Grocery store shopping during a pandemic

[spiderplanet]

Recently, a local news network featured an 'expert' to discuss "How to save money at the grocery store during C-19"

The segment was terrible. I'll summarize. "Make a list! Buy in bulk! Plan two weeks worth of meals before you shop! Don't store potatoes and onions together!"

That there is some great tips for saving money at the grocery store six months ago, and some of it is actually *bad* advice right now.

Here are modern tips, courtesy of me.

• Get spices that you like. Seriously. This is the most important one. Spices and sauces make lots of bland food tolerable.
• Be flexible. Focus on staple foods like potatoes, rice, beans, canned vegetables and fruits, and build around that. Some groceries are not going be available, some are going to be alarmingly expensive, and some are going to be alarmingly cheap.
• Be willing to substitute. Do not plan two weeks of meals when you don't know what's going to be in stock. Try to plan ahead, but be prepared. Think about what you'll look for instead if something isn't there.
• Boxed dinners (Helper, X-A-Roni, Kraft...) can be stretched out by adding vegetables and a small amount of meat, meat substitute, fried mushrooms, or a can of red kidney beans. It's not as much work as a whole casserole, too.
• Try to eat less meat. Hamburger is $10/lb in some stores.
• Know how much fridge and freezer space you have before you leave the house. Milk lasts two weeks, but it can be frozen to keep it longer. You know how much you'll use, and how much you have space for.  How much space will extra milk take up? How much space will a thing that's on sale take up? Leave yourself a bit of room for sale items if they're available, but plan to get extra frozen something (Tater tots!) if they're not.
• Don't store potatoes and onions together unless you go through them really fast, and then it doesn't matter.

Comments

[dreamshark]

Yup, just another example of "copy and paste" journalism. You take an article you (or somebody else) has written a thousand times already, slap a Breaking News headline on it, and publish it again. If the advice is general enough, it won't exactly be WRONG (see potatoes and onions) but it won't be helpful either. And in this case, even the things that are actually counter-productive (like trying to plan meals in advance when you don't know what will be in the grocery store) aren't exactly consequential mistakes. But when this journalistic philosophy is applied to conflating the important characteristics of one virus with another completely different virus... don't get me started.

[spiderplanet]

It's cool when you get started. Start all you want!

[dreamshark]

I'm not sure you agree with my particular pet peeve, but here it is. During at least the first couple of months, the FIRST (and often only) public guidance given was "The best way to protect yourself is to wash your hands." Even the CDC started every piece of guidance with this, despite the fact that from the beginning it said on their own website: "This is not thought to be the main way the virus is spread." This left the general public with the impression that the virus was primarily spread by object contamination, and a lot of people were still obsessed with hand-washing and disinfecting the outsides of their grocery bags while ignoring the actual dangers of breathing into each others' faces.

Don't get me wrong - washing your hands is a great hygiene practice, especially after using the bathroom or before interacting with food. It's clearly the best way to protect everybody (especially other people, but also yourself) from the spread of norovirus, typhoid, and other enteric illnesses. There is also a lot of evidence that surface contamination is a big factor in spreading colds and possibly influenza. But it is abundantly clear that in stopping the spread of coronavirus it is at best a minor factor.

Sure, it can't hurt and is generally a good hygiene practice. But it is not and never has been "the best way to protect yourself" and I think over-stressing that seemingly harmless piece of advice has done nothing but obscure the actual facts that people needed to know. And a big part of the viral spread of this borderline useless advice came from lazy writers who just copy/pasted that historically popular piece of advice into the first paragraph of every story they filed, even when information later in the article didn't support it.

[spiderplanet]

I also am really irritated with that.

At first, when every other country was saying 'wear a mask' and our country was saying 'masks aren't necessary, please make lousy homemade masks for hospital workers and bring every commercially made mask that you can find to the hospital," well....

I did think that the US would ramp up production of commercial masks by A LOT, and then there would be enough after about 3 weeks, and there would be an announcement. "Whoops! Sorry, now we know more information. Wear a mask."

Unfortunately, there's an incompetent boob in the highest position, and we don't have that kind of ability. I over-estimated Trump's abilities, AGAIN, and I fucking hate him and think he's incompetent. He's always able to surprise me with new levels of incompetence.

[quadong]

I'm guessing you drink skim milk and/or only use it for cooking, because whenever I've frozen 2%, it comes out all separated and unappealing after thawing. I have become a big fan of condensed milk as a way of not having to shop as often, though. It seems to hover around twice the price of fresh milk (after reconstituting), but it seems worth it to us. (Most of our consumption is still fresh milk.)

Hmmm... I did store potatoes and onions nearish each other, and the onions started going bad. But people seem to say that it's the potatoes that suffer when you do it. I'm still trying to work out what things I can keep out of the refrigerator and for how long.

[spiderplanet]

No, we also get 2% milk, and it tastes fine. That's really odd. Do you shake it up after it's thawed? It homogenizes again, and doesn't need to be shaken up more than the first time.

[dreamshark]

Totally pedantic correction: I think you mean "evaporated milk." Which is of course condensed. But at least in this country, unsweetened condensed milk is labeled "evaporated milk." Sweetened condensed milk is a different product entirely that is often used in cake icing. I'm a big fan of evaporated milk and it is one of the things we stocked up on at the beginning of this. We don't reconstitute it and drink it, though. I use it in my coffee and on cold cereal, and to make hot cocoa, and Richard uses it for a purpose so revolting I hesitate to even describe it.

[quadong]

I need some levity right now. Please tell me what Richard's revolting purpose is.

[dreamshark]

Oh all right, you asked for it. He mixes it with root beer and ice and pretends it's a root beer float. *gag*

[spiderplanet]

That sounds interesting enough to try at least once. Rootbeer&Milk used to be a State Fair booth.

[quadong]

There now, that wasn't nearly as bad as I was braced for. :-)

[spiderplanet]

I love sweetened condensed milk in coffee. All other coffee is inferior.

[dreamshark]

It is good in coffee, although I usually don't sweeten my coffee unless it is overly strong. I'm not opposed to sweetened condensed milk, just pointing out that it is a different thing from evaporated milk. I am opposed to mixing perfectly good milk of any kind with *ugh* soda pop.