Building a heart-healthy fridge, freezer and pantry

Eating well for your heart starts with what goes into your grocery basket or trolley

Navigating the grocery store aisles can be overwhelming, especially when faced with an array of food choices and lots of nutrition information. Read on for ways to make heart-healthy choices on your next trip to the shops.

Follow a heart-healthy eating pattern

Fill your shopping trolley with a variety of nutritious foods to allow your heart to function at its best. Heart-healthy eating is not about one food or nutrient, it’s about the combination of what you eat and drink over days, weeks and even months.

Keep an eye out for the following foods on your next shop:

Plenty of vegetables, fruits and wholegrains.
A variety of healthy proteins especially fish, seafood, legumes, nuts and seeds with smaller amounts of eggs (aim for less than seven per week) and lean poultry. Limit lean red meat to 1–3 times a week.
Unflavoured reduced fat milk, yoghurt and cheese.
Healthy fats and oils including nuts, seeds, avocados, olives and their oils for cooking.
Herbs and spices to flavour foods, instead of adding salt.

Having a heart-healthy pantry, fridge and freezer means you have everything you need for healthy meals at home. Use the table below as a guide.

	Pantry	Fridge	Freezer
Fruits and vegetables	Fresh fruits and vegetables Tinned fruit (in natural juice) Tinned vegetables (no added salt)	Fresh fruits and vegetables	Frozen vegetables e.g peas, corn, mixed vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower Frozen fruit e.g. berries, passionfruit, mango pieces
Wholegrains	Rolled oats Wholegrain breakfast cereals, bread Wholemeal flour, pasta Brown rice Couscous Quinoa Polenta Soba noodles	Fresh noodles, pasta
Proteins	Canned legume varieties (no added salt) Tinned fish (tuna, salmon, sardines) in olive oil or water	Fresh fish, poultry and meats Tofu Tempeh Eggs	Frozen fish fillets (tuna, salmon, sardines), poultry and meats
Dairy (reduced fat)	Powdered milk Long-life milk	Fresh milk, cheese, yoghurt
Fats and oils	Healthy oils (olive, canola, peanut, sunflower) Nuts and seeds and their butters/spreads (no added salt)	Avocado Olives
Flavour	Dried herbs and spices Pepper Chilli Garlic Ginger Vinegars	Lemon or lime juice Fresh herbs

Download the My heart-healthy grocery guide and use it for your next grocery shop.

Read the labels

Reading food labels is a good skill to have that will help you choose heart-healthy foods. Check the nutrition information panel to choose products with lower salt and identify products with unhealthy (saturated and trans) fats and added sugars.

The Ingredients list can help identify ingredients you may want to avoid or include in your eating pattern.
Identify sources of wholegrains and unsaturated fats in the ingredients list. They’re unlikely to be listed in the nutrition information panel.
Use the Quantity per 100 g column to compare products. Choose the product that's lowest in sodium (salt), saturated fat, trans fat and added sugar.
Sugar refers to naturally occurring (like fruit and dairy) as well as added sugars. Refer to the Ingredients list to determine if sugars have been added.

Consider costs

While fresh foods are ideal, frozen or canned options can still be a healthy choice. Buying frozen vegetables and fruit is a great way to consume heart-healthy foods while keeping costs down. Canned foods are also a great alternative. Check labels and choose canned fruit and vegetables with no added sugar or salt.

You may choose to add frozen veggies to soups, stews and tray bakes. You may also want to try the Heart Foundation’s Family friendly budget recipes e-book recipe booklet.

Plan ahead

You don’t have to spend hours in the kitchen to make a healthy meal. Planning your meal is the key to saving time and effort.

Think about what you could prepare ahead of time. You can cut vegetables the night before and store them in the refrigerator or cook something for use the next night (e.g. pasta sauce).

Shop with a list

By preparing a shopping list, not only can you save time (and money) in the supermarket, but you can also make sure that you have all the healthy ingredients you need at home.

Batch cook

Making a big batch of one dish is more efficient than cooking every meal. Choose a meal that can be packaged separately and frozen. Check out our Batch cooking recipes e-book.