Confession: I consider grocery shopping a necessary evil. Wandering the florescent-lit isles in search of food that is neither full of toxic ingredients nor astronomically expensive gives me a headache and I try not to do it more than absolutely necessary.
(Disclaimer: whenever I am back in Wegman's territory I gladly wander through that grocery store in a sort of wistful reverie and happy awe. Ahem... back to the point now...)
One of the lessons I've learned in building my frugal, functional kitchen is that depending on where you live, Real Food may most easily and cost-effectively be found outside your local grocery store. So as we head into a new week, we're going to spend a couple posts talking about the process, tips and tricks of buying food. Since we can't avoid it, we need to learn how to do it as painlessly and efficiently as possible!
To keep things simple for this first day of discussion, we're going to start with just a couple fun facts about grocery stores:
1. Most food in grocery stores (produce, dry goods, meat - everything) has been shipped an extremely long way. It is often picked too ensure better shelf life, and much of the produce has been genetically engineered specifically for characteristics that enable to travel better (rather than for nutrition or taste).
2. Most grocery store produce has a significantly lower nutritional value than the same produce item would have 25 years ago do to changes in farming and buying practices.
3. Real food items tend to be concentrated around the outside edge of a supermarket (produce, meat, dairy). The further into the middle isles you go, the more processed the food.
How happy are you with your supermarket?
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