Wired Magazine is apparently not just for the technologically inclined any more. Its new issue features something made especially for health and fitness maniacs: Ground Zero of the Obesity Epidemic? The Center of Your Grocery Store informs us that the most healthful of foods in the grocery store can be found right along the outside wall (the periphery).
[Source: Wired]
Put in just a little more thought into this fact and it soon becomes clear why this is so. Think about it: Milk, fresh fruits and vegetables, cold cuts of fresh meat … there’s one all these natural foods have in common. They all need to be kept fresh by refrigeration. Not so for all those processed foods that line up the central aisles: cookies, chips, pastries, snacks … I am sure these could survive weeks without any problem! You already know natural foods are superior for their nutrition content than any processed food could claim to have and so it’s no wonder you always find the smartest shoppers on the periphery of grocery stores.
As for the aisles?
That’s where you’ll find foods with the highest “energy density,” or calories by weight, which makes those aisles ground zero of the obesity epidemic. The Ruffles in aisle 11 pack 10 times as many calories per gram as the apples in produce.[Wired]
But beware, as I recently pointed out, Healthful Food Is Indeed More Expensive and the article (well, paragraph, really) is quick to point that out:
The wholesome stuff isn’t cheap: You’ll pay nearly seven times as much per calorie for a Red Delicious as you will for those potato chips, but your body will thank you for it.
And here’s another interesting bit of trivia that’s somewhat related to this story: it’s a myth that grocery stores keep the milk at the back so that shoppers will have to walk through the entire store to get it and hence be tempted to buy more stuff along the way. The real reason, most of the time, is that it’s more convenient to keep the large refrigeration machinery outside the store at the back and this is why dairy, meats etc. are along the back wall.
Now go on, amaze your friends with this new found knowledge and remember: keep fresh, stay on the outside wall of grocery stores (most of the time atleast!)
