I have always hated going grocery shopping. I really prefer to have food magically materialize in my pantry and refrigerator, like it used to do when I was young and living in my parents’ house. I never bought fresh fruit in college because I could never eat it fast enough and it would go bad. I remember on one particularly emotional night, I cried watching a Sonic commercial that featured fresh peaches bouncing across the screen. Oh, for the simplicity of a life when peaches would just be available for the eating, through no hard work of my own!
So anyway, as I am saying, grocery shopping has always caused me a certain amount of angst. But lately I’ve been feeling the pressure even more as I have struggled to reconcile my desire to achieve four mutually exclusive attributes in my grocery purchases:
1) Organic. I am very compelled by the argument that Christians should be leaders in responsible environmental causes. Additionally, I am genuinely unsettled by the idea of consuming processed and chemically enhanced food. I like the idea of free range chickens and farmer’s market tomatoes and such.
2) Healthy. This is a dilemma all in itself, because I am a consumer of women’s magazines which always inform me of the latest health news. I can’t ever remember what I should be looking for- high protein? high fiber? low in saturated fat? low in carbohydrates? low in calories? calcium enriched?
3) Convenient. If it does not come in a pre-rationed package, it will usually sit in the pantry until it is stale. If it is an ingredient in a recipe that takes more than twenty minutes to prepare, I will probably not use it more than once. If it does not have a shelf life of at least one week, it will rot in the fridge because I never stick to my meal plans.
4) Inexpensive. I like to imagine that I am a responsible, frugal, housewife and I think that two normal eating human beings should not spend outrageous amounts of money on food. I am inspired by people who have a food bill of $100 a month.
So every item that goes into my basket adds the extra weight of some sort of guilt. These 100-calorie packs will create so much trash! This spaghetti is made from white flour! These plums will rot in the produce drawer! These salad ingredients will double the total bill!
Alas.
May 27, 2007 at 9:35 pm
A resounding AMEN! I never remember what I should be looking for on my food labels. No trans fat…whole wheat should be in the first two ingredients on the list…fat should be only 1/3 of the total calories or something. Its too much to think about. And when you forget something that is crucial to the list you made and have to go traipsing to the back of walmart to get what you missed. And then you come home from school and say “I don’t want to cook, do you want pizza or a burger?” Fun times!
When are you done with school?
May 28, 2007 at 8:31 am
Exactly.
The rugrats are out of school! I have two more weeks of teacher training, a.k.a. party time.
May 28, 2007 at 1:08 pm
In the words of the family Weird Al Yankovic – Just Eat It!
May 29, 2007 at 9:27 am
I always feel overwhelmed at the store… too many choices or things I want are hard to find or if I can’t find one ingredient, then my whole recipe is shot. I hate grocery shopping.
I love those 100-calorie packs, though. There should be no guilt there!
May 31, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Sounds like we’re all rockin’ in the same boat. It’s so frustrating. I never know how much food to buy either. No matter how much planning goes into my grocery list and weekly dinner menu, it seems like something always rots. I also have a complex when it comes to throwing leftovers away. I know darn well that I won’t eat leftover pizza, but I prefer to let it sit in the fridge until it rots, and then I feel justified throwing it away.
May 31, 2007 at 8:44 pm
I do the same thing! I save food even when I know that I have no intention of eating it. Then I try to guilt Stephen into eating it instead. It usually doesn’t work, and I am left with a refrigerator full of Rubbermaid biology specimens.