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How ‘Green’ Shoppers Navigate the Neighborhood Grocery Store
By Andy Kroll
Fox News
- The grocery store produce section—a haven for all green shoppers. Photos by Andy Kroll
The half-empty jar of pasta sauce and remaining few slices of cheddar sit there looking lonely on my shelf of the refrigerator, like two shy wallflowers at a middle school dance.
In other words, it’s time to hit the grocery store and restock.
I had intended to write my “Going Green”-themed grocery shopping post about buying my produce and bread at the local farmer’s market on Saturday mornings, but decided otherwise, out of the worry that students without easy access to a farmer’s market wouldn’t find help in the post. So instead, I went to the regular grocery store—that ubiquitous Midwest chain, Meijer—and attempted to shop there as green as possible.
Which was, of course, far greater of a challenge. Meijer does promote and sell its own “Natural” and “Organic” brands of, say, peanut butter or laundry detergent; but, as The New York Times’ Mark Bittman recently pointed out, these supposedly eco-friendly, sustainable products aren’t always the answer, having evolved into a fad more than a revolution in how we eat and live:
[E]ating “organic” offers no guarantee of [healthy eating]. And the truth is that most Americans eat so badly — we get 7 percent of our calories from soft drinks, more than we do from vegetables; the top food group by caloric intake is “sweets”; and one-third of nation’s adults are now obese — that the organic question is a secondary one. It’s not unimportant, but it’s not the primary issue in the way Americans eat.
To eat well, says Michael Pollan, the author of “In Defense of Food,” means avoiding “edible food-like substances” and sticking to real ingredients, increasingly from the plant kingdom. (Americans each consume an average of nearly two pounds a day of animal products.) There’s plenty of evidence that both a person’s health — as well as the environment’s — will improve with a simple shift in eating habits away from animal products and highly processed foods to plant products and what might be called “real food.” (With all due respect to people in the “food movement,” the food need not be “slow,” either.)
Healthy shopping doesn’t just mean “Natural” and “Organic”
If there’s one tip I can share about how to buy healthy food at regular grocery stores, one that I learned from both Michael Pollan and experience, it’s to shop from the perimeter walls of the grocery story and to avoid the inside lanes and shelves. After hearing Pollan mention this is in a great talk at Google’s headquarters, a lifetime of shopping with my mom became so much clearer in my head—the walls in most grocery stores are lined with coolers and freezers and shelves with watering devices, i.e., for the food that’s most fresh. The inside of most stores, on the other hand, contains food loaded with preservatives and chemicals and ingredient lists numbering fifty long with indecipherable words. The kind of food that would still look the same if it were left on those shelves for decades.
Fresh on the outside, most everything else on the inside.
So I shopped the walls, and left the inner aisles untrodden. The end result? My cart was filled with far fresher food, food that will go bad in a week if I don’t eat and food that costs quite a bit more. For college students, with our hectic schedules and erratic behaviors, the inner aisles are indeed more convenient—it’s food that keeps for longer, takes less time to cook, makes for easy on-the-go snacking.
But is it healthier? Not at all. Support local economies and local farmers? No chance. And it’s a matter of deciding whether you’re willing, as Pollan says, to vote with your fork: You shopping decisions impact how food policy in this country is developed, and supporting fresh-grown, local food not only keeps your healthier but communicates an important message.
A produce sale, ahem, ripe for the picking
And to be honest, shopping fresh can be done a budget. Here’s a tip of mine: When you’re at the store, look for fresh produce that’s nearing its expiration date. Usually, tomatoes or peppers or apples or pork chops (though I’m not eating many of those lately) that are close to their expiration are marked way down because the stores need to offload those products. A $4 bag of lettuce becomes a $1.50 bag of lettuce. A box of roma tomatoes for $3 becomes $1. For the Kroger chain grocery store near my house, I’ve found that most Friday afternoons there’s a lot of produce discounted throughout the store, and if I’m planning a dinner or even doing a bit of my own shopping, I can get great fresh food for cheap.
