How often do you buy groceries?
What types of things do you consider “essential”?
Do you make a list when you go shopping, or just have an idea of what you need?
Do you do one big trip all at once, or do you pick up just enough to make what you’re eating that night/the next day?
Two trips each week. One to the local farmers shop, for whatever is available there (mostly vegetables, eggs and bread, but sometimes fish, meat, ice cream, etc), and another to a supermarket for the common things (pasta for my gf and couscous for me, rice, flour, some dairy (fresh cream or cheese), sandwich bread and chocolate spread, sometimes stuff that needs to be refilled like oil, soap, toilet paper, etc and usually an extra meal : either rice and fish for sushi-like thingy, chickpea for nugetts-ich fried stuff, or a can of smthg like chili con carne).
We try to do lists for the supermarket, otherwise we always forget something. For the local shop, what’s available varies greatly so there’s no sense making a list.
Yeah this is pretty much me.
I have unusual eating habits so not the same stuff.
I generally go to the green grocer (farmers shop?), then there’s a wholefoods shop for nuts and pulses and things, then the butcher, then at the supermarket it’s just bits and pieces.
We’ve gotten pretty good at getting things in bulk when they’re on special. Some items are way cheaper to buy on-line like toiletries and medications.
1 lb of salt. 20 lbs of long pork.
Crate of 24 beers, five pizzas, two large steaks and a packs of French fries.
I walk each day to the local markets and grab whatever I feel like that day That’s a good walk and is usually my cardio for the day.
Right now, it’s usually a couple chorizos, and then I use the leftover oil to fry potatoes, seasoning the potatoes and then use the leftover oil/spice from the fried potatoes to fry a bunch of diced tomatoes so I have a thick fried salsa.
bag of tomatoes is five quetzales, same for a bag of onions or potatoes.
I grabbed a tamale and some carnitas yesterday for 4 bucks.
I like walking around and seeing what’s open and available each day.
My groceries aren’t interesting, but I had a friend who only ate what went into a mug.
He carried around a ceramic mug, either collecting free stuff or telling people about his mug to see if they’d put food in it. Free samples, a few grapes, and occasional hand outs all went into the mug. I filled it with soup when he came by.
Was this wherever he went?
Did he take it when out to eat with friends or on a date?
How much did this mug effect his day to day life?
For the couple months I knew him the mug was either in his hand or clipped to his bag.
I didn’t see his dates and I didn’t ask, but he came by for dinner once and ate his portion from the mug.
As far as I saw, it was a great conversation starter, he made a lot of friends and ate reasonably well.
This would get old real quick.
I was a smoker in a past life.
Occasionally you encounter other smokers who are trying to cut down, or quitting, and limiting their intake by refusing to buy a pack of smokes and simply bumming smokes off the people they encounter.
Sounds nice in principle but obviously this very quickly deteriorates into a parasitic arrangement.
What I mean is, if I went to work every day and there was a guy there with a cup, obviously I’d happily give him whatever, but at any given lunch break if he was hungry he’d know he could search me out for a bite to eat.
I thought it was interesting and uplifting to see people come together to support this guy in a fairly simple way. He just told people about his mug if they asked and didn’t belabor it from there. Even shared candy when he got it.
I worked at a restaurant, where there’s a lot of food waste, so I was happy to help someone out while he found his footing. He didn’t come back on his own, I told him to see me when I’m working.
It’s weird to spin that into a “parasitic” relationship.
Sure ok. I’ll readily acknowledge that I’m a pretty weird guy.
I probably also have a lot of left over baggage from being a substance abuser of minimal socio-economic means. That is to say I just like to pay for my own stuff, and there’s a short list of people I might be very generous with but beyond that I’m not generous (with money) at all.
I guess it’s a bit different if the guy is interacting with a lot of different people every day.
I had envisaged a situation where I work in some kind of cubicle hell scape and every lunch time I need to sneak past old-mates cube in case he sees me and tries to swindle me into contributing some crisps or something.
I go almost every day. It’s a good reason to get out and go for a walk.
What I buy mostly depends on prices/discounts. And only what I can carry in my backpack. Potatoes when affordable, otherwise rice; frozen veggies, ham/cheese, bubbly water, beer.
Potatoes are more expensive than rice in the Netherlands?
Edit: just did the math for my German prices and they seem about equal. I always thought rice was a bit more expensive.
Edit 2: just realized that it’s easier and cheaper to prepare a meal with potatoes for me. I’m cool with plain mashed potatoes or simple pan fried potatoes (about 50c of extra ingredients each) but for rice I need something to go with it, which is gonna be more expensive than what I need for potatoes
I’m not in the Netherlands. Where I live, potatoes were 1.20 eur per kilo last year so I don’t buy it. Normal price should be 40 cents.
These days, we tend to sit down on Sunday evening and plan out our meals for the week, then go shopping on Monday. We go to the farmer’s market Saturday and plan our meals around what vegetables we could buy locally.
I don’t consider very many things essential. Maybe dry beans, rice (sub millet, quinoa, or other cookable grain as needed), lentils, flour, and salt? Without those I’d have troubles surviving, with an adequate supply of those I could live for months, it’d take a while to even get sick of all the things you can make with it. I’m willing to cut pretty much anything I need to out of my diet if it’s not available and honestly I think the obsession with having all foods available at all seasons is weird.
How do you do your beans and lentils? My mental illness has me stockpile food, so I have quite a bit of black beans and lentils, but I just can’t figure out how to cook them to make them work for me.
The red lentils seem to be less bitter than the brown ones. Lentils seem to be the best option, since you don’t have to soak them as long as beans and I struggle with that aspect of food prep.
If you have trouble with the soaking, black beans do very well with a “quick soak”.
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Cover them with water about twice the depth of the beans. Add about 1 teaspoon (~5 ml or 5-7 g) salt.
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Bring to a boil and keep it boiling for 2 minutes. Then cover and turn off the burner/hob. Let soak for 1-2 hours.
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Add any extra seasonings now (but nothing acidic). Then bring back to a boil and then simmer until soft. Adjust seasoning and you’re done.
They should take much less time than cooking from dry. How long will depend on the beans. Older beans can take much longer, but most should be soft in 1 hour or so.
Yep. That works well unless you’re cooking at altitude, then an overnight soak is the best and easiest way. Unless you own a pressure cooker.
Some beans you can get away with not soaking at all, just cook them low and slow for a couple hours. I’ve done that with great northern beans.
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I eat a lot of fresh food that doesn’t last a week; I shop every other day. I also eat a lot of things that last forever and are cheapest in bulk, like beans, rice, pasta. As a result, I honestly don’t know what a week of groceries looks like.
What are you eating that only lasts 1 to 2 days?
fresh bread, avocados, fresh tomatoes, fresh meat
It’s not that they go bad after just two days, but a week is too long
Usually a head of lettuce, a couple bell peppers, an onion, a lb of ground beef, any other meat that is on sale, a gallon of milk, bread, maybe some frozen or canned items, a bag of chips or some other snack, any staple items I might be out of, and a fifth of WT 101 if it’s on sale.
