How Food Marketers Make You Think You're Choosing Healthy Food

Plans to eat healthy can fly out the window when you step into a grocery store.

Maybe you add junk food to your cart full of vegetables.

Or maybe you believethe hype that a food is healthy, when it’s really not the best choice.

Here are some of the traps that food marketers use against you.

It turns out that if youknowthere’s a priming effect going on, you’reless susceptible to it.

So when you see health claims, be skeptical: they’re only there to help sell a product.

An important strategy is to not forget your nutritional goals.

Don’t get distracted by what’s on the front.

You’re buying lots of healthy food!)

that you figure you’re able to break a few rules.

So does this mean you’re better off leaving the bags at home?

It’s because magazines can’t sell “Spinach is still good for you!”

(I hear watercress might be making a comeback next.)

Variety is great, but that doesn’t mean there was ever anything wrong with spinach.

The same researcher who did this work has shown the same effect with other foods, including oils.

How to thwart this one: return to your goals again.

Is the trendy or newsworthy food really helping you with a goal you care about?

(For example, were you worried about vitamin bioavailability from your salads?

If a trendy new food fits those goals, sure, give it a try.

But also use a stodgy old relative as a mental foil: What would Grandpa eat?

Chances are, the old standby (Spinach?

is just as good, and cheaper.

Images byhikingartist,Robert Couse-Baker,greggavadon.com,Lars Plougmann.