The catch is that you have to use the produce sooner—in the next day or so, if not that very evening. For someone like myself who likes to cook, that’s not a bad thing; for those averse to cooking, this may be a bit more of a problem. Either way, it’s a nice exception to pricey fresh food standard.
There’s always coupons, too, in the city and student newspaper, online, at the campus union or student center.
A major problem with shopping at this particular Meijer is that I have to drive there. It’s more than three miles away, and without a bike capable of holding five or six bags of groceries (I’ll get to those shortly) or a Zipcar membership, I had to fire up my little-used car parked in the driveway. I haven’t driven the car much at all in the past three weeks, but it was a necessary evil for this shopping excursion.
There were those bags, too. I ended up using plastic bags at the checkout counter—again, far from the best option (bringing your own reusable bags), but I will say that my roommates and I save our plastic bags and reuse them for other tasks around the house. Will they ultimately still end up in a landfill, though? Yes. Note to self: Time to invest in some reusable bags, Andy.
A reader from another post mentioned the issue of milk in the context of cattle producing greenhouse gases, that if we cut our milk consumption, like I’m trying to cut my meat intake, that would decrease animal-related emissions. On this particular trip, I did not buy any milk or milk products. I’m not much of a milk drinker (bad experience with a glass of curdled 2% milk), but the issue of buying milk or getting calcium from another source is a tough one: We need calcium and milk is a popular source of that nutrient, but the cattle that produce that milk for us do indeed have a substantial carbon footprint. It’s a dilemma on which I need to be better informed saying much else, though soy milk, which I take in all my coffee, is a potential alternative.
Shopping fresh may seem expensive, but with a bit of extra effort and flexibility, it can be done affordably for college students on slim budget. I picked up some fresh tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, bakery bread and peanut butter (the kind with only “Peanuts” as an ingredient and with the oil on top—the sign that it’s fresh) this time around.
But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I longed for some of those preservative-laden goodies lining the store’s interior—a bag of sour-cream-and-onion chips, some Keebler’s cookies, a frozen mac-and-cheese dinner. Though I’ve been pretty diligent in the past year or so to stick to fresh foods, the siren’s call emanating from those frozen pizza section (once a major vice) still tugs at me on occasion. Hopefully, the more I stick to healthy, fresh food, the more that will go away.
I’d love to hear from anyone with their own tips on shopping healthy on a budget that don’t necessarily involve farmer’s markets or more eco-friendly stores like Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods Market. To all you foodies out there, please do not hesitate to share your own tips or ideas, or send them to me at akroll [at] umich.edu. I’d be more than happy to write another post with suggestions!
April 7th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
“Raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined.”
– United Nations, 2006
Since I read the statement above I have drastically cut back on red meat. My father was a butcher so we ate a lot of meat as children. I have been eating more baked (microwave) potatoes and fresh carrots. They are better for me anyway. If I can get thru the grocery store without buying things from the center isle I will shop “green” and maybe stay fit. Below are my rules for shopping.
Never go grocery shopping on an empty stomach.
Make a list before you get to the store.
Shop when you are in a hurry. You are less likely to deviate from your list.
Wear clothes that you wore at least 5 years and 2 sizes previously.
Tape a nude picture of yourself to the grocery cart. (Remove picture before entering checkout line)
April 7th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
I didn’t say I longed for some of those preservative-laden goodies lining the store’s interior—a bag of sour-cream-and-onion chips, some Keebler’s cookies, a frozen mac-and-cheese dinner”
I never understood this. I really hate the taste of processed food, and would much rather have a fresh mushroom, chili, avo and tomato omelette than a frozen mac and cheese dinner or a bag of crappy potato chips. I think there must be addictive chemicals in them, because I see so many fattys eating it when it obviously tastes like crap.
