Grocery store nightmare
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I still don't get this idea that it's hard to find the "good" stuff. In my grocery (all three of the ones I go to, but I'll focus on the Jewel) you walk INTO the produce section. I assume produce is "good." You keep walking past it to the back and hit the fish. Go right along the back walk and get to meat, the stairs to the alcohol, then soda, dairy and eggs. Turn left instead and you get cheese, the salad bar, and the deli and bakery (in its own section so you have to go there specifically). All of this stuff is super easy to find, and the frozen section is also pretty obvious. Anything else I don't buy super regularly I can never remember where it is--by its nature the shelves are harder to find things in than the perimeter and more annoying to shop in.0
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i like the grocery store ...i get lots of produce and then whatever else i want / need ...not a big deal
once in a while i get myself treats and i like the grocery store even more then
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lemurcat12 wrote: »I still don't get this idea that it's hard to find the "good" stuff. In my grocery (all three of the ones I go to, but I'll focus on the Jewel) you walk INTO the produce section. I assume produce is "good." You keep walking past it to the back and hit the fish. Go right along the back walk and get to meat, the stairs to the alcohol, then soda, dairy and eggs. Turn left instead and you get cheese, the salad bar, and the deli and bakery (in its own section so you have to go there specifically). All of this stuff is super easy to find, and the frozen section is also pretty obvious. Anything else I don't buy super regularly I can never remember where it is--by its nature the shelves are harder to find things in than the perimeter and more annoying to shop in.
I've been struggling with this idea as well. The grocery stores in my area are laid out pretty much as you describe. You have to go through the produce section, whereas the bakery is in its own section. Even at the Super WalMarts and Costco's in my area, if you're in the bakery it's because you deliberately wandered into the bakery section. I know this because it's hard to be casual about picking up some sugary bakery goods as nonchalantly as other things.
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Only time it's a nightmare for me is seeing the total and I have to pay especially if it was a big meat or ice cream stock up trip.
Don't go hungry. I also like going on off hours so there are fewer people to annoy me, favorite time is around 3 or 4 in the morning and you only have to deal with the employees.0 -
I love going to the grocery store! Its a chance to try new veggies & grains. This week's new item is farro. Never tried it and I'm looking forward to it. I also bought some fresh fish which is a treat. I peruse every aisle looking for different nutrient dense foods to add to my diet.0
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Produce section, meat section, dairy section. Stop in the coffee aisle on the way to the register. If they'd move the coffee to the produce section, it would go even faster. The only other time I need to stop in an aisle is on the rare occasion I need more salt, spices or oils from the baking aisle.
Not really a problem.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »I still don't get this idea that it's hard to find the "good" stuff. In my grocery (all three of the ones I go to, but I'll focus on the Jewel) you walk INTO the produce section. I assume produce is "good." You keep walking past it to the back and hit the fish. Go right along the back walk and get to meat, the stairs to the alcohol, then soda, dairy and eggs. Turn left instead and you get cheese, the salad bar, and the deli and bakery (in its own section so you have to go there specifically). All of this stuff is super easy to find, and the frozen section is also pretty obvious. Anything else I don't buy super regularly I can never remember where it is--by its nature the shelves are harder to find things in than the perimeter and more annoying to shop in.
This is how all grocery stores I've been to are spread out. It's actually way harder for me to find the "bad" stuff I want because it's in like 500 different aisles, whereas the produce and meat and dairy are all laid out super nice and easy to see without reading up above at the aisle categories/labels, without having to look way up or way low... I swear the only reason it will take me so long to shop is when I'm trying to find things in the actual aisles because I never remember where anything is or they will have the same thing, different brands/types in TWO sections. Like peanut butter here is in two sections because of the "organic" stuff lol.
I buy shelved stuff pretty regularly and I still have a harder time finding it.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »I still don't get this idea that it's hard to find the "good" stuff. In my grocery (all three of the ones I go to, but I'll focus on the Jewel) you walk INTO the produce section. I assume produce is "good." You keep walking past it to the back and hit the fish. Go right along the back walk and get to meat, the stairs to the alcohol, then soda, dairy and eggs. Turn left instead and you get cheese, the salad bar, and the deli and bakery (in its own section so you have to go there specifically). All of this stuff is super easy to find, and the frozen section is also pretty obvious. Anything else I don't buy super regularly I can never remember where it is--by its nature the shelves are harder to find things in than the perimeter and more annoying to shop in.
