Buy items priced by bulk weight to begin with. Meat, vegetables, nuts, also items in standard packaging sizes like milk per liter or gallon. All this processed junk (with its non-standard package sizing) is bad for you anyway.
If someone will start packaging toothpaste in bulk liter sizes, I'll switch to that, and find some kind of more permanent dispenser to fill that looks better in my bathroom anyway.
It amazing to me how much premium “health” food has all the fiber removed and is then loaded with salt and sugar. Those are the main health issues with cheap processed food.
At the same time, finding food that is high fiber, low salt and unsweetened is nearly impossible. Such food is literally made of precursor ingredients and subsets of the stuff added to the unhealthy stuff.
I switched to eating more of the latter, and feel much better in multiple dimensions. Also, most of what I eat now tastes better and is more filling. My weight is slowly going down too.
My current litmus test is that the fiber % daily value should be more than the carbohydrates %DV and the salt %DV should be less than it. I try to buy stuff with zero salt added (I have a nice collection of salty condiments at home already), and no sugar added (though that metric is already being gamed by manufacturers).
Simply avoiding all processed foods would achieve a similar effect, but that eliminates staple foods that are often loaded with salt, sugar or worse (e.g. yogurt, bread, peanut butter) and making them all from scratch is too time consuming.
> finding food that is high fiber, low salt and unsweetened is nearly impossible
I mean, this is pretty much anything in the fresh produce section. Chop it up and eat as a salad, made palatable with a sprinkle of salt (nowhere near as much as what is added to processed food) and a simple homemade vinaigrette (olive oil + vinegar).
> yogurt, bread, peanut butter
You should be able to find relatively healthy versions of each in a store; perhaps you'll need a trip to a health-focused store or Whole Foods, but it should definitely be possible to find plain-nothing-added yogurt, simple sourdough whole wheat bread, and plain-nothing-added peanut butter.
If someone will start packaging toothpaste in bulk liter sizes, I'll switch to that, and find some kind of more permanent dispenser to fill that looks better in my bathroom anyway.