April 7th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
BTW anohter helpful hint… dont eat anything with “High fructose corn syrup” in it, nothing that comes in a box, no red meat(Yes that means pig too) and replace beer with straight hard alcohol (mix with OJ or REAL cranberry juice)
April 8th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
There are a few, but important, exceptions to the perimeter rule.
First, the dried bean and rice aisle. You can get a lot of really good-for-you food here very cheaply. Dried beans and rice last for a very long time and cost almost nothing compared to their nutritional load and amount of food they produce. Plus, rice and beans can be used to stretch out just about any other stuff you have (from veggie jambalaya to bean-based “leftover” burritos to dried-fruit rice pudding). Just avoid the fancy boxed “dinners” and go for the plain stuff (opting for brown rice over white).
Second, the freezer aisle (which in all the shops around here are in the middle of the store) are full of frozen veg, which is usually way fresher, in terms of nutritional quality, than the fresh stuff. That fresh corn on the cob may be a week or two old, and has sat around in suboptimal conditions for most of that time – by the time you buy it, much of it’s vitamin power is gone. OTOH, frozen corn is usually harvested and frozen the same day. And given the space-saving configuration of frozen veg vs fresh, I’m not sure the carbon footprint isn’t smaller for the same amount of food than the fresh stuff, even accounting for the freezers.
Finally, the baking aisle has a lot of good stuff that can help stretch your budget without stretching your culinary skills. Coconut milk is nutritious and tasty, and forms the base of some seriously awesome curry dishes (a great way to use up those gotta-go-now veggies and your rice). Coarse whole corn meal can become either grits or polenta, depending on your seasonings, and can be used to dust the bottom of freshly made whole wheat bread made from other baker’s aisle ingredients (yeah, bread takes forever…but most of that time is spent waiting for it to rise or bake, which you can spend playing Left 4 Dead). Also in this aisle: olive oil, spices, seasonings and other items that are needed to turn your staple ingredients into fantastic food.
So stick to the outside, yeah. But man up and venture into the heart of the processed-food jungle once or twice to round out that trip. Your body, and your wallet, will thank you.
April 9th, 2009 at 8:54 am
I think a better option for buying vegetables is buying in season. Then you know it is truly “fresh” and at their best instead of buying near an expiration date. Apples really are better in the fall and blueberries are better in the summer.
Also consider, cows raised ethically on grass (what they are meant to eat) produce less in the way of methane emission, cows were not meant to eat grain, it is as toxic to them as it is to us.
Try finding a local dairy that raises cows on pasture instead of cutting the milk. It is easier than you think to find. Instead of pushing small dairy farmers out of business lets push the industrial dairy farmers into doing things the right way.
As for meat. Did humans 30,000 years ago shop at Kroger and pass on the meat? We were meant to consume meat! Sorry it’s true. Meat is not the culprit…processed sugar (mainly from corn), rancid vegetable (hydrogenated) oils, and hydrolyzed soy are the culprits.
Try reading Nina Planck’s “Real Food” in addition to Pollan for a well rounded view of food for the human animal.
April 13th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Rachel
We were meant to eat whatever was available, and raw, that is until we lost the use of our appendix. While our ancestors didn’t go to Kroger, we in this day and age do not migrate to areas where food is more plentiful. I agree with you that grass fed is better, but organic grass fed is best, since they won’t be eating grass covered with roundup and whatever else. The problem with eating meat and dairy is that we are learning that diets with animal protiens are not as healthy as diets of primarily plant based protien. As for milk, unless it’s hand milked and raw, it is nor good for you and will be filled with all sorts of things that you don’t want to be drinking. Diets rich in animal protiens cause higher rates of disease and cancer, regardless of the source.
YES YES YES on the HFCS, it’s toxic to anything that comes near it regardless of what the corn growers will try to have you believe.
I might suggest counter books, Eat to Live, or the China Study. As with all things human, the more you read the better the view of the big picture. Maybe the right way is a blend of our two opinions =).
