A Doctor's Honest Guide to The Grocery Store (What's Worth Worrying About)

0:00You try to eat healthy, but how do you know the food you're buying is actually safe? By the end of this episode, you'll know what to look for at the grocery store, what's worth spending extra money on, which food safety concerns actually deserve your attention, and the simple changes that can reduce your exposure without making you afraid of everything you eat. All right, so why does buying healthy food feel so complicated? You walk into the grocery store, trying to do the right thing, you pick up the salmon and wonder about the mercury. You reach for the strawberries, you think about the pesticides, you grab a bottle of water, remember something you read about microplastics.

0:33And then there's PFAS, heavy metals, food additives, plastic packaging, produce recalls. And suddenly buying healthy food doesn't feel so simple. And if you're paying attention to the headlines, you might start wondering, is any of our food actually safe? The answer is, well, more nuanced than a lot of what you see online because not every food safety risk is the same. and not every scary headline deserves the same amount of your attention. There are the immediate risks we've worried about for decades, bacteria like Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria that can contaminate your food and make us sick, but there's another category that's getting a lot more attention.

1:08Substances we may be exposed to in small amounts over and over again. Things like pesticides, heavy metals, PFAS, microplastics, certain food additives, and chemicals that can migrate from packaging into our food. Now, those are two very different conversations. And I think we've done a poor job helping people understand the difference because when everything is labeled toxic, you don't become a more informed consumer. You become an overwhelmed one. This episode was brought to you by Function. Get access to over 160 lab tests annually at functionhealth.com slash mark. So today, I want to make this practical.

1:45We're going to take a trip through the grocery store together. We'll start at the protocyle and talk about pesticides and when buying organic is really worth the extra money. We'll head to the meat and seafood counter and talk about sourcing, contamination, and mercury. Then we're going to turn over some packaged foods and look at what's actually on the ingredient label. And then we'll talk about something most of us rarely think about. What our food touches before we eat it. Plastic containers, wrappers, cookware, other packaging. And finally, we'll bring everything home and look at some of the surprisingly simple mistakes we make in our own kitchens.

2:20And along the way, I'm going to help you separate the things that are genuinely worth paying attention to from the things you probably don't need to lose sleep over. Because the goal isn't to make you afraid of your food, it's to give you a simple framework for making better choices. What you prioritize, where you can reduce unnecessary exposures, and where the basics matter far more than the latest scary headline. Let's start where most of us begin every week, the produce aisle. Do you really need to buy organic? And how do you handle outbreaks like the ones we saw this summer? Because this summer gave us a pretty striking reminder that even foods we think of as some of the healthiest things that we can eat aren't immune to food safety issues.

3:00In July, the FDA and CDC began investigating a major outbreak of cyclospora, which is a microscopic parasite that can cause a severe intestinal illness. The investigation ultimately pointed to iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico. Now, the outbreak spread across 15 states with thousands of illnesses and hundreds of hospitalizations reported. And it wasn't necessarily the kind of contamination you could see. The lettuce didn't have to look spoiled. It didn't have to smell bad. The cyclospore is microscopic, and it can contaminate food through water or fecal matter. And once contaminated, produce enters our increasingly complex food supply, and it can end up on our plates hundreds or thousands of miles away.

3:40And so that's kind of understandably unsettling. So when stories like that appear in the news, I hear two very different questions from patients. The first is, how do I protect myself when there's an outbreak? And the second is, would I be safe for if I just bought everything organic? Well, those are actually two different questions. Let's start with the word organic and what it actually means. Organic doesn't mean a food is completely free of pesticides. And it doesn't mean that the food can never be contaminated with bacteria, parasites, or other pathogens. Organic farming standards govern how food is grown and produced, including which pesticides, which fertilizers, and other agricultural practices can be used.

4:15So when you're deciding whether to spend extra money on organic produce, I think it's helpful to ask, what risk am I actually trying to reduce? If you try to reduce your exposure to certain synthetic pesticides, choosing organic can be one tool. But if you're trying to protect yourself from a foodborne outbreak like cyclospora, simply choosing organic is not a guarantee. and that's an important distinction. So do you need to buy everything organic? For most people, the answer is no. And I really don't want concerns about pesticides that turn into another reason people avoid eating fruits and vegetables.

