: Good carbohydrates. Vegetarian style has less fat.

 
 LABEL ALERT!

• That cream filled cupcake could backfire during afternoon P.T. Check the fat content.
• Sugar is not a good performance food. Sugar might give you a quick boost of energy but drops you just as fast.

 GOOD NEWS! New low- & nonfat brands are appearing on the shelf.
 OOPS, COULDN'T RESIST THE CANDY AISLE...Try yogurt covered raisins, jelly beans or licorice. If you must eat a candy bar, eat a mini-bar...and eat them sparingly.

 

Carbos can be found here, but lots of fat is lurking in the aisle. Read Labels.

 Look for snacks that are baked instead of fried.

• Good Bets: pretzels, baked corn chips, air popped popcorn, fig bars, dried fruit, graham crackers, fruit bars, rice cakes, stone ground or whole wheat crackers.
• Microwave popcorn? Get the kind labeled "Lite" or "Lowfat."

 

• Go with light or lowfat mayonnaise and salad dressings.
• Good Bets: mustard, ketchup, salsa, relish, vinegar, jam, jelly.

Here's How Reading Food Labels Can Help You Shop For Performance...

Most packaged foods are required to have labels like this one. Some foods with only a few nutrients or with a small space for labeling might have a shorter label.

Here's a good way to read labels to see how a product fits into your performance: 1) First check the SERVING SIZE. The label tells you how much is in one serving. The amount of nutrients listed are what you will find in one serving. This serving size may be different from your usual serving. 2) There's also TOTAL FAT. It's measured in grams. These chips have 10 grams of fat in a serving. Three of those grams are saturated fat, the least desirable type of fat. How does that fit into the number of grams of fat a day you want to limit yourself to? Remember that if you have more than a single label serving, you are eating more grams of fat.

3) There's CALORIES FROM FAT.
There are 90 calories from fat in one serving of these chips (compare this to the total calories per serving)...and one serving would use up 15% of the maximum amount of fat recommended for a 2000 calorie diet.

4) Look at CARBOHYDRATES, the premium energy nutrient.
A good performance food has the most grams of carbohydrate and the least grams of fat. One serving of chips has 15 grams of carbohydrate and 10 grams of fat...not only too much fat in too little food, but not enough carbohydrates to sustain you. Make chips a treat...not a meal.

5) Now look at % DAILY VALUE.
% Daily Values help you know if a product is high or low in a nutrient. The % Daily Values show how a food fits into a 2,000 calorie diet that meets the Dietary Guidelines. Daily Values are nutrient standards set by the government and are based on current nutrition recommendations. Nutrient needs for a Performance Diet may be more than the Daily Values on the label.

6) Remember PROTEIN.
These chips have 2 grams of protein in a serving. Protein should make up 12-15% of a performance diet - between 60 and 150 grams of protein a day.

7) Don't forget VITAMINS & MINERALS.
Vitamins A and C, calcium and iron are required to be on the food label. They are listed by percent of their recommended daily value.

8) Then finally CALORIES PER GRAM.
Some labels tell you number of calories in a gram of fat, carbohydrate, and protein. See how many more calories in a gram of fat than in a gram of carbohydrate!