David Zinczenko - Eat this, not that! Supermarket survival guide: thousands of easy food swaps that can save you 10, 20, 30 pounds--or more!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is the product of thousands of hours spent in supermarket aisles and test kitchens; hundreds of conversations with nutritionists and industry experts; and the collective smarts, dedication and raw talent of dozens of individuals. Our underlying thanks to all of you who have given your time, energy and enthusiasm to this project.

A special thanks to those who have played a vital role in this adventure since the very first edition of Eat This, Not That!, in particular George Karabotsos, Stephen Perrine, and Tara Long.

Dave and Matt

Check out the other bestselling books in the EAT THIS, NOT THAT! and COOK THIS, NOT THAT! series, and make sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

WHAT'S INSIDE

PLUS: Inspiring Eat This, Not That!

CHAPTER 1

Make the most out of every trip through the aisles

CHAPTER 2

Learn the secrets for slimming down your grocery bill

CHAPTER 3

Elevate your meals with these fat-burning superfoods

CHAPTER 4

Build a leaner body with the smartest protein choices

CHAPTER 5

Keep your cooland never feel hungry again

CHAPTER 6

Stock your kitchen with the healthiest building blocks possible

CHAPTER 7

Master the art of the healthy indulgence

CHAPTER 8

The best pizzas, entres, and ice creams in the supermarket

CHAPTER 9

Learn how to cut out the calories that hurt you the most

INTRODUCTION

Theres a wonderful world where all you desire and everything youve longed for is at your fingertips...

Bruce Springsteen,
Queen of the Supermarket

No wonder Bruce Springsteen sang of aisles and aisles of dreams in his ode to checkout girls. In an interview with Britains The Observer Music Monthly , he even declared, They opened up this big, beautiful supermarket near where we lived....[A]nd I thought, this place is spectacular. This place is its fantasy land!

We can be as appreciative of its bounty as The Boss and still be wary of the supermarkets dangers. As with every other sensory-rattling funhouse, in the grocery store, nothing is as it first appears. Friendly characters entertain our children while peddling junk that will blow up their waistlines and make them susceptible to diabetes. Words like healthy and lite are often meaningless phrases coated with fat and sugar.

Even the lowest-priced supermarket in your neighborhood is brimming with complete rip-offshealth foods that arent healthy, gourmet foods that arent gourmet, specialty items that just arent that special. Yet the supermarket is a fact of everyones life. The average American makes about 1.7 trips a week, and each one of those trips is a chance to gain weight, or to lose it. To save money, or to waste it. To set yourself and your family up for a lifetime of better health, or to deprive you all of the vital nutrients your bodies need to stay strong.

You make hundreds of health and financial decisions with each trip, yet theres not a lot of help to be found: The people stacking the boxes know where everything belongs, but they dont know whats actually in anything. Managers are seldom trained to do much more than settle coupon disputes, and at the checkout, you have the choice of a robot telling you to place items in bag, or a robotlike teenager swiping your familys food along a grimy scanner. Once you enter a supermarket, youre on your own.

And were victims of that lack of helpful information: Only 27 percent of shoppers can correctly identify monounsaturated fat as a healthy fat, and nearly one in five people dont know whether trans fats are good or bad. (Theyre worse than bad. Theyre ugly.) No wonder two-thirds of the American population is overweight or obese. No one is telling us the truth about whats in the foods were eating!

Well, that stops now. The Eat This, Not That! Supermarket Survival Guide is designed to make shopping faster, easier, cheaper, and, most important of all, healthier. And along the way, its going to show you how to start losing weight fastwithout dieting, without exercise. These pages are packed with thousands of simple grocery-store swaps that can save you 10, 20, 30 pounds or morethis year alone!

Now, I know what youre thinking: Eating healthy is expensive. It doesnt have to be. You dont have to buy costly health food to get the weight-loss benefits of the Eat This, Not That! Supermarket Survival Guide . The simple swaps youll find in this book will show you how choosing between two seemingly identicaland identically pricedproducts can save you hundreds of calories, and dozens of pounds, without impacting your walletor your taste buds. Consider this:

Drop 20 pounds in 1 year with this simple swap!

Who doesnt love Hagen-Dazs? But heres a secret: Not every pint of Hagen-Dazs loves you back. Its Chocolate Peanut Butter ice cream weighs in at 360 calories per half cup. But just switch to the companys Dark Chocolate and save 200 calories with every 1-cup serving. Do that every night and youll drop a pound every 18 days, and cut out one-third of your sugar intake at dessert!

Remember when I warned you about health foods that arent? Youd think Healthy Choice Complete Meal Sweet & Sour Chicken would be, you know, healthy. In fact, its got more sugar than a Reeses-flavor Klondike bar. Opt for the Oven Roasted Chicken, however, and youll save 150 calories per serving, and 10 grams of sugar.

Lose a pound every 9 days with swaps like this!

How about a small frozen pizza? DiGiorno makes a Traditional Crust Supreme Pizza and a Flatbread Melts Chicken Parmesan. But the only traditional thing about the first item and its whopping 790 calories is the middle-aged spread youll getlong before middle age. (Youll save 410 calories by picking the Parmesanthat kind of swap can save you a pound every 9 days!)

Now, a lot of us equate eating healthy with spending hours poring over nutrition labels. And most of us have neither the time nor the patience for that: According to Shopping for Health, a Food Marketing Institute study, the proportion of shoppers who read nutrition labels as of 2010 was just 64 percent. (That number is down 7 percent from 2007. Busy, anyone?) And nutrition labels can be confusing: A 2008 USDA study found that only 49 percent of people actually changed their buying decision based on what they saw on a nutrition facts label.