James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital - Tampa, Florida

Veterans compare product nutrition information during the Grocery Shopping Tour.

Choosing the right foods is the first step in eating healthy, and dieticians at the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital Primary Care Annex now have a program to help people make the right choices.

Veterans can now sign up for the monthly Grocery Store Tour conducted through the PCA.  Participants meet two JAHVH registered dieticians at a local grocery store where they participate in a guided “scavenger hunt” to learn how to navigate the aisles of food stores and how to read labels to find the healthiest choices.

“We know that it can be really overwhelming to try and start eating healthier, and the first step is getting the right foods in your house,” said Registered Dietician Kerry Hensel.  “Our goal here is to try and empower and educate some of these Veterans on how to do that on their own.”

Veterans who sign up for the tour meet the dieticians at a local grocery store at 9:15 a.m.  After a short briefing, they’re given a sheet with lists of products from different areas around the store and asked to gather nutrition information from the labels, comparing various brands and types of products from each section.

“We’ll go through different departments of the store – we’ll go through the produce section, meats, canned soup, barbecue sauces, things like that, and we have questions for them to answer that highlight the certain nutrients of interest in all these products” Hensel said.  “We want them to know that if you’re buying canned vegetables for instance, there are options with a lot less salt if you’re watching your sodium, or if you’re looking at cereals, oatmeal, rice, what are going to be the options with the most fiber and least sugar.”

The tour lasts about two hours and gives the Veterans – and their spouse if they want to attend as well – the chance to visit almost every section of the store.

Veteran Pamela Bradford said she was looking for guidance in what to buy when she went grocery shopping, and the tour helped her do that.

“I think most of us are creatures of habit and we will typically buy the same things over and over again so it’s a vicious cycle,” Bradford said.  “At this point I would really like to know what I should buy for breakfast, to be healthy; for lunch, to be healthy; for dinner, to be healthy; and a snack, to be healthy.”

The tour is held monthly, with the next ones scheduled for Feb. 15, March 15 and April 19.  Veterans who’d like to participate in the tour should call 813-998-8000, extension 6807 to sign up.