Decoding the Grocery Store

By Claudia Wallis

Marion Nestle is stumped.

We have entered a Safeway supermarket in Berkeley, Calif., and this noted scholar of American nutrition can't make head or tail of the place. "Very unusual--not very inviting," she sniffs, eyeing checkout counters that seem to pose a barrier to entry. "Where's the produce?" It is then that we realize we have come in via the exit. We re-enter through the correct door, and at once the layout conforms to the immutable laws of grocery-store geometry. The colorful produce and flowers pull us into a world of plenty. Now Nestle is in her element. An N.Y.U. professor, Nestle (rhymes with wrestle) has just published What to Eat: An Aisle-by-Aisle Guide to Savvy Food Choices and Good Eating. To write the 600-page tome, she spent a year examining the world of groceries. "It's not exactly the great Western novel," she concedes, but it has its own fascination, breaking the code of an utterly familiar yet beguiling institution. TIME quizzed Nestle in the aisles at Safeway. For a more panoramic overview, turn the page. [This article contains a complex diagram. For text, please see hardcopy of magazine or PDF.]

Q & A

Why is it so hard to dash into a store and find the milk?

Milk is always as far from the entrance as possible, so you'll walk past thousands of tempting products. Just about everyone buys at least two impulse items for every item on a shopping list.

Why don't more Americans eat more fruits and vegetables?

They don't always taste good, and people don't know what to do with them. Look, there are seven kinds of apples here, but there's no one to give you a sliver so you know which one you'll like. Also fruits and vegetables are perceived as expensive. But a USDA report found you could eat five servings a day for under a dollar. I didn't believe it until I tried it.

Why don't our fruits and vegetables taste better?

First of all, they are not fresh. They were picked ages before and transported. Second, they were bred to survive shipping rather than for taste. Third, consumers like their fruits and vegetables to look perfect, so the breeding is for appearance, not taste. Taste, alas, is perishable.

You're against putting cartoon characters on junk food, but here's SpongeBob on a package of carrots. Isn't that better?

I'm still not happy. To me this is part of making kids think they have to have their own special food in special packages.

The American Heart Association has its heart-healthy sticker on all sorts of products here. Is this a service to consumers?

I don't think so. It makes no sense to think that eating a sugary cereal will prevent heart disease. I'd like to see all health claims off food labels. Food is food. Medicine is medicine. Health claims are a slippery slope. Look, here's Cocoa Puffs, now whole grain. It has the Heart Association check box because it's low in fat and cholesterol. And food companies pay for these endorsements.

What's the single biggest lie Americans believe about food?

That if a food is advertised as trans-fat--free, high in vitamins or low in sugar or contains omega-3s, it must be healthy and will help you lose weight.

Why do we shift obsessions from fat to carbs to trans fats?

It's easier to talk about the nutrient du jour than dietary patterns. But it's patterns that really affect your health.