The supermarket challenge was to find three food items that were real foods, but the food could not be anything on the perimeter of the store. I also added a challenge to myself to find three foods that I could actually eat as a whole meal or part of a meal, not just an ingredient or a snack. 
The first item I found was Cuban flavored rice and beans. This product does break a few of Pollan's rules, for example this product has ferric orthophosphate which is just an agent industry uses to extend the shelf life of products...but it is just an additional source of iron and can even be used as an iron supplement. But too much iron in the diet can be harmful. You can also see that there are a few more than 5 ingredients, probably about 15, but most are items you can find in your kitchen such as salt, whole black beans, garlic, and parsley.
I looked up why Hispanic cultures eat rice and beans together and interestingly enough, they still eat rice and beans today because their ancestors made rice and beans centuries before them and passed on the recipe. On the food side, rice is a complex carbohydrate....meaning that it takes longer for your body to break down the rice and convert to glucose, which is a good thing. The beans are a great source of antioxidants. So, their ancestors knew a thing or two when it came to delicious and healthy eating.
The next food product I found was rolled oats. Before I go into why I think this product is healthy, the container can tell us a lot right off the bat, but that's not necessarily a good thing. First, this product boasts that oatmeal helps reduce cholesterol...I had no idea what this claim truly meant, so I looked it up. Yes, eating oatmeal actually does reduce cholesterol levels, specifically LDL (bad) cholesterol levels. As well as oatmeal being an insoluble fiber, meaning that oatmeal is not readily absorbed by the body and will be, ahem, pushed through your system. So yes, all of the health claims on this particular package are accurate...but most health claims are not.
Moving on the the ingredient list, you can't really see it in this photo but rolled oats contain a shocking amount of 100% rolled oats...sweet. There aren't any shelf life increasing ingredients, added sweeteners, or ingredients you can't pronounce. To make oatmeal you just add water, so this is a healthy breakfast item and apparently my grandmother was on to something when she would add oats to chocolate chip cookies.
The last product I found was tuna. This packaged tuna contained: white tuna, water, vegetable broth, salt, and pyrophosphate. This food item almost makes the cut for 5 ingredients by coming in close with 6. I had no idea what pyrophosphate was, so once again I looked it up and found that once again this is a food shelf life extender. In small doses, like eating this twice a week, it is not harmful but excess eating of packaged tuna will cause an increase in the level of phosphorus in your body which leads to health problems. The rest of the ingredients are ingredients you can find in your kitchen, except for the actual fish. So, packaged tuna is healthy in moderation. That concludes my shopping trip!
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