Illustration by Kat Frick Miller
Welcome to The Globe’s series, What’s In My Cart?, where we ask Canadians how they stock their kitchens. Have your own personal grocery story? Share it here.
Tristan Burgoyne’s interest in healthy eating began when he made Canada’s junior men’s national field-hockey team at 17.
Thirteen years later, Burgoyne is preparing to retire from the sport after a fruitful career playing for Team Canada, which included representing the country at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
“While playing hockey, when I was younger, I was healthy-ish, but I used to eat two to three bowls of cereal a day, for energy, until I realized it was high in sugar,” he says.
As an alternative, he began eating carbohydrates such as rice, whole-wheat bread, potatoes and oatmeal to keep him energized, instead of high-sugar cereals.
“As I retire, I want to continue these healthy habits and continue to prioritize health,” he says as he prepares to shift his focus to his wife and burgeoning career as an entrepreneur.
The caloric needs of a national-team athlete are different from those of an entrepreneur, but it’s the lessons that he learned while eating for his sport that he plans to bring into his life going forward.
Burgoyne and his wife live in Vancouver, where he says they shop almost exclusively for whole foods. By avoiding packaged foods, they’re able to avoid high sodium, high sugar and ultraprocessed foods. To do this, they opt for fresh chicken breast, which he cuts and slices for sandwiches, instead of the cold cuts and deli meat sandwiches he was used to eating.
Here is how they shop for groceries.
How we save money on groceries: We buy fruits and vegetables from small stores in our neighbourhood. Bananas are my favourite snacks and are consistently affordable.
How we splurge on groceries: We eat a lot of bread. It’s convenient for sandwiches. We always buy it from one of two local bakeries: either Livia Forno e Vino or the Bench Bakehouse. They can be pricey, but it has fewer ingredients and we find the quality is better.
The hardest eating habit to keep up: It’s difficult to avoid packaged foods such as chips and crackers in social settings. I know once I start having chips, it’s hard to stop, so I try to avoid it. I normally plan to show up to an event and not be hungry.
How we’ve changed our eating habits recently: We recently started eating scrambled eggs and egg whites in the morning. The protein keeps us full longer. We’ve also decreased our reliance on cold cuts in our diet, and now we make home-cooked chicken breast for sandwiches with hummus and avocado. It helps us avoid the extra sodium and nitrates in packaged foods.
Five items always in my cart:
Organic dried mangoes – Kirkland Signature – $23.99: These are great as a sweet snack. The only ingredient is dried mango and there is no added sugar.
Bananas – $0.69 a pound: I’ll often have these with my oatmeal in the morning or bring one as a snack for before exercise or when I’m on the go.
Pork ribs – Columbus Meat Market – $9.99/kg: These come from a massive butcher in our neighbourhood. My wife is Italian, so we sometimes have a tomato-based sauce with pork ribs for our pasta. We got a pasta machine as a present a while ago, so we started making our pasta from scratch. The ingredients are simple: flour and egg, a bit of water and a pinch of salt. We typically make cavatelli, tagliatelle or gnocchi by hand.
Balsamic vinegar – Augusto – $13.99: We have balsamic vinegar quite often, especially with our salads. We usually have a simple dressing of olive oil – we use a brand called Frantoi Cutrera – balsamic vinegar and some salt.
Hummus – Holy Homous – $7.49: The brand that makes this is from Vancouver Island. We usually throw it into a sandwich, sometimes on a salad.