Your tips for making grocery shopping a pleasant experience?

[Ima saver]

Re: Your tips for making grocery shopping a pleasant experience?

True, but we could take a nap in the car! I am kidding, I don't believe in drinking and driving. that is why my husband is always the designated driver.
When we go to the grocery store after dinner out, I am usually pretty happy!!

[PRICEPLUS]

Re: Your tips for making grocery shopping a pleasant experience?

Way to go Julie!

[Ima saver]

Re: Your tips for making grocery shopping a pleasant experience?

See, grocery shopping just got happier!!

[MonkeyMama]

Re: Your tips for making grocery shopping a pleasant experience?

I am lucky my husband enjoys grocery shopping. Phew. HE shops and cooks, I clean, we are happy - LOL.

I guess I just hate driving around and going into various stores, for me it is internet shopping all the way. Though I guess that is an option for groceries too - buy online.

[Jacklad]

Re: Your tips for making grocery shopping a pleasant experience?

For myself what I hate & despise most about shopping for groceries is that it is necessary to go several times a week for FRESH produce, as I will not purchase that bagged stuff that is filled with carbon dioxide to keep it from wilting for weeks, but that same gas destroys ALL the vitamin content of anything in the bag --- I'm not eating those high priced items for the roughage, I eat fresh fruits and veggies for the vitamins & minerals & antioxidants.

You know, I don't want to pick on you, but I've seen this particular bit of misinformation too often.

Carbon dioxide is a normal part of the air we breathe, and is actually the gas that plant use up during photosynthesis (during which they produce oxygen). Once the plant has been harvested, it doesn't cease it's biological processes - leafy vegetables will continue to respire. This produces carbon dioxide (regardless of whether the vegetable is bagged or not). It does nothing to the vitamin content.

With bagged vegetables, the effect of plant respiration will be to change the CO2/O2 concentrations around the vegetables. The higher CO2 actually inhibits many aerobic bacteria, and slows decompositions (often seen as "rust" on lettuce). With head lettuce sitting in your supermarket, the CO2 just degasses into the general atmosphere.

Now, bagged salad will have fewer vitamins than fresh-picked (as opposed to supermarket "fresh") lettuce - that is, lettuce you pick and eat within an hour or two. However, it loses its vitamins just as supermarket head lettuce does - and the longer from harvest, the lower the vitamin content. Bagged leafy greens have a couple of advantages - first, it will give you a firm date (lord only knows how old the head lettuce is), and secondly, it will actually lose vitamins more slowly than its "fresh" counterpart. This is particularly important for those of us who live in northern climes - by the time greens have been harvested in California and shipped to Canada, calling these and other vegetables "fresh" is a bit of a stretch.

See:

http://home.howstuffworks.com/question355.htm

http://www.chilledfood.org/Content/Media.asp?id=2967

http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=150777

http://jds.fass.org/cgi/content/full/86/6/1932

For other vegetables, your best vitamin content is often found in frozen or canned produce - the field-to-freezer/tin time is generally quite short, and the difference in vitamin content can be significant. Of the two, I prefer frozen because I avoid the added salt and sugar issue.

http://www.goodhealth.net.nz/articles/frozen_vegetables.htm

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/COLUMNNN/nn970122.html

http://www.frozenfoodinfo.com.au/html/s02_article/default.asp?nav_top_id=59&nav_cat_id=189&selTXT=

The more important consideration is the preparation of vegetables - boiling leaches nutrients and anything cooked to a mush is liable to have lost a lot of nutritional value. Raw is best; lightly cooked is fine. If you must boil your veggies, do it in soups and stews where the leached nutrients make their way into the stock.

(For those interested, I was a lab tech. I originally started in a hospital lab, but ended up working in an Agriculture Canada research lab - where the specimens were decidedly less "icky" and more tasty. We did a lot of work in this area because fresh local produce is unavailable in much of Canada for a significant portion of the year).

Jackie

[amberbamber]

Re: Your tips for making grocery shopping a pleasant experience?

Here's what I do:

Send my husband to the grocery store around 10:30pm at night. There's hardly anyone there, he can take as much time as he wants going through my list and getting the coupons out!