4:46If the choice is between eating conventionally grown broccoli or not eating broccoli at all, well, eat the broccoli. The bigger question is how to be strategic about where you spend your money. If you can afford to buy everything organic and that's important to you, great. But if you're working within a budget, and most people are, I'd prioritize. And one resource you can use is the Environmental Working Group's annual Dirty Dozen list, which highlights conventionally grown fruits and veggies and identifies those veggies that have higher levels of pesticide residues. I wouldn't use it as a reason to avoid these foods, but it can be a helpful starting point for deciding where you might prioritize buying organic.

5:20So think about which fruits and vegetables you eat most frequently. Think about foods you consume the skin in or the outer surface. And think about where switching to organic can meaningfully reduce your overall pesticide exposure. You don't need perfection. You try to reduce your total exposure over time. The next question is, should you wash your produce? Well, let's talk about something everyone can do. Regardless of whether you're buying organic or conventional, wash your produce. Rinsing fruits and veggies under running water can help remove dirt, and it can reduce some of the surface contamination.

5:51But washing isn't magic. It can't necessarily remove every pesticide residue, and it can't guarantee that contaminated produce is safe during an active outbreak. That's why when the FDA and CDC identifies and recalls a particular product, the answer isn't, I'll just wash it really well. The answer is, don't eat the recalled food, throw it away, or put it in the compost, or return it according to the recall instructions. That's exactly what happened with the iceberg lettuce implicated in this cyclospora outbreak this summer. So what should you actually use to wash your fruits and veggies? For everyday food safety, start with plain running water.

6:26Then dry it with a clean towel or paper towel, which can further reduce bacteria in the surface. And here's something I don't recommend. Don't wash your produce with soap, dish detergent, or bleach. Produce is porous, and those products aren't designed to be consumed. You also don't need an expensive commercial produce wash. What about vinegar and baking soda? Well, this is where we need to distinguish between germs and pesticide residues. If you're worried about pesticides, there is some research suggesting that soaking certain produce in a baking soda and water solution may remove more of some pesticide residues from the surface than just water alone.

7:01But it can't remove pesticides that have already penetrated into the food, and we don't have evidence that it works equally well for every fruit, vegetable, or pesticide. So I think of that as an optional extra step, not something everyone needs to do every time they eat an apple. For most people, the basics are simple. Running water, gentle friction, a clean produce brush when appropriate, dried afterwards. If there's an active recall, no amount of vinegar, baking soda, or washing makes recall produce something I'd recommend eating. Washing can reduce the contamination, but it can't reliably eliminate pathogens, especially when contamination has gotten inside the produce.

7:36What about frozen produce? Well, here's another misconception. Frozen doesn't automatically mean sterile. In fact, this summer, the FDA also investigated an E. coli outbreak associated with recalled frozen organic blueberries. So frozen and organic don't mean a product is incapable of carrying a foodborne pathogen. That's another reason I want you to think less in terms of labels that make a food seem automatically, quote, safe, and more in terms of understanding the food system and responding appropriately when there's a specific problem. So how do you handle an outbreak? Well, let's make this really practical.

8:10You see a headline tomorrow. Now, outbreak linked to produce. What should you actually do? Well, first don't panic and don't stop eating every food or vegetable in your refrigerator. Find out exactly what's been implicated, what product, what brand, what lot, what date, which states, where was it sold? And then check the FDA and CDC, not just social media, to see whether the product you have is actually part of the recall. Now, if it is, follow the recall instructions and don't assume washing or cooking will necessarily make it safe unless public health officials specifically say so. And if you've eaten a recall food, pay attention to the symptoms.

8:46Officials will tell you what to watch for and also when to contact your healthcare provider if you're concerned, particularly if you're pregnant, older, immune compromised, or otherwise at greater risk of serious foodborne illness. Next stop in the grocery store is the meat and seafood counter. Now, this is another place where I think we've made healthy eating way more confusing than we need to. Grass-fed, grass-finished, pasture-raised, organic, wild-caught, farm-raised. I mean, there's a lot of words. We're surrounded by labels that seem to tell us one product is healthier or safer than another, but what do those labels actually mean?

