Commissary tour provides tips on selecting healthiest foods at grocery store

Have you ever gone to the grocery store only to find yourself completely overwhelmed with the choices? Do you want to make healthy choices when you shop but find you get distracted and end up with a cart full of junk food?

If you answered yes to either of these questions, then the Fort Drum MEDDAC's Nutrition Clinic Commissary tour is for you.

The commissary tour, conducted by Capt. Jeremy Brooks, Fort Drum chief nutritionist, is designed to help people make healthy choices while navigating through all the products.

"Grocery shopping can be an overwhelming and confusing task when someone is trying to choose healthy food," Brooks said. "The average supermarket contains over 45,000 different food items. We work with people to help them make healthy choices."

Participants can expect to conduct practical hands-on exercises while walking through the commissary. The exercises will encourage and help participants to make healthier choices.

"During the tour, participants actually look at and touch food, pick it up, understand the food labels, introduce new ingredients and pick out healthy on-the-go options. Additionally, I will answer food and nutrition questions along the way and provide grocery shopping and meal-planning tips," Brooks said.

One of the exercises participants go through takes place in the bread aisle. Brooks asks each person to find the bread they usually buy and determine if it meets certain criteria to make it an acceptable choice.

Many participants found that their bread did not, and they began looking at other options.

One major benefit the commissary tour provides is that it brings the abstract concepts of eating healthy into the real world.

"Many clients are on a tight budget, and they tell me that the cost of healthy groceries is their biggest barrier to making healthy meals at home," Brooks said. "Food skills, like smart shopping, can help overcome that barrier."

During the tour, Brooks encourages participants to "shop the perimeter of the store" -- avoiding the center aisles where processed food is located.

He also said that the grocery visit should start in the produce section.

"Many people stop here last before checkout," Brooks said. "Yet, if we know that half of every plate of food should be filled with vegetables, they really should take up most of our cart volume as well as most of our food budget. Plus, if we fill up a generous amount of the cart with produce, we'll have less room for the treats or 'misses' in our diet."

The tour is the perfect tool for anyone looking to lose weight or make better food choices, and it is a great supplement to a visit to the Nutrition Clinic.

For Staff Sgt. Jason Carattini, Albany Recruiting Battalion, the tour was very beneficial, as it helped him to see how he shops and what he can do to improve it.

"The tour helped me to realize what I need to do to improve myself," he said. "I am going to start sticking to the outside perimeter and only go into the aisles when I really need something."

The commissary tour is available to anyone who is covered under TRICARE, and beneficiaries can attend with or without a referral from their primary care manager.

Participants must be scheduled for the tour, and they can do that by calling the Nutrition Clinic, 772-6404.

In addition, scheduled participants are welcome to bring Family Members along since many people grocery shop as a Family. As long as the participant is scheduled, they do not need to so for their additional family members.

Commissary tours take place most Wednesday mornings beginning at 7:30 a.m. For more information or to schedule a tour, contact the Nutrition Clinic staff at 772-6404.