This Way to Healthy Choices

The holidays are over, the New Year has begun. No more dragging of feet, it's time to bid adieu to foods that are tasty but not so good for us, and it's time to embrace eating smart and making healthier choices for our families.

The first step to making healthier choices begins in the grocery store. With this in mind, Stop & Shop Supermarket is launching Healthy Ideas, a new on-shelf symbol that helps customers easily identify foods that fit into a healthy lifestyle. To take the guesswork out of making healthy food choices, Stop & Shop has placed the Healthy Ideas symbol on more than 3,000 items and shelf tags throughout its stores. During my grocery shops, I spend a fair amount of time checking out the nutrition information on various products. Now all I need to do is look for a logo - how wonderfully convenient!

The symbol highlights foods that have less fat, saturated fat and sodium. It also helps to ensure that the foods we select include a healthful amount of at least one nutrient, such as fiber, whole grains, calcium and minerals.

The power of Healthy Ideas lies in the strength of its criteria which was developed by a team of registered dietitians and reviewed by an advisory panel of physicians and nutrition experts, including Dr. George Blackburn, associate director of the Division of Nutrition at Harvard Medical School.

Research played a critical role in the development of the symbol, which uses the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the USDA Food Pyramid (Mypyramid.gov) and the USDA/FDA's definition of healthy as a basis for its foundation. Look out for this new symbol!

Review Courtesy of MomCentral