9:18More importantly, does where your protein comes from really matter? Well, the short answer is yes. Maybe not always for the reason you think, though. First, we need to make the same distinction we made in the produce house. Food safety and food quality aren't necessarily the same thing. When we're talking about raw meat or poultry, one of the most immediate concerns is contamination with pathogens that can cause food or illness. That's why the basics matter so much, keeping raw meat separate from other foods, storing it properly, washing your hands and services after handling it, cooking it to a safe internal temperature.

9:51So what should you actually look for when buying meat? Now that doesn't mean sourcing doesn't matter. It does. When I'm choosing meat, I'm thinking beyond the question of whether it will make me actually sick or acutely sick. I'm actually thinking about the nutritional quality of the food. How was the animal raised? Was it fed good food or not? What was the environmental impact of how the animal was raised? And what about animal welfare? These are really important questions. And this is where all those labels on the package get confusing. Grass-fed, grass-finished, organic, pasture-raised, no antibiotics.

10:22Sounds similar, but they're actually telling you different things. So let's break them down. Grass-fed generally refers to what the animal ate. For cattle, it means the animal received a forage-based diet rather than grain. But here's where it gets tricky. If you're specifically looking for an animal that was raised on grass for its entire life, look for 100 % grass-fed or grass-fed and grass-finished, and ideally a credible third-party certification. Now, USD organic is a broader production standard. For meat to carry USD organic seal, the animals must be raised according to certified organic standards, including being fed certified organic feed, not being given antibiotics or added growth hormones, and having access to the outdoors.

11:06For ruminants like cattle, organic standards also include specific grazing requirements. Pasture raise speaks more to how and where an animal lives, specifically access to pasture, But this is one where you want to look at it a little deeper. The term doesn't necessarily tell you everything about how much time the animal actually spent outdoors, what it ate, or the quality of the pasture. A meaningful third-party certification can provide more context. Then you might see raised without antibiotics or similar language. Well, that refers specifically to antibiotic use during the animal's life. It's different from the FDA-required withdrawal periods designed to prevent unsafe antibiotic residues in meat sold for consumption.

11:43So when you're standing at the meat counter deciding whether it's worth paying a premium, Don't just look for the label that sounds the healthiest. Ask yourself, what am I actually trying to prioritize? To dive deeper into what these labels mean for your health, check out my episode with Autumn Smith, the founder of Paleo Valley. Believe it or not, your brain is mostly fat

12:02Dr. Mark Hyman:and it's built from the food you eat. Think about that for a second. Every day, your body is using nutrients to support your memory, your focus, your mood, your long-term brain health. The question is, are you getting enough of the right ones? Because when I look at lab data, I see the same nutrient gaps over and over again. Omega-3s, vitamin D, B vitamins. These nutrients play an important role in how your brain performs today and also how it ages over time. The challenge is that most people don't know where they stand. And that's why I always say test first, then build your plate. That's exactly why we built Function.

12:35Dr. Mark Hyman:Function gives you access to 160 plus lab tests annually that measure signals in your blood, including nutrients, liver health, inflammation, and hormones. You can also complete your health baseline with an annual MRI that helps you see organs, tissues, and other changes. Check your health at functionhealth.com slash mark. And if you're one of the first 1 ,000 people this week, use the code mark2026 for a$50 credit or your $365 a year membership. Now let's talk about fish. The seafood counter introduces another question entirely because fish can be one of the most nutrient-dense foods to eat. It's a great source of protein, and many types provide omega-3 fats along with nutrients like vitamin D, B12, iodine, selenium, iron, zinc, choline.

13:17But then people hear one word, mercury, and suddenly they wonder whether they should be eating fish at all. Now, I don't think that's the right takeaway. The better question is how do we get the benefits of seafood while minimizing unnecessary exposure to mercury? And nearly all fish contains at least trace amounts of methylmercury, but they don't all contain the same amount. Mercury tends to accumulate as you move up the food chain. So generally the larger, longer-lived predatory fish that spend years eating other fish can accumulate higher levels. And that's why your choice of fish kind of matters.

