The worst foods to buy in the supermarket and the healthier options

If you’re looking to embrace a healthier lifestyle this year, you can become more vigilant by reducing your intake of ultra-processed foods. There’s scientific evidence that diets rich in ultra-processed foods are linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, mental health disorders, diabetes, obesity, sleep problems — even premature death, Harvard Medical School has reported. Fox News Digital reached out to two food experts for helpful ways to identify ultra-processed foods at your grocery store or supermarket — and to make better, healthier choices. Here’s a deeper dive.Many ultra-processed foods favor convenience, as they’re ready-to-eat products such as deli meat, microwaveable dinners or chips, as Harvard Medical School has noted.“Ultra-processed foods contain added fats, sugar and sodium, in addition to additives and stabilizers,” Shannon O’Meara, a registered dietitian with Orlando Health in Florida, told Fox News Digital. “We want to avoid these foods due to the higher amounts of salt, sugar and saturated fat because they can impact and contribute to various health conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.”If you are unsure if something is an ultra-processed food, look at the nutrition and ingredient labels, O’Meara advised. If the sodium, saturated fat and added sugar contents are 5% or less on the nutrition label, it means that the food item is low in those nutrients, she explained. Beyond that, look at the ingredient label. “If you are unsure about an ingredient or haven’t heard of it before or even have a hard time pronouncing it, it’s more than likely an ultra-processed food,” O’Meara told Fox News Digital. There are some keywords to help identify ultra-processed foods, Jerold Mande said.Mande is CEO of Nourish Science, a Bethesda, Maryland-based nonprofit working to solve the country’s nutrition crisis. He is also an adjunct professor of nutrition at the Harvard T.H.Chan School of...