Real Food: Shopping

Many people are nervous about transitioning to real food because it will be more expensive, or take more time. Honestly, I don't think we spend any more money on food than we would if we weren't eating real food, we just spend it differently. It does take a little more time, because you have to actually plan what you want to eat and think about your meals before you make them. It also takes us, personally, a little more time, because we shop at 4 different places (luckily they are close together), but I'll explain more as I go along.

Here's what our shopping trip generally consists of: Winco, Farmer's Market, Butcher, and Great Harvest Bread Co. (if you haven't been to one of these, drop everything, find the nearest one, and go there immediately, it will change your life, you get a free slice of bread just for walking in the door, it's legit).

Here's a picture of my latest shopping trip -- I'll break down what I got, for how much, and from where.

Winco:

• chocolate chips, all-natural granola, 
• Adam's All-Natural PB, 
• Daisy sour cream (yes, I'm totally dropping brand names, they should pay me), 
• Emerald Valley organic salsa, 
• rotini pasta, 
• all-natural apple sauce, 
• Food Should Taste Good sweet-potato and multi-grain organic crackers, 
• Greek yogurt (my new fav is the honey flavor, it is delicious!, 
• provolone, 
• all-natural deli turkey meat, and 
• red wine vinegar. 

All of these items have ingredients that I can pronounce, and I know what they look like in their natural form. The name brands really do make a difference in some products, you have to pay attention to ingredients!Total: $37.47

Normally, we can get away without going to Winco at all, but I needed a few staples to add into the mix.

Farmer's Market:

• Bananas, 
• 2 cucumbers, 
• 4 zucchinis, 
• 2 yellow squash, 
• 8 Roma tomatoes, 
• 2 russets potatoes, 
• 2 heads broccoli, 
• celery, 
• 4 avocados, 
• 4 peaches, 
• 4 green peppers, 
• 3 red peppers, 
• 1 bundle asparagus, and 
• a locally made raspberry and rhubarb jam (yum). 

All of these items are locally grown, and very fresh.

Total: $37.97 (if I had remembered to bring back our milk and egg carton, it would have been cheaper)

Butcher:

• 1.25lbs boneless, skinless, all-natural, locally grown, and properly killed chicken breast, 
• ditto for the 1lb. ground hamburger. 

Total: $14.85 -- this is a splurge for us, normally we don't eat much meat besides some shrimp or an occasional piece of fish

Great Harvest Bread Co.: One, hot out of the oven, deliciously soft and tremendously amazing loaf of High 5 Fiber bread, plus my free slice of raspberry cinnamon swirl, YUM.
Total: $4.90 -- Once I start baking our own bread in my new bread maker, this will become a very less frequent special occasion type place -- but seriously, it's so good.

Grand Total: $95.19

With all these ingredients, and what I have already stocked we will eat the following this week:

• stuffed peppers, 
• grilled chicken and summer squash, 
• taco salad, 
• baked potatoes with broccoli, 
• pasta salad with homemade dressing, 
• turkey sandwiches (see post coming soon), 
• grilled veggie pizza, 
• tuna salad on greens, 
• homemade hummus and crackers, 
• peanut butter and celery, 
• plus a few more that probably haven't been created in my head yet.

Now, obviously you wouldn't need to shop at 4 different places just to eat real food, it is just the way that we do it, and it works for us. Albertson's, Safeway, and Fred Meyer's have good produce, and a solid selection of meat products that are all-natural. For anything other than produce and meat, you just have to look at the labels, if it has more than 5 ingredients that you can't pronounce or can't picture in their natural form, it is probably more of an edible food-like substance then an actual food. I'll be posting more delicious recipes soon! Happy Eating!