13:49The FDA and EPA put salmon, sardines, anchovies, shrimp, cod trout, canned light tuna, among many others, in their quote best choices category on the lower mercury seafood, although I'd be suspicious about the tuna. At the other end are several fish with the highest mercury level, including swordfish, shark, king mackerel, marlin, orange ruffy, Gulf of Mexico, tilefish, and big eye tuna. Now, there's a really practical lesson here. Variety matters. Instead of eating the exact same fish, rotate your seafood choices. That's one of the simplest ways to get a wide range of nutrients while limiting your exposure to any one contaminant.

14:23Now, what about tuna? Tuna is a great example of why the details matter. People ask me all the time, is tuna healthy or unhealthy? But there isn't one answer because there isn't one kind of tuna. Canned light tuna is on the FDA's lower mercury best choices list. Albacore, white tuna, and yellowfin are in quote good choices category. Although again, you have to be careful and watch your mercury levels. Big eye tuna is in the highest mercury category that the FDA recommends certain higher risk groups avoid. In fact, everybody should probably avoid it. If it's not good for pregnant women, why is it good for the rest of us?

14:56Basically, it's important. Same broad category of food, tuna, but very different mercury profiles depending on the kind where it came from, how big the fish was, and so on. So rather than thinking tuna is bad, learn which varieties you're actually eating and how frequently you're eating them, and be careful. And then measure your mercury levels in your blood. You can use functional health to do that. All right. Another thing we should think about is wild-caught versus farm-raised. Is farm-raised always bad? You know, this label creates a lot of confusion. Wild-caught, farm-raised. I hear people all the time say that wild fish is healthy and farm-raised is unhealthy.

15:24Not that simple. The nutritional profiles can differ depending on the species, depending on the feed, depending on the environment and the farming praxis. There can also be environmental and sustainability considerations, but farm doesn't automatically mean unsafe. Just as wild doesn't automatically mean contaminant free. In fact, farmed and wild-caught seafood sold in the United States are subject to the same FDA food standards. Ask a better question. What species is this? Where did it come from? How is it raised or caught? And how often am I eating it? Let's kind of get into it then. What do I buy?

15:57Here's a framework I use when standing at the meat and seafood counter. First, I think about quality and sourcing. When possible, I want to know where my food came from, how it was produced. Second, I don't confuse quality labels with food safety. No matter how well an animal was raised, I still have to handle and cook raw meat safely. Third, with seafood, I prioritize low mercury fish and seafood. I tend to choose nutrient-dense lower mercury fish more often than large, heavily predatory fish like tuna or swordfish or shark. We're really not trying to create a perfect diet and a perfect food system.

16:31We're learning how to make better choices with the information we have. And now we're going to leave the perimeter of the grocery store and head into the center aisles because that's where the questions change. Instead of asking where our food came from, we're going to start asking what's actually in it. Now we're heading into the center aisles and this is where food safety gets a little more complicated because now we're not just asking could this food be contaminated, we're asking what exactly is in this food and what happens when I eat those ingredients day after day, year after year. Walk through any grocery store and you're going to find thousands of packaged foods, cereal, crackers, granola bars, salad dressings, frozen meals, protein bars, plant-based milks, flavored yogurts.

17:12And here's a question I want you to think about. If an ingredient is allowed in our food, can we assume it's been proven safe? Well, the answer isn't quite as simple as you might think. You might have heard the term GRASS, which stands for generally recognized as safe. It's part of the regulatory framework that the FDA uses for substances added to our food. But this system has been the subject of debate because under current rules, companies can determine that certain ingredients meet the GRASS standard without going through the same pre-market approval process required for a new additive. This is really important.

17:48They can basically declare that ingredients are safe even if they haven't been tested. Think about that. And I think this raises a really important larger question. How much evidence should we require before something becomes a regular part of the food supply? What matters is what is the substance? How much are you exposed to? How often are you exposed to it? And what is the evidence actually telling us? So processed food doesn't automatically mean bad or awful. It does though. This is where we need to distinguish between processed food and ultra-processed food, or minimally processed food versus highly processed food.