This is how all grocery stores I've been to are spread out. It's actually way harder for me to find the "bad" stuff I want because it's in like 500 different aisles, whereas the produce and meat and dairy are all laid out super nice and easy to see without reading up above at the aisle categories/labels, without having to look way up or way low... I swear the only reason it will take me so long to shop is when I'm trying to find things in the actual aisles because I never remember where anything is or they will have the same thing, different brands/types in TWO sections. Like peanut butter here is in two sections because of the "organic" stuff lol.
I buy shelved stuff pretty regularly and I still have a harder time finding it.
My main grocery store has paper lists of common items and the aisles where you can find them. They have a plastic holder at each end of every aisle with some of the lists. I often have to consult them for things I buy maybe once or twice a year. Saves time having to wander the aisles looking.
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lemurcat12 wrote: »I still don't get this idea that it's hard to find the "good" stuff. In my grocery (all three of the ones I go to, but I'll focus on the Jewel) you walk INTO the produce section. I assume produce is "good." You keep walking past it to the back and hit the fish. Go right along the back walk and get to meat, the stairs to the alcohol, then soda, dairy and eggs. Turn left instead and you get cheese, the salad bar, and the deli and bakery (in its own section so you have to go there specifically). All of this stuff is super easy to find, and the frozen section is also pretty obvious. Anything else I don't buy super regularly I can never remember where it is--by its nature the shelves are harder to find things in than the perimeter and more annoying to shop in.
This is how all grocery stores I've been to are spread out. It's actually way harder for me to find the "bad" stuff I want because it's in like 500 different aisles, whereas the produce and meat and dairy are all laid out super nice and easy to see without reading up above at the aisle categories/labels, without having to look way up or way low... I swear the only reason it will take me so long to shop is when I'm trying to find things in the actual aisles because I never remember where anything is or they will have the same thing, different brands/types in TWO sections. Like peanut butter here is in two sections because of the "organic" stuff lol.
I buy shelved stuff pretty regularly and I still have a harder time finding it.
My main grocery store has paper lists of common items and the aisles where you can find them. They have a plastic holder at each end of every aisle with some of the lists. I often have to consult them for things I buy maybe once or twice a year. Saves time having to wander the aisles looking.
My grocery stores don't do this
just the labels at the top of the aisle which can still be very vague. 0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »I still don't get this idea that it's hard to find the "good" stuff. In my grocery (all three of the ones I go to, but I'll focus on the Jewel) you walk INTO the produce section. I assume produce is "good." You keep walking past it to the back and hit the fish. Go right along the back walk and get to meat, the stairs to the alcohol, then soda, dairy and eggs. Turn left instead and you get cheese, the salad bar, and the deli and bakery (in its own section so you have to go there specifically). All of this stuff is super easy to find, and the frozen section is also pretty obvious. Anything else I don't buy super regularly I can never remember where it is--by its nature the shelves are harder to find things in than the perimeter and more annoying to shop in.
This is how all grocery stores I've been to are spread out. It's actually way harder for me to find the "bad" stuff I want because it's in like 500 different aisles, whereas the produce and meat and dairy are all laid out super nice and easy to see without reading up above at the aisle categories/labels, without having to look way up or way low... I swear the only reason it will take me so long to shop is when I'm trying to find things in the actual aisles because I never remember where anything is or they will have the same thing, different brands/types in TWO sections. Like peanut butter here is in two sections because of the "organic" stuff lol.
I buy shelved stuff pretty regularly and I still have a harder time finding it.
My main grocery store has paper lists of common items and the aisles where you can find them. They have a plastic holder at each end of every aisle with some of the lists. I often have to consult them for things I buy maybe once or twice a year. Saves time having to wander the aisles looking.
Mine does this too! Total life saver when I'm running in real quick for something random. Saves me from looking like a dumb dumb when I ask an employee and it happens to be right in front of my face too.0 -
Timorous_Beastie wrote: »The only time grocery shopping is a nightmare for me is when it's too crowded, like if I make the mistake of going on Senior Citizen's Discount Day, or before a holiday or snowstorm. Somehow it's an anxiety attack trigger for me.
But the food is never a problem. Unless their out of my favorite chocolate milk.
YES. Or Wal-Mart at any time. And one time I was in Aldi and didn't realize that my debit card had expired, that was a nightmare!
OP, do you also struggle when reading beauty magazines because you want ALL THE CREAMS? I kinda do.0 -
The only time grocery shopping is a nightmare is when I have my 3 and 6 year old kids with me. Seriously have you ever tried to maneuver one of those car carts up and down aisles? And who decided that kid sized carts were a good idea? Obviously someone who is impervious to pain in the back of their legs...
