I am out of the kitchen and off to do some supermarket shopping in today’s video.
This should be fun!
How much do you buy at the enormous supermarkets where the vast majority of people buy most of their food today?
In this video, I will navigate you through the aisles of backside bulging processed foods to find the things that you can purchase that will enhance rather that harm your health.
I hope this video gets you thinking about where you can reduce your spending at the supermarket and better use that money elsewhere with small, local businesses and farms.
Healthy Supermarket Shopping (Is this even possible?)
More Information
My Asian Supermarket Adventure
Whole Foods: The Wal-Mart of Healthfood
This is a great video! I’m not always the best, but I have been making more and more of an effort to shop less at supermarkets. This was much easier to do in the summer with all the farmer’s markets, but harder for me now that it’s the dead of winter. I’d love to see a video of you at your local health food store. I’m lucky enough to live by a small, locally-owned health food store, but sometimes going in there can be overwhelming.
If I do the healthfood store, I will have to do it in an undercover way so I don’t get kicked out of there too!
Great video! I’ve managed to cut own my grocery shopping down because of my CSA and farmer’s market, which are both expanding to be almost year-round, which is amazing for the Massachusetts climate.
I would encourage you, however, to look for fair trade bananas. Dole and Chiquita are notorious for human rights abuses, and make it difficult for others to get in the banana industry (a HUGE monopoly), so I am willing to pay a little extra for fair trade. Usually, they are also grown organically, so it’s a win-win in my book.
Here’s some more info:
Great video! I do shop in a supermarket, but mostly for wild sea food, hormone free pork and chicken, cheese, buttter, vegetables and fruit, some organic. we stopped buying packaged junk food a long time ago and are very healthy. we do eat lots of butter, meat, liver and veggies, fruit we try to eat in season and get our apples only from a farmers market.
I enjoyed the video too. I am not doing as well as you in the grocery store. I go to the produce section, the organic section and cheese-dairy every week. I try to stick with organic fruit and veg. but some of that is limited and the organic is always more expensive. I have cut out so much processed stuff. I buy cheese every week. I can’t afford raw and I read that the raw cheese isn’t really raw. Where do you get your cheese? I also buy plain organic whole milk yogurt. It’s not worth it for me to make it, but the yogurt is expensive. Now that’s it’s cold I can’t get farm fresh eggs so I’m buying organic eggs at the store. Not really happy about that. And I would love to make my own kombucha but I’m not there yet so I splurge on 1 or 2 bottles each week. Yes, expensive! Still trying to figure out how to save money but get good quality items.
We are blessed, even in the frozen wasteland of MN, to have farmers who come to the farmers market all winter with meat, eggs, cheese, honey 🙂 Of course we have to buy any fresh produce wherever we can find it organically (I usually go to Trader Joe’s since it’s on my way home from work; no “healthy stores” close-by so have to stock up when going to those). I thought it was interesting, as a side-line, that at our farmers market there aren’t any organically grown apples! 🙁
Oh, and I am spoiled by being able to get fresh raw milk & dairy from a local farmer who brings it closer to my place to be able to pick it up; can also get meat from him
I live in Minnesota, too, but I would never call it a wasteland. It’s a wonderful place to live year round, ALL seasons. 🙂
Sarah,
I was worried about getting kicked out, too, when Kal & I did our covert operation at the grocery store with my video camera, so we went really late at night! (We also had to go then because Kal was afraid one of his friends might see us, LOL!)
Kel
I still buy a lot at the grocery store, but I don’t buy processed foods. I’m still trying to source local ingredients in my area. You think it’d be easier since I’m in Texas with a lot of land around, but my local farmers market isn’t even LOCAL, they get most of their fruits and vegetables from South America. Of course you wouldn’t know unless you ask, because they like to pretend it is local. One time I even caught them selling strawberries with Kroger (our local big grocery store, similar to Publix) stickers on them!!
I have heard of a store that sells local, organic ingredients but it’s a pretty far drive for me. How far do you drive to get ingredients? How much time do you spend gathering your food? I hate to say but it is so much easier to get my food at one or two places, especially with twin toddlers. I’d rather be in the kitchen preparing the food than driving all around finding the food. It’s my biggest frustration with eating local. For me, Local isn’t right down the street! 🙂
Excellent! I love videos that show us how you do things. A little peak into your shopping is fabulous. It is probably one of the best tools for us new traditionalists. I would also like to see more.
Love it! I’d love to go with you to a healthfood store sometime and see what you buy there! Or see if Greenwise Publix would be any different. My shopping trips around Publix now look drastically different than they did a year ago. I found a receipt from exactly a year ago the other day (yes, I’m a receipt hoarder!) and couldn’t believe some of the stuff that was on there: Internat’l Delight Coffee Creamer, those break & bake cookies (gotta admit, those do taste good), etc. Funny how far I feel like I’ve come.
My trips to Publix are mostly perimeter shopping too. I still buy some meat there, like their Greenwise meats, bacon, lunchmeat, salsa, on occasion, some produce (always bananas!), eggs occasionally, and nut butters. Occasionally paper products too.
I do love Publix customer service and coupon policies though! They really do make (the little) shopping I do there a pleasure!
No doubt Publix has the best customer service which is why the little supermarket shopping I do is done there. The Publix manager was SUPER nice when I got kicked out too, by the way. When I went in there with the camera, I realized it was a risk but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do, right?
haha! I hope that’s not the Publix you normally shop at! You don’t want to be banned! 😉
I could almost copy your comment it sounds just like what I have done. I hope to find more local meat dairy and vegetable sources this year but it can be hard and requires a lot more effort. Plus I do not have room for a big freezer in my condo so it is harder to store the bulk grass-fed meat deals available. And when I only have 2 people to feed I’m afraid a lot of CSA vegetables would go to waste. But no more excuses, its just a matter of finding time to look for recipes and cook it up. I do love Publix though and they were even great as my employer when I was in school.
Some CSA’s will do a half share. That is what I am planning when we finally get one here this spring 🙂
Summer, a friend and I share a half share of CSA vegetables. They are still expensive though, or at least I perceive them to be. Must be because we have to pay the full amount up front! But it really does give me a reality check on what the true cost of food is when it’s not government-subsidized!
Wow-eye opening segment!
I understand the concept of local farm buying but when you are a working mom ,it is not so easy!
I enjoy your posts but would like to see easy ideas for shopping /cooking for working moms who need help using what is in their area .Meat /raw milk are both available and our local health food store has some local produce but it is expensive for a family of 6 .
Oh, Sarah, I had to laugh! Love this video. You sure had a lot of nerve to video in a grocery store showing us what you have long been telling us. They kicked you out! I find that amusing.
I have gradually gotten my grocery store shopping down to almost nothing – I don’t even use a cart anymore. I use a recyclable bag to collect my groceries and take them home, and one bag is plenty. In addition to what you purchase, I also get my paper products and cat food there. But that is about it. They would go out of business if there were more like us!
Hi, Joy! I hope you will not be offended by this, but I beg of you to PLEASE not buy your cat food at the grocery store. Grocery store pet foods – even the premium ones – are extremely unhealthy for your pet and do not contain the foods necessary for proper nourishment. Of course, the best thing to feed your cats would be a raw species-specific diet. However, if that is too ambitious, there are grain free (cats do not require grain for nutrition at all) foods with MUCH higher quality ingredients at places like Pet Supermarket or online. You can visit drkarenbecker.com for more info on feeding your pets healthy foods. 🙂