18:22Almost everything we eat is processed in some way. Cooking is processing. Freezing is processing. Fermenting yogurts or sauerkraut is processing. Pressing olives to make olive oil is processing. Canned beans, frozen veggies, canned sardines. These are all processed foods. That doesn't make them unhealthy. The question is, how far has that food traveled from its original form? Take canned tomatoes. The ingredient list might say tomatoes, water, salt. You know exactly what you're eating. Now compare that with a product made from refined starches, isolated proteins, added sugars, industrial fats, colors, flavors, gums, emulsifiers, and preservatives.

19:00At some point, we're no longer simply preserving or preparing food. We're deconstructing ingredients and reassembling them into something designed to be incredibly convenient, shelf-stable, and often very hard to stop eating. It's designed to be addictive. That's what I want you thinking about when you hear the term ultra-processed food. Ultra-processed foods tend to contain a combination of refined carbohydrates, added sugars, fats, salts, additives, all designed to improve flavor, texture, appearance, chef life, but not your health. And they're often engineered to be hyper-palatable. Think about how easy it is to eat an entire bag of chips compared with an entire bag of carrots.

19:39Not simply a failure of willpower. These foods have been designed to taste incredibly good and be incredibly easy to consume. And increasingly, researchers are linking diets, high and ultra-processed foods with poor metabolic health and a whole range of chronic diseases. So when I talk about reducing ultra-processed foods, I'm not asking you to become afraid of everything that comes in a package. I'm asking you to make real food the foundation of your diet. Let's make this incredibly simple. You pick up a package of food. Before you spend five minutes trying to decode the nutrition facts panel, turn it over and look at the ingredient list.

20:10I look for three things. Number one, what are the first few ingredients? The ingredients are listed by weight. So are the first ingredients recognizable whole foods? Or am I seeing refined starches, flours, sugars, isolated ingredients? Question number two, where is the sugar? And remember, sugar has a lot of names, 50 different names. Cane sugar, corn syrup, dextrose, maltodextrin, rice syrup, fruit syrup, concentrate, fruit juice concentrate. Don't just look for the word sugar. Look at the added sugars line on the nutrition fact labels too. Now, number three, how much industrial formulation am I looking at?

20:45Are there a lot of flavors, colors, sweeteners, emulsifiers, gums, preservatives? When the entire product is built from refined ingredients plus additives designed to make it look, taste, and feel good, not so much something you should be eating. That's a sign I'm dealing with an ultra-processed product. I don't want you to stand in the grocery store terrified of every ingredient you can't pronounce. I want you to ask me a much simpler question. How close is this to real food? And there's one more part of the packaged food story we're really, really thinking about. We've talked about what's inside the package.

21:17What about the package itself? Can chemicals from plastics, wrappers, cans, and takeout containers actually make their way into our food? That's where we're headed next, the packaging. Think about your average day. You drink from a plastic bottle, you heat leftovers in a plastic container, you grab takeout, you open a can of beans, you cook a dinner in a nonstick pan. We spend so much time reading ingredient labels, but very little time thinking about the the containers, the wrappers, and the cookware surrounding our food. And those materials matter, and they matter a lot. The FDA calls these materials food contact substances, everything from packaging and cookware, storage containers, coatings, and adhesives.

21:55Now, under certain conditions, components of these materials can migrate into food. But remember, our goal throughout this episode, reduce the exposures we can reasonably reduce without becoming afraid of our food. It's not about one exposure. It's about reducing the exposure that happen every day. And one of the simplest places to start is plastic. And here's one of my personal rules. Whenever possible, I don't heat food in plastic. In fact, I never heat food in plastic. Even if a container says it's, quote, micro-safe, I prefer transferring food to glass or ceramic first. Heat is one of the factors that can influence how food interacts with food content materials.

22:29So what should you actually do? Here's where I keep it simple. For storing food, use glass whenever possible. For water, use glass or stainless steel. for reheating used glass or ceramic instead of plastic. For cooking, stainless steel, cast iron, or quality ceramic are my go-to choices. But here's the bottom line. We're not trying to live in a bubble. You're going to encounter plastic. You're going to order takeout. You're going to buy packaged food. The goal is simply to reduce unnecessary repeated exposures when there is an easy alternative. So I'd avoid a blanket. Your food packaging is poisoning you.