4-25

Grocery day:

I've not had a buy-nothing day in over a week now. I'm feeling profligate. However, today cannot be my buy-nothing day as I have no food in my house and must go grocery shopping. I'm shooting for Wednesday to be my next buy-nothing day.

My grocery purchases from FarmFresh:

Raisin Nut Bran Cereal
Organic Applesauce
Wheat Bran
Peanut Butter (natural, chunky)
Vintage Seltzer Water (12-pack)
Whole Wheat bread
Mini Marshmellows
1 Granny Smith apple
2 Mangoes
2 Grapefruit
Pre-washed spinach
Baby Bok Choy
Strawberry yogurt
Flour tortillas

Nutritionists will tell you that it's best to shop the perimeter of the grocery store and buy whole foods rather than processed ones. Fresh whole foods and whole grains, however, are expensive. Finally, nutritionists are telling price-conscious shoppers that there are cheaper alternatives. Frozen fruits and vegetables are much less expensive during much of the year and just as nutritious as "fresh." Often frozen produce is picked at its peak nutritional and ripeness point and then flash frozen. This results in a product that often has more nutritional value than its “fresh” counterpart that has been picked before it ripens, shipped thousands of miles, and stored indefinitely at your local grocery store. It’s enough to make one question the concept of fresh food and perimeter shopping. And while we’re at that….
Studies actually indicate that the consumer’s concept of fresh food is less an objective distinction and more a spectrum of authenticity, "quality, healthfulness, status, ideology, etc." Which means that the perimeter of the market is a symbolically loaded space in which customers’ perceptions of fresh are currently being reshaped by retail manipulations and reaffirmed by items packaged to convey "heightened quality, health and taste perceptions" regardless of their actual contents.
So. We’re paying more money for the perception of freshness—however we as individual shoppers are defining that term—than for any quantifiable content or quality. It’s enough to send anyone to their local farmer’s market.