Shopping at the fringe

I heard on NPR recently that shopping the perimeter of the grocery store leads you to the only dietary essentials you need (not the exact link for either case, but both make reference to the practice of perimeter shopping). The argument is that if you make a circle of the store, you hit the fresh produce first where all the leafy green vegetables and nutrient rich fruits should make up the abundance of your purchase. Next on your perimeter route, you reach meat and then dairy. Voila! Many healthy meals purchased without venturing into the aisles.

Pretty much all grocery stores are set up this way, though the NPR explanation of why they are set up that way eludes me. In the aisles you find chips, carbohydrated breakfast cereals, sugary jams and “health food” sections. Most of these can technically be skipped, since, when you shopped the perimeter, you picked up the most vital food groups. (The only food group you skipped was the protein bar segment. Very important.)

But after meat and dairy, my grocery store works hard to disprove the perimeter shopping theory. In fact, in my grocery store, only half the perimeter meets the healthy food group shopping criteria.

After dairy, we exit necessary foods, transitioning into encased meats (hot dogs), which, to me, are vital to the food guide, but are medically unnecessary. After encased meats come way over-chemical-ized pre-sliced lunchmeats and heavily processed cheeses. I can’t stand that stuff and easily avoid it--it gives me gas and tastes like artificial “liquid smoke additive.” Next—ice cream. A row of ice cream vaults. My husband and I literally avert our eyes and say, “Look away! Look away!” And, finally, after ice cream, wine, beer, and liquor.

While the health benefits of red wine (and maybe Guinness) can be debated, really, it’s not necessary to food health. We don’t live in an era where potable water is virtually non-existent, thereby requiring imbibing brewed or fermented beverages for health reasons. I’d even argue we have a surplus of potable water, considering all the $1.49 12 oz. bottles of designer water I see on store shelves. Shelves--not on the perimeter of the grocery store--shelves in the aisles of the grocery store. A location which takes us full circle to the original argument: necessary and healthy foods are on the perimeter of the store, not the aisles.