• Have a plan for quick meals, snacks and lunch items you plan to purchase.
• Try new foods, especially seasonal fruits and vegetables; get "out of the rut" of the same old processed foods.
• Choose the lower fat versions of crackers, cereals, and desserts.
• Buy foods that you can quick fix at home such as: (stir fry packages and quick cooking rice or couscous; chicken or salmon you can grill on the Forman grill. Fine to go Mexican but wrap up beans or shrimp in a tortilla or home fry the corn taco in a healthy canola oil and then add lettuce, tomato and salsa.)
• Shop the perimeter of the store. Most of the processed foods (trans fat containing foods) are on the inner isles of the supermarket.
• Don't shop when you're hungry, you're more likely to make poor choices and to buy on impulse when you shop on an empty stomach.
• If you take the children with you to go shopping, give them as satisfying snack before you go, stand firm in your plans about what you will and will not purchase.
• Remember: You are responsible for the quality of the foods you bring into the house for your children.

Grocery List

Think ahead about healthy breakfast, snack and lunch items and keep these available for your family.

Breakfast:

Fresh fruit, Cheerios, Shredded Wheat, flake cereals, skim or 1 percent milk, yogurt, soy milk, FiBars, Quaker Baked Apple Instant Oatmeal, multi-grain or whole wheat bread (Pepperidge farms, Roman Meal, for example), almond or peanut butter, nuts such as walnuts and almonds in cereal or on yogurt.

Snack or Lunch:

Strawberries, kiwi, oranges, bananas, celery with peanut butter, baby carrots with hummus or lowfat dip, Skinny soy chips, small boxes of raisins, craisins, nuts (Trader Joe's has exceptional toasted almonds that have no added fat), walnuts, Spanish peanuts, Pamela's cookies, Starkist Tuna Lunch to Go, Del Monte or other cups of pineapple, tropical fruit, peaches, or applesauce; rice cakes with natural peanut butter or almond butter, 50 percent light Cabot cheddar with Devonshire melba rounds.

Quick Dinners

Rotissere Chicken, instant couscous, microwave or steamed green beans, watermelon, Oven warmed flour tortillas with lowfat refried beans, part skim mozzarella cheese, and salsa. Serve with a salad or microwaved corn, broccoli and red peppers, frozen stir-fry with chicken, beef or shrimp, quick cooking rice, frozen fruit pops, spinach steamed and sauteed with garlic, plus 1 can garbanzo beans and feta cheese, Pamela's ginger cookies, salmon or chicken on the Forman grill with oven blasted veggies