The grocery store has got my goat right now. I just left the store with so little in my cart and my wallet is lighter than air, I considered stopping by the florist to get a ribbon for it to tie to my wrist like a treasured balloon. It really burns my muffins to feel like the choices I need to make for the healthy menu for my family has to cost me an arm, a leg and a kidney to provide.
I don't stroll through the grocery store, I keep a determined pace. I need to be armed with a list, especially when I have my T.A.N.K. with me. You know the drill, especially when you head down the cereal aisle, which now has more ways to add sugar to sugar and then keep you feeling that an additional case of sweetener needs to be added.
Why is it that "Buy One, Get Two Free" sales never apply to the real food categories? Apples. Milk. Oatmeal. Chicken. Grapes. Fresh vegetables. Peanut butter. Yogurt. Salad. Crackers. Cheese. Nectarines. Rice Krispies. These items were on my list today, and it feels like highway robbery the prices I am charged to make sure there are going to be 6-9 servings of fruits and vegetables for the next three days. And yet...and yet...ooooh...and yet, for the price I needed to pay for 7 apples I could have purchased 144 Twinkies because of BOGO opportunities in the snack cake section. Or 144 Ho Hos. Or 288 Banana Flips. Or, lets get the calculator here, 1886 donut holes. Or 36 boxes of macaroni and cheese.
Our life doesn't need more Twinkies, Ho Hos, Banana Flips....there should be a triple tax value on foods which could end your life sooner simply because of their consumption. I have five different types of lettuce to choose from for our family salads - an amazing array of choice I consider: there are so many in the world who are needing a regular, consistent meal. Yet 25 steps away from my produce section is what rivals a warehouse of cream-filled, corn syrup soaked, deep fried, need-to-be-tried, pseudo-food snack aisle which begins clogging my arteries just by its presence. Its price per pound and container is so affordable, so much less that my carrots, lettuce, cantaloupes, apples and grapes - but to what value will these savings truly bring?
"An apple a day keeps the doctor away...when thrown properly" - that's my dad's adage and he laughs everytime he says it. I laugh because it tickles his fancy, as I am eating my Gala apple (or Braeburn, or Cameo or Golden Delicious or Pink Lady or Granny Smith or Jonagold. There are so many to choose from, yet a Jonathan is still my delightfully crunchy, sour favorite.) The snacks I offer our kids can run the gambit from pretzels to cheese and crackers to veggies with dip to fruit...and occasionally there are small bags of chips. I prefer to make cookies than buy them in the store, well mostly because Snickerdoodles are my favorite cookie. Butter, sugar, eggs and flour, cinnamon - the makings of a masterpiece, and I haven't found a Snickerdoodle from the grocery store that rivals a warm-from-the-oven variety, ever.
I didn't have single sale price for any of the "real food" I needed to buy, but I could have gotten 3 free cases of soda when I bought 3. Healthy choices are breaking my budget and the freezer section is helping our daily food menu. Frozen veggies are the best substitute to the produce section and made the shopping cart a well-rounded experience, but as I am choosing a California Blend or Whole Kernal Sweet Corn, I am facing the frozen dessert display offering "Buy One Get One" half gallons of premium ice cream. For the price I needed to fork over for my four bags of veggies I could have returned home with 4 gallons of Dirt Sundae, DreamCycle Supreme, Hot Fudge Brownie and Dulce Deleche Caramele. Or four apple pies with 12 servings a piece and a total of 2600 calories per pie.
I am considering sending my grocery bill to our insurance company and advocating that I need an additional layer of help at the grocery store to be able to provide a healthy lifestyle for my family! I think its a creative, think-outside-the-box mentality that is needed in combatting this grocery store farce of commodities, supply and demand faux food market. I'm not serving roasted salmon with crab legs covered with a reduced butter and garlic sauce and artichokes with gourmet leeks. I'm not preparing Argentina prime rib with fresh picked passion fruit and a side of Chilean beets served with triple cream potatoes. But there needs to be a way that a 1 pound package of real strawberries (or even frozen strawberries, for that matter) cost less than 12 boxes of Strawberry Shortcakes Jelly Rolls. Or a half gallon container of orange juice cost less than 10 2 liters of orange soda.
I don't have many dollars, and a large part of my weekly money is spent at the grocery store to feed our family of 6. I need an advocate on the side of healthy living to be stationed at my grocery store to help the power of my dollar provide the health and strength that we need.
Not another low-priced, three-layer, 24 sliced Chocolate Dream Cheesecake.
2 comments:
I'm with you sister. Everytime I walk into a grocery store (which isn't often as I order online : ) I'm amazed at the price of soup and cereal. Shouldn't these be really, REALLY cheap items? I mean, water with bits of stuff in it? And cereal? How hard could that be to make?
We need to go into business!
Loved your post. I totally dig the idea of a triple tax on crap that calls itself food. That wouldn't turn the American economic wheel I suppose.
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