OP as others have said, go with a list built from a meal plan. Don't demonize foods. Understand your store floor plan and avoid aisles with foods you are trying to avoid. Convenience foods are really helpful to many people, and are not inherently unhealthy. I've lost about 30 pounds eating "processed foods" in addition to whole foods. everything in moderation...0 -
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The only time grocery shopping is a nightmare is when I have my 3 and 6 year old kids with me. Seriously have you ever tried to maneuver one of those car carts up and down aisles? And who decided that kid sized carts were a good idea? Obviously someone who is impervious to pain in the back of their legs...
OP as others have said, go with a list built from a meal plan. Don't demonize foods. Understand your store floor plan and avoid aisles with foods you are trying to avoid. Convenience foods are really helpful to many people, and are not inherently unhealthy. I've lost about 30 pounds eating "processed foods" in addition to whole foods. everything in moderation...
Those car cars are the worst. They are so much heavier than normal carts and awful to push.
My least favorite part of the grocery store is the bifurcation of the things between the normal aisle and the organic/healthy aisle. I like certain brands of items and it's annoying that I have to go hunting for nut butter halfway across the store
There is something to being aware of the processed foods you eat. Not because they are inherently bad for you, but because it's easy to go a bit overboard by eating mindlessly. If your using something like MFP, a food scale, etc then it's easy and manageable to know what you're consuming. It can be easy to eat a diet that is heavy in processed food without using portion control and gain a lot of weight.
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I'm glad you can eat all these bad foods and still lose weight. I hope to be able to do that someday too.
I guess my main point was, all the advertisements and the way they position things in the store is to get you to buy the unhealthy stuff. Why don't they make it harder to find the "bad" stuff and easier to find the good stuff?
I've noticed the opposite trend happening - the stores I go to prominently label and display the organic / natural stuff, because they are more expensive. It is all about profit margins and agreements with suppliers who negotiate with the stores for product location and positioning on shelves.
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The only reason the grocery store may be a "nightmare" for me is because I see awesome foods that I can't have. I have a medical condition that is VERY food sensitive. Eating specific foods can make me very ill and put me in tremendous pain. Eating some tomato the other day had me in quite a bit of pain for 3 days. So I get sad when things look really awesome but then find I can't have them.
Otherwise, I actually LOVE going to the grocery. It's time to myself and I pretty much go through every bit of the store looking for new finds. Then again, I also do eat ice cream, cookies, and chips as part of my diet along with dairy, meat, and produce so *shrug*. I guess I just refuse to make life even more difficult then it already is.0 -
A reality check for anyone who really thinks supermarkets actively want you to buy "unhealthy" (LOL) food:
From the New York Times:
"...along with the meat counter, the produce aisle is one of the most profitable parts of a grocery store, with large volumes and higher-than-average markups from the wholesale cost. So even if sales of frozen pizza and potato chips dip, the grocer’s net profit will rise if zucchini gains."
At worst, supermarkets don't care. But generally, they'd be thrilled to see you buy more produce even if it meant you bought fewer blue boxes of macaroni and cheese.
Also, for anyone who is interested in strategies that social scientists, marketers, retailers, and even food companies are trying to encourage people to make more healthy choices in supermarkets, maybe check out http://www.healthyfoodaccess.org/retail-strategies/healthy-food-marketing
ETA: Bottom line, it's still the consumer's responsibility to make their own choices in the supermarket. It's no one's job to nanny grown-ups into making healthier choices.
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The only store I find a nightmare is Wegman's- that store STRESSES ME THE EFF OUT.
I don't know about Wegman's, but I agree with the sentiment TOTALLY. There are good grocery stores and bad stores in my neighborhood, and the bad stores are really ugly, messy or disorganized, and always stressful. I've found my favorite Publix and Kroger and stick with those (and attempt to stay out of the yucky badly designed stores, one of which is another Kroger that I just don't "get").0 -
I believe the back of the package should be the front (ingredients). The front are lies!0
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The only store I find a nightmare is Wegman's- that store STRESSES ME THE EFF OUT.
I don't know about Wegman's, but I agree with the sentiment TOTALLY. There are good grocery stores and bad stores in my neighborhood, and the bad stores are really ugly, messy or disorganized, and always stressful. I've found my favorite Publix and Kroger and stick with those (and attempt to stay out of the yucky badly designed stores, one of which is another Kroger that I just don't "get").
