An important first step in creating a healthy kitchen is to read and understand food labels. When you focus on upgrading your pantry, food labels are your best resource to assess what to keep and what to toss. This practice will also give you an overview of your choices in the supermarket and is a good starting point to modify your shopping habits.

Use the list below to determine what items to discard. Many of these ingredients are considered pro-inflammatory and therefore detrimental to healthy aging. If the list of ingredients contains one or more of these undesirables, toss them and don’t buy again!

1. Artificial sweeteners or non-nutritive sweeteners (look for acesulfame or sucralose in the ingredients list, code words for these fake items)
2. Sugar, cane juice or other sugar equivalents (including syrups) as a near-the-top ingredient
3. Corn oil
4. Cottonseed oil
5. Fractionated oil
6. High fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
7. Hydrogenated oil or vegetable shortening
8. Margarine
9. Palm or palm kernel oil
10. Partially hydrogenated oil (source of trans-fat)
11. Blended vegetable oils
12. Safflower oil
13. Soybean oil
14. Sunflower oil