As I said a couple of days ago, reading The Omnivore's Dilemma has changed the way I'm looking at food. That means changing grocery stores.
I knew organic food tends to be more expensive than the chemically-produced kind, but I had quite a sticker shock when I started looking at prices locally. Most times, the organic stuff is two to three times the price. This makes feeding a family of five for $75 a week quite the challenge.
Being a bargain-hunter, I don't mind accepting that challenge. I've spent most of the last 10 years shopping at the local cost-plus-10-percent store, and can feed my brood comfortably on that. Whatever I can't find at that store I can fill in at Wal-Mart.
Of course, the El Cheapo food store doesn't carry virtually any organic food (how could it afford to?), which sent me to Wal-Mart to see what they had. Surprisingly, they do have some (and the variety seems to be growing). They carry Paul Newman's veggies as well as Laura's Lean Beef. For the most part, this is all the organic stuff you will find in Wal-Mart. You get meat and potatoes. Finding organic anything else is a bit trickier, although I did run across organic canned corn there the other day.
After Wal-Mart, I perused the goods at both Central Market and Whole Foods. The variety of food at both places is amazing and daunting. The prices are stunning. And after buying a couple of pounds of hamburger, I'm thinking of trying bison (anybody know what that tastes like or how you use it?).
Yesterday, I tried to do my weekly shopping at Central Market. If I'd bought the organic toilet paper ($12 for 12 rolls), I would have busted my budget. But I figured I would wait on that. Without the toilet paper, my bill came to $68.69, but didn't include staples like Dr Pepper, Pop Tarts, and bottled water. I also realized after I made my way to the frozen food that I could have cut my bill further if I'd bought some frozen veg rather than just fresh stuff.
Two things struck me about my trip to Central Market. First, shopping in there made me feel incredibly guilty about the stuff we usually eat. If a store doesn't offer something you typically buy (like PopTarts) or only offers it in small quantities (like Coke), it may say something about what you are putting in your body. My husband isn't happy that I am changing his eating habits, but it does give me peace of mind to think we could be eating better. But my mom guilt (and I have a lot of it) takes over when I also consider other aspects of my food purchases like how the workers are treated and how the farming affects the environment.
The second thing that I noticed about both Central Market and Whole Foods (which I visited, but didn't buy my groceries) is the clientele. Not only are they almost exclusively white, but they are usually older (lots of grey-haired folk) and have few or no children. I realize that when one doesn't have children, $10 for a pound of ground beef doesn't look so bad, but I have to wonder about what the clientele says about this eating philosophy. Why no children? Don't they want kids?
Welcome to wholesome eating. you have found that organic foods tend to be on the unprocessed side, though there are more and more organic junk food offerings (not that they are much healthier than their conventional counterparts except they won't have hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup).
ReplyDeleteDo know that Wal-mart has been accused of seeling noncertified organic food as organic by the organic consumers association-
http://www.organicconsumers.org and is not the best place to buy your organic foods.
the best place is yur local farmers' markets and locally owned co-ops. Check out http://localharvest.org to find local and organic food near you.
You might also want to consider joining a CSA where you can get a lot of food each week, straight from the farm for about $25 to $45 a week (each CSA in independant so you will see a range in prices and how they are run. Local harvest explains this concept well)
Hi Sharon -
ReplyDeleteThanks for a very interesting post. I discovered your via Pandagon and while I suppose I lean more to the moonbat part of the spectrum, I really enjoy reading your posts to get a different point of view on many things, given in a thoughtful manner - thanks for broadening my horizons!
I would like to recommend that you look into purchasing an organic CSA share. It can seem a bit expensive because of the fact that you have to pay for it all at once (or I do, anyway) but it is really cost effective in the long run and it is great getting all sorts of different veggies for 5 months! I am also able to pick up my share each week at our local farmers market, and that in itself is great, as there is such an interesting mix of people and children are definitely welcome there!
Anyway, thanks again for the thought provoking posts and good luck with organic eating!
Thanks for the input! Right now, I'm feeling overwhelmed by the choices and terminology involved. Thanks for the info on Wal-Mart, too. I was wondering about that.
ReplyDeleteI've looked into CSAs locally and I think I will be going that route. It looks to me like the cost of the CSA is balanced out by the amount of food you get. We're also planning to start a garden to supplement. I need all the help I can get!
I think a lot of parents are just glad if they can get their kids to eat ANYTHING halfway nutritious :o)
ReplyDeleteAndrew (To Love, Honor, and Dismay)
Hi again Sharon - I'm the same anonymous from before - Blogger is not liking me tonight - but I'm really Jen. I wanted to mention that I'll be interested to hear how you fare as far as finding organic meat - that is my sticking point right now. Right now it isn't too bad, as my husband is currently deployed and so I'm not buying as much, but once he is home I am hoping to find a good source that isn't cost prohibitive.
ReplyDeleteThanks again and I'll be looking forward to reading more!
I was looking at bison as an alternative meat because it was cheaper than ground beef, but my husband told me tonight in no uncertain terms that he wasn't eating buffalo. ;)
ReplyDeleteMeat is the biggest roadblock I've run into yet. The best way I've found to handle it is to use 1 lb. of meat and THAT'S IT. Just add more veggies the more people that you have to feed. This probably wouldn't work if I had 7 or 8 people to feed, but it seems to work ok for 5.
CSAs are a fantastic food source (although I found that I was getting too much of vegetables I don't eat, when I was a member).
ReplyDeleteAs for whole foods: i buy almost all of my vegetables and fruit at whole foods, and i agree that their clientele (here) are whiter than average. OTOH, my experience is that the kids thing doesn't hold; but the clientele in suburban ca may be different.
Is it possible to can the food you get from a CSA? I know some things don't can very well, but I thought maybe some of it could be. Also, I wondered if the amount of food I might get would be about right, considering I'm feeding 5.
ReplyDeleteAfter I posted I thought about the kid thing and some of it could be the time of day I was at Central Market. It was early afternoon and my kids were in school, so maybe that's where they all were. It is exceedingly white, though.
You can definitely can lots of the veggies you get - I did my own tomatoes this summer, and also played around with making some chutneys, pickles, etc - it was more fun than I thought it would be. But even better than canning is freezing, assuming you have the freezer room. One of the best things I did this summer was to get a case of blueberries and freeze them - I can enjoy them all winter!
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