This Simple Trick Could Help Shoppers Stay Slim

Shoppers who want to keep their bank accounts (and waistlines) healthy know the golden rules of grocery shopping.

Never go to the store hungry. A small snack before you head down the aisles could keep you from turning your cart into a mountain of sugary, high-calorie treats. (Who can resist a Ding-Dong when you’re starving?) Make a list, and plan your meals for the week to cut down on impulse buys.

But now there’s another mantra: When you find a brand you like, stick to it—or you could be setting yourself up to overeat. Yep, that means the dizzying array of pizzas, cereals, yogurts—you name it—in supermarkets are confusing our brains into eating more.

Researchers recently found that exposure to a huge number of choices is messing up a primal part of our brains that helps us judge how filling a particular food is, or how many calories it has.

So why does this happen? That’s the interesting part.

Over time, humans have adapted to rely on their senses of sight, smell, and taste to pick their foods. But now that grocery stores have become so saturated with competing brands and diverse products, researchers say that our brains haven’t been able to keep up.

Luckily, the solution to this conundrum is fairly simple. When you find a brand of snack bar, almond butter, or pasta you like, stick to it. (The simplification trend isn’t just for closets!)

At Thrive Market, we’ve already done most of the work for you. Here, for example, you won’t find endless aisles of peanut butter, almond butter, and cashew butter—we offer just a small, curated collection of the very best nut butters. And we’ve carried that idea across our entire site, from green cleaners to snack bars. At Thrive, you’ll get the best of the best—without all the work.

Photo credit: Marleigh Jones via Flickr