We have a Kroger that puts stand alone, open top cooler cases in the dairy aisle. It leaves one cart-width gap on either side, so if one person stops to get anything from one side, and someone stops on the other side, everyone else has to wait for them to both move from one end to the other. If you're unfortunate enough to go when they're re-stocking on one side or the other, you might as well give up and go to another store.0 -
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I've always wanted to start a grocery store that was organized by recipe. All the ingredients for the meal would be sitting together, along with the recipe.
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I've always wanted to start a grocery store that was organized by recipe. All the ingredients for the meal would be sitting together, along with the recipe.
Ugh my grocery store sort of does that in a limited way and it's infuriating. Like, they keep lemons in the seafood aisle; they sell chocolate syrup in the ice cream aisle. They sell pizza crusts and parmesan cheese in the canned tomatoes aisle.
What if you want to buy chocolate syrup because you want to make chocolate milk? You have to know they keep it with the ice cream. It's stupid.
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My first job was as a clerk at a grocery store. I spent hours every week staring at the shelves (I was a facer, basically I brought items to the front and made the shelves look nice). I guess I got kind of immune to it.
Honestly, the whole time I've been purchasing groceries, I've been on a strict budget. I meal plan, write a list if I'm getting more than essentials, and take cash. If I want to fill my cart with cookies/donuts/Doritos, I'm not going to have enough cash to purchase bananas/milk/meat, which is hard to explain to my family. I do usually buy at least one treat per trip, which tends to be something like ice cream, which is worth every calorie to me because I love it.
I know when you are used to quick meals, it seems intimidating to make stuff from scratch. Maybe it would help you to make a list of meals you can either prep ahead of time, like a crock pot meal, or things you can throw together quickly, like stir fry or a pasta dish. That way you won't equate convenience with unhealthy.0 -
I've always wanted to start a grocery store that was organized by recipe. All the ingredients for the meal would be sitting together, along with the recipe.
Ugh my grocery store sort of does that in a limited way and it's infuriating. Like, they keep lemons in the seafood aisle; they sell chocolate syrup in the ice cream aisle. They sell pizza crusts and parmesan cheese in the canned tomatoes aisle.
What if you want to buy chocolate syrup because you want to make chocolate milk? You have to know they keep it with the ice cream. It's stupid.
Yeah! I had a Christmas cookie recipe that called for chocolate syrup and I ended up having to buy it at the third store I went to because this is an industrywide practice?? I'm scouring the cereal aisle, lifting dry Quik mixes and peering behind them.0 -
The only store I find a nightmare is Wegman's- that store STRESSES ME THE EFF OUT.
Not sure why- just the lay out- and the packed- yet weird open feeling it has- I just- i hate it.
but otherwise no.
Easy
Veggies
meat
dairy.
done
The advice to not shop when hungry is true.
The advice it shop the permiter of the store is actually pretty solid.
The advice to realize that the store lays things out purely to make money and to catch your eye.
Use your big hooman logic to recognize that and then stick to the man and buy what you need for YOUR needs and what fits in your budget- not what's been splashed in front of your eyes.
At some point you need to move past being a wide eyed 5 year old who gets starstruck with EVER advert in the store. Seriously- why do you think they put kid foods at kid eye level???
I wegmans, it's my grocery store of choice.
Personally I never make a list or anything and go, see what proteins or produce looks good and then figure out what to make while shopping.0 -
The grocery stores I go to have the fresh produce right as you walk in the door. Next comes fresh meat and fish, bakery, dairy. Not hard to find at all. I have been doing this for almost 3 years now and I know that there are a lot of people that disagree, but for my family, it is definitely cheaper for groceries and cooking 99% of our meals, with very limited "over processed" foods and seldom eating at a restaurant.
BTW, grocery stores are in the business to sell food that their customers want. Even in the short 3 years that I have been trying to eat healthier, I see more and more options available all the time, which indicates to me that there are more and more people making healthier choices, at least in my area.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »I still don't get this idea that it's hard to find the "good" stuff. In my grocery (all three of the ones I go to, but I'll focus on the Jewel) you walk INTO the produce section. I assume produce is "good." You keep walking past it to the back and hit the fish. Go right along the back walk and get to meat, the stairs to the alcohol, then soda, dairy and eggs. Turn left instead and you get cheese, the salad bar, and the deli and bakery (in its own section so you have to go there specifically). All of this stuff is super easy to find, and the frozen section is also pretty obvious. Anything else I don't buy super regularly I can never remember where it is--by its nature the shelves are harder to find things in than the perimeter and more annoying to shop in.
Same layout in the three stores I shop. Minus the alcohol, sadly.
I spent an extra 10 minutes wandering around the store trying to find my beloved Raspberry Zingers last week. Never did locate them. Now *that* stressed me out.0 -
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