[AquaWarlock]

Interesting news/research item, with some useful list-writing and grocery shopping tips.

http://www.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=602673

Grocery Lists Don't Guarantee Healthy Choices
Fat, sugary food selections can sneak in unless you check yourself, study finds

By E.J. Mundell
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, March 14, (HealthDay News) -- The grocery lists most people jot down before going to the store can create a mental loophole for impulse food.

That's because the act of remembering a variety of food choices makes people more vulnerable to slipping cookies, chips and other not-so-healthy items onto the list, a new study finds.

"The mental effort that you're using is mental effort you do not have to keep yourself in check -- controlling your desire for chocolate cake rather than fruit salad, for example," explained lead researcher Yuval Rottenstreich, an associate professor of management at Duke University.

Rottenstreich stressed, however, that it was still smarter to head to the supermarket with a list in hand than without -- just read it back and cross out any sugary or fatty items that may have snuck in.

The study is published in the March issue of the Journal of Consumer Research.

For years, nutritionists have urged dieters to draw up healthy, calorie-conscious shopping lists before they head out to the supermarket. "Not having that security of a shopping list ahead of time could actually be quite negative, especially if the person is going through the supermarket hungry," said Bonnie Taub-Dix, a New York City-based registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.

The advice makes intuitive sense, but Rottenstreich and his co-researchers wanted to test whether it was foolproof in keeping folks true to their goals.

In three separate experiments, college students were asked to make consumer choices based on two real-life paradigms: "stimulus-based" decision-making, where the objects to choose from were right in front of the student (as would happen in a supermarket), and "memory-based" decision-making, where the students were asked to list the things they wanted to buy by drawing on their memory.

Lists didn't perform quite as well as expected.

In one experiment centered on a choice of four desserts -- chocolate cake, cheesecake, creme, and fruit salad -- the participants chose the healthier fruit salad far more when the four items were presented to them than when asked to recall the desserts from memory and then list their preference.

According to Rottenstreich, "This points out that making a list from memory does have a bit of a downside." The finding, he said, can be explained by neurology: The human brain does not have the capacity to activate both working memory and a full complement of rational impulse-control at once.



(edited- please click the link above to read the rest of the article due to copyright)

[CinnamonGirl]

Originally Posted by AquaWarlock

...Not having that security of a shopping list ahead of time could actually be quite negative, especially if the person is going through the supermarket hungry...

The advice makes intuitive sense, but Rottenstreich and his co-researchers wanted to test whether it was foolproof in keeping folks true to their goals.

In three separate experiments, college students were asked to make consumer choices based on two real-life paradigms: "stimulus-based" decision-making, where the objects to choose from were right in front of the student (as would happen in a supermarket), and "memory-based" decision-making, where the students were asked to list the things they wanted to buy by drawing on their memory.

Lists didn't perform quite as well as expected.

So maybe I'm not reading this right but what I got out of this was that the dietician was dead on right to suggest people go shopping with a list BUT the research is flawed.

If the researchers wanted to study the idea of a shopping list then why did they have one group use "stimulus-based" decision-making and the second group use "memory-based" decision-making? Memory-based and a list are NOT the same thing. That doesn't seem like a proper way to sudy list-based shopping if you ask me.

The rest of the article showing how it's good to take a list shopping is great advice. Seems like possibly another "study" that tells us what we already know. The whole self-control vs shopping issue is very interesting. It'd be good to learn more about that.

Beth

[mandalinn82]

Very interesting.

I personally draw up my weekly dinner menus every Monday, then make a grocery list based on the items I need for those menus. I only buy the foods I need for those menus, then I not only know exactly what I am eating each day for dinner (and the leftovers for lunch the next day), but I know I have everything on hand I need to make the meals. Its a huge timesaver and makes me eat so much healthier when I have a plan. So the first part of my list consists of the lean proteins, veggies, and whole grains I'll use to make dinners and lunches.

In addition, I add in my breakfast/snack foods that I keep on hand - south beach bars, 100-cal popcorns, plain yogurts, berries, apples, oranges, bananas, other fruits, oats, lt vanilla soy milk, high fiber whole grain cereal, laughing cow wedges, ry-krisp crackers, 50-cal whole wheat tortillas, and my single-serving sherbet and ice cream cups which I eat for dessert each night - I also keep a natural reduced calorie peanut butter on hand (its made with flax, honey, and some egg white in addition to peanuts- slightly lower cal than regular peanut butter with more omegas).

With that and my nightly menus, I've got all the food I need for the week, including 3 breakfast options (oats with cinnamon and chopped apples, a whole wheat tortilla with 1 tbsp peanut butter and a banana, or high fiber cereal with soy milk), a variety of low calorie snacks, desserts, and dinners.

I only sneak in the unhealthy stuff if I go to the store without my list. If I have the list, and its well-planned as described above, I never really add anything else to it. But it absolutely has to be planned that well or I throw in all kinds of extras.

Most of the checkout people comment on my list - at the top, the menus for the week are displayed in a grid by day of the week. Underneath, I have the list, divided by type (Produce, Proteins, Grains, Dairy, General Grocery) and then organized in order of aisle. The list is obscenely detailed - down to the approximate size package I want to find for the proteins! a little OCD, I know.

[mandalinn82]

To add - I think my approach, which works really well for me, isn't the same as "memory-based" list making. I don't just sit down and say "ok, I need milk, chicken, etc". I plan every last detail - not memory based, but solidly plan-based.

[alinnell]

Mandalinn~you and I do the same thing and I rarely buy anything that is not on my list. Now that I really plan out my meals, I find that my grocery shopping trips take a lot less time. I no longer have to go up and down each aisle. I often go up only 1 or 2 of the interior aisles--usually the ones with rice, beans and the cheese one.