I WILL NOT take my 3 kids to the grocery store alone. Plus I'd have to push two carts and that's not possible!
Good luck!

[neatdesign]

Re: Your tips for making grocery shopping a pleasant experience?

Never go on an empty stomach and always take -- and stick to -- a shopping list.

~ Jenney

[Kris10Leigh]

Re: Your tips for making grocery shopping a pleasant experience?

My BEST tip? Don't take the kids.

When I shop at Aldi's, I take laundry and place it in the bottom of the cart. Makes, loading the conveyer, unloading, loading to the car and taking to the house much easier! Easier still if DH is the one to lug it into the house. Often it is just too heavy for me to lift out of the cart, so I lessen the load a little by bagging two bags worth.

I buy fresh produce and it lasts about a week, so I COULD shop weekly. I actually shop every other week and make do with frozen veggies. Apples last two weeks in the fridge. If I need anything during the two week period, I send DH.

The only time I truly HATE grocery shopping, is when I have BOTH children. However, I might want to amend my "don't take the kids" statement. I actually LOVE taking just one of them! It's one-on-one time. I get to teach them things. Without their sibling, they are each extremely helpful with searching, loading and unloading. We have nice little conversations. We get lots of smiles from people who think they're cute. I think taking ONE child makes it more enjoyable! However, every time I take BOTH, I always swear to never do it again! LOL!

[pearlieq]

Re: Your tips for making grocery shopping a pleasant experience?

I actually quite enjoy grocery shopping. I go once per week.

For starters, we have one store where we can go for almost everything. I've compared the prices with the competing stores, and my grocery store is either the same or so close it's not worth making a separate trip.

I go during the middle of the week--usually in mid-morning. The store is usually pretty quiet.

I generally don't use coupons. I don't get the Sunday paper anymore, but the branded products I buy are so specific that I didn't often see coupons. The rest are store brands where there are no coupons. I sure don't miss the hassle!

I pay cash. My grocery store doesn't take credit cards, so when I go to the bank on the first Friday of the month I also take out enough cash for my groceries for the month. I keep it all in an envelope, which helps keep me on budget.

As for produce, I rarely use fresh vegetables. Frozen is much better for my purposes. They're packaged fresh without added salt and can just be steamed or sauteed as needed. I buy fresh fruits weekly. I always keep some longer lasting fruits like apples on hand to use when I've eaten the more perishable fruit I've gotten during the week. I also will buy frozen berries to eat with yogurt and in smoothies. So far I haven't developed scurvy.

I'm not a huge fan of carrying them in or putting them away, but I can deal.

[MonkeyMama]

Re: Your tips for making grocery shopping a pleasant experience?

My dh enjoys taking both kids - I have no idea why. LOL. I remember when he was scared to take the youngest and went shopping in the evenings. But lately he seems to enjoy taking both kids. They really enjoy the store I guess. Plus 1 can't walk yet - maybe then he'll just take 1. 2 walking kids is probably another story - hehe.

[Ima saver]

Re: Your tips for making grocery shopping a pleasant experience?

Thanks for the great info, jackie!

[lrjohnson]

Re: Your tips for making grocery shopping a pleasant experience?

Bring a walkman/Ipod/whatever. I have a little 15 buck radio that makes shopping more bearable for me.

[Ima saver]

Re: Your tips for making grocery shopping a pleasant experience?

I like to shop at the nudist colony's grocery store. [Automated by GetSmile]

[LuxLiving]

Re: Your tips for making grocery shopping a pleasant experience?

Oh GreenGrocerette - Nice peponem(s)!

You're funny Ima!!

[abowers]

Re: Your tips for making grocery shopping a pleasant experience?

We try to go shopping at night if we can to avoid all the families that go Saturday & Sunday during the day. We make a list during the week as we run out/run low on things, then before we shop we think of what we want to make for dinner for the week based on our schedules/how many nights we'll both be home for dinner. Then we go, and it's not a big deal. If we go at night but before 9 or 10 the deli is still open, the produce is still stocked, and there are still bagels/etc. out in the bakery area.