Want to eat healthy? It’s helpful to shop using the five food groups as a guide when shopping; this will help with adding balance and variety to the foods you buy. Here is a general ‘skeleton’ shopping guide, to get you started...

1. Vegetables and Fruit: Put at least three different vegetables and two different fruits in your trolley each time you go shopping – remember you need five portions of these a day. Choose at least one dark green vegetable, one red and one orange/yellow type – these could also be salad types.

2. Grain Products: Go mostly for the wholegrain foods in this category and those with a lower glycaemic response, limiting the refined and more processed stuff. Good examples are sweet potato, quinoa, couscous, wholegrain bread and crackers (not the salty, savoury white types), pasta and brown rice.

3. Meat and Meat Alternatives: Leaner, unprocessed cuts are the way to go when choosing meats and chicken – limit crumbed, minced, moulded versions like sausages, schnitzels (ostrich and extra lean beef mince is fine). Fish (focus on fatty types) is important to get your omega-3’s – tinned versions are great to have on the shelf for a quick salad/pasta addition. Legumes, like beans and lentils are an important part of healthy eating, as well as seeds. And don’t forget eggs.

4. Dairy: Focus on lower or fat-free milk and yoghurt. Lower fat cheese such as cottage and ricotta cheeses add protein and calcium and are great for salads, snacks and lunches.

5. Fats: Healthy types should replace unhealthy types in your trolley and diet, and are an important part of healthy eating. Avocado, peanuts or peanut butter, canola are good options.

Hope this short guide is useful and gives you a general idea!