April 15th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Since when did we lose the use of the appendix? Although there is no scientific data on the actual reason all mammals have an appendix, there are lots of theories to its use.
The vermiform appendix actually does have a use. It is lined with many lymphatic channels. The lymph has one major job: fight infectious bacteria. Since the vermiform appendix is located at the beginning of the large intestine, and into the cecum, it is thought to help regulate the bacterial composition of our intestinal system.
As for meat, many societies have existed for thousands of years on heavy meat diets, and live long, happy, and healthy lives. Along the scientific data, it is also agreed that early humans’ adding meat to their foraging diet allowed the brain to evolve and grow, due the high, digestible protein in meat that is not found anywhere in plant diets, taking man from caves to the condos.
One other fact: you cannot get all nine necessary proteins from a plant diet. The addition of animal products (meat, cheese, milk, etcetera) allows us the last three proteins that are not found in plant diets. The secret in meat is not to eat farmed animals; wild meat such as venison, turkey, duck, birds, fish, etcetera are far superior to anything raised via the farm. One of the worst meats is that of farmed salmon. Raised in enclosed rearing ponds or netted spaces, they are fed processed feed filled with all kinds of crap, and live in a feces-laden environment ripe with unwanted diseases and bacteria.
Buy wild fish. Buy wild game. Or hunt your own meat. But don’t fall into the vegan trap. Living a life worried about everything you put in your body leads to about 3-5 extra unhappy years of life when you could have lived all of them far happier.
April 16th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Tom
Perhaps I should have said original function… The supposed original purpose of the appendix was to aid in the digestion of raw meat by perhistoric man. Since we began cooking our food, the need for that function is notably absent. I don’t disagree that the appendix still has function, but it’s probably changed over time. Maybe I need to read up on it a little more and see what has been newly discovered.
Apparently you aren’t as read up on the vegan diet as you think. Quinoa is in and of itself a complete protien, as is red beans and brown rice when combined together. In fact, the only nutrient that you cannot get in a pure plant diet is B12, because over fertilizing and pesticide/herdicide use killed all the bacteria in the soil that used to make it. It’s now given to animals as a supplement, which is how omnivores get it, or in the case of vegans by eating nutritional yeast, or taking it as a supplement in a pill. I also believe that wild caught alaskan slamon has a med/long chain fatty acid that is very healthy for the human body, but that isn’t located in any other food. Some vegan authors point out that this is the only rule they break, quite simply becuase it can’t be found anywhere else.
I would counter argue that there are many civilization that exist on a purly vegan/vegetarin diet, and are possess similar cognitative ability. I would also point to the CHina study as an example of a society going down the split path. Poor chincese cannot eat much meat, and live far longer and with less disease than their richer, city dwelling (and meat eating) counterparts.
As for me, being vegan has improved my health, but certainly, there are people who could do just fine eating meat. Scientific study continues to prove that eating a “western” diet leads to huge increases in disease, cancer and health issues. Unfortunately, and as you wisely point out, the issue is the farmed animal.
I did not fall into any trap, I chose to change my life in a positive way, I’m sorry you don’t see that. I wasn’t forced, or made to at gunpoint. Certainly the choice to be vegan isn’t one that everyone can make, and I accept that. Each person has a right to make up their own mind. I respect your choice of eating what you eat, I would expect the same in return.
April 17th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
The advice on rice and beans is too too true. And is healtheir for you than buying white bread found on the outside of the store. Many grocery stores even offer organic beans, and organic canned vegitables (which can keep longer than fresh, and are sometimes cheeper).
Also, additional alternatives to regular milk include Almond Milk, Hazelnut Milk, and hemp milk. Almonds and other nuts have been shown to have very large health benefits, and are a good source of healthy fats and protines. Whole foods does indeed carry lines of nut milks, but some other stores have these available as well, and even lacking that, you can make your own! All you need is a hand grinder, or a food processor that can handel nuts, a sauce pan, and some water.
Grind, combine, heat, nutmilk!