My three strategies to go off-leash from the food industry

Émely Steegstra-Hendrix
4 min readAug 14, 2023

And take back control over what you eat, free from the manipulation that takes place in your supermarket!

I just did an amazing masterclass about how to get away from the ultra and highly processed foods the industry wants you to eat. If you’d like the replay, let me know in the comments.

Let’s go off-leash and take back control over what you eat. Especially important after illness

YOU HAVE TO ACTIVELY CREATE THAT “HEALTHY, FRESH, FREE FROM BAD PRODUCE”-LIFE.

For yourself & your loved ones

For now & the future

Your future & their future!!

And you can do that with these grocery shopping strategies to manage your supermarket.

Let’s start creating your new luxury and healthy lifestyle without deprivation or dieting.

A lifestyle full of delicious, fresh, healthy, yummy ingredients and meals.

Let’s start at the beginning because you can’t eat yummy, tongue-tingling meals that are healthy too if you buy the wrong ingredients to start with.

All meals start with you buying the necessary ingredients in your local shops or supermarket. But did you know that supermarkets are purposely laid out to expose you to as much ultra and highly processed foods as possible?

✅ So the number one strategy is staying away from all ultra and highly processed foods.

ULTRA AND HIGHLY PROCESSED foods are the foods processed and almost completely manufactured in a factory instead of a normal household kitchen with all sorts of additives you and I will never have in our cupboards. Plus ingredients we would never add if cooking from scratch.

They also generally come in boxes, bottles, jars, bags etc with long shelf lives.

Those are the foods we want to move away from!!

And to make that easier for you, you have to learn to manage your supermarket.

Next time you go into your supermarket you pay real attention to its layout.

Get to know the layout of your supermarket to break yourself free from the food industry leash and make it tons and tons easier to choose the healthy food available.

✅ Step 2 to unleash yourself is to make an organised shopping list. This is not just any ordinary shopping list I am talking about. It is a specifically organised shopping list.

Every shopping list helps you to live healthier, because when you sit down to think about what you want to eat and what you need for that, you always make the better choices. And even if you decide on eating something less healthy you did so consciously and therefore you won’t do it as often anymore as you used to.

But when you know your supermarket layout and write your shopping list in the order of your ideal route THE ORGANISED SHOPPING LIST helps you:

stay on track, to really make those consciously made healthier choices, because it keeps you away from the ultra and highly processed food aisles!!

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✅ My third strategy to go off-leash from the food industry is look on the lower or higher shelves for comparable ingredients.

For example you can buy tomato sauce from the “right in your face” brands.

But you can also buy plain tomato sauce like passata, often to be found on the lowest shelf. Or in the case of my supermarket they even used to be hidden half behind a pillar

Look at both versions and compare the ingredients list.

Always, always, always choose the one with the least ingredients and in case of the same amount of ingredients the one with the least sugar and salt.

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So wrapping up:

1) make a layout map of your supermarket and figure out the healthiest route

2) always write a shopping list and write in order of your ideal supermarket route staying away from the worst aisles

3) when in doubt about a product, look low and high for similar products and then choose the one with the least ingredients listed, the least sugar, the least salt.

Give yourself some time as learning to cook without your usual seasonings, sauces etc takes time. The food industry adds all sorts of flavouring and ingredients like salt and sugar to numb your taste buds and make you want more of their products.

And if you have questions, put them in the comments or ask me for the full masterclass replay!

Make sure you go and implement these strategies.

Let’s make a choice and start taking back control over what we eat.

FOR YOUR HEALTH AND WELLBEING,

FOR YOU AND YOUR LOVED ONES,

FOR NOW AND THE FUTURE,

YOURS AND THEIR FUTURE!

Love Émely

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Émely Steegstra-Hendrix

Foodie by Birth & Trained Chef, ❤️ vegetables🥬, cooking 🥘, Easy Urban Gardening 🧑‍🌾, fresh ingredients 🍅🐟🍋, dining 🍽 & travelling 🧳