Grocery List: Buying Real Food

Grocery Shopping
This is the result of a successful shopping trip. A few items are missing that are camera shy, including liver, coconut yogurt, arrowroot powder and nutritional yeast.

Here’s the entire list:

Red Cabbage
Broccoli Rabe
Carrots
Ginger
Native Forest Coconut Milk
Native Forest Coconut Cream
Coconut Aminos
Sparkling Water
Figs
Avocados
Zucchini
Butternut Squash
Ginger Lemon Juice
Sugar Pumpkin
Turnips
Nutiva Coconut Flour 
Real Salt
Wild Caught Sardines in Olive Oil
Grass-fed Beef Liver
Coconut Yogurt
Arrowroot powder
Nutritional Yeast

There is a popular ad right now posted all over the city that says, “6pm at the grocery store is UnHappy Hour.” I strongly disagree. First, as a mostly non-drinker I realize this ad is not targeted to me. Second, grocery shopping is always my happy hour. In college, my friend and I spent hours at the grocery store, taking time to go up and down each aisle. Just for the fun of it. Now I carve out time to linger over labels. I classify it as research and inspiration time.

Companies like Fresh Direct and Amazon have made it possible to shop for any food product online. I use Amazon occasionally for specialty items I can’t find at my grocery store, although I feel guilty about the waste that delivery generates and that I’m not supporting my local businesses. Could there be a happy medium? Well it looks like Whole Foods may be on to something. They are beginning to offer personal shopping services. You can order all your groceries online and have them delivered right to your kitchen. I like that it’s my local store and I like the product selection at Whole Foods.

How do you feel about personal shoppers? Convenience is king in my lovely city. It takes too darn much time to schlep bags from one end of the city back home. I learned my lessons the hard way when I traveled downtown one day to pick-up a box bigger than me. The sucker wouldn’t budge when I tried to lift it.  Then every cab driver passed me by for twenty minutes. Fun day. Delivery isn’t such a bad option.