I think summer has let go, here on the Left Coast.
I enjoyed the one stretch of cool-but-warm weather, maybe a week. It’s my favorite. Everything else I loathe. Today was the first cold day of the season. I hate it.
This week was much less of a food challenge than previous because I actually had groceries! Go figure. I’m making better choices and making use of the awesome, cheap, and questionably originated vegetables and fruits at the Asian markets around here. My favorite is 99 Ranch Market, which is across the street from my office, but if I can’t get there for some reason, I can go to County Market which is less than a mile from my house. It’s one of the few things that’s nice about living near the coast of the Stupidest State of Them All: easy access to A) Asian culture and B) their grocery stores.
Anyway, one of the things that’s really nice about the Asian stores is that everything is so, so cheap. I’ve been kind of strapped for cash lately (this whole “owning a house” and “paying for mortgage” thing kind of sucks you dry in the greenback department), and one of the monumentally unfair things I have found in terms of trying to Lead A Healthy Lifestyle is how frigging expensive it is!!
You can, however, learn how to shop around and make use of bulk stores and other types of stores, like organic or indie grocery shops.
My favorite grocery store, besides 99 Ranch Market is Trader Joe’s. Trader Joe’s is not only a great store with great products and great pricing, but it treats their employees right. I buy most of my meat here because it’s good quality, often organic (like free range chicken, which is more delicious than regular chicken… honestly I could care less about chicken treatment, except that nicely treated free-range chicken really ARE way more delicious!!), and fairly inexpensive if you shop right.
Anyway, so my whole point is that here, in what is one of the (if not THE? – I’m too lazy to look) most expensive places to live (e.g.: my cost of living is triple what I was paying in Texas) if you look around and make the right choices, healthy eating isn’t too hard.
Here’s where I shop:
Trader Joe’s for basic groceries on a weekly basis – I can get about a week’s worth to supplement my current supply for about $20.
Asian Grocery Stores for fresh fruits and vegetables and quirky ingredients (I cook a lot of Thai food these days, mostly curry)
Local Farmer’s Markets for fresh fruits and vegetables – this also localizes where you shop and helps the economy for your neighborhood or county.
Winco/Target/Walmart for discounted canned goods and basic groceries. All “house brands” at these places are good and much cheaper than regular grocery stores.
I haven’t actually set foot in a regular grocery store (here it’s Safeway, other places is Vons, HEB, Ralph’s, etc.) in months. Making that decision to look for alternate sources of healthy eating wasn’t very hard: mainstream supermarkets are crazy expensive! And I can get all the things I used to get there at Winco for much, much cheaper.
So that’s what I do when I’m grocery shopping, is go to many different places in order to find the best deals around.
(And yes, I realize I’m posting this on Saturday.)