Shopping From the Edge Redux

A month or so ago, I did a little experiment in which I shopped for one month solely from the perimeter of the coop (and from anywhere at the farmers market). This included: produce, meat, bulk, dairy, and bakery (which I didn't end up using).

Here's what I learned from this largely successful experiment.

- Shopping bulk can be a pain in the butt, but it's totally worth it in terms of savings at the register and in the wasteful packaging department.
- To make shopping bulk easier, have containers with you on each trip to the market. I've ended up using bulk for certain items, so I have one container already measured and marked with the tare (the weight of the container so they don't charge you for it) and the PLU (price look up so they charge you for the right item). Once I had those containers (mostly mason jars) set aside for staple items (brown sugar, sliced almonds, dried cherries and, yes, malted milk balls) refilling at bulk was almost as easy as buying prepackaged items off the shelf.
- I am NOT a bread baker... yet. I've now tried to bake bread three or four times with little to no success. The thing is, I've made pizza crust a bunch of times successfully so I know it's not the yeast or where I'm letting it rise or anything like that. I'm still convinced I'm going to love baking bread I just have to figure out how to do it.
- Shopping the perimeter meant that we had fewer processed foods and snack around the house, which was totally worth it. We saved money by not buying pricey spritzers and sodas and were (probably) eating food that was healthier for us. (OK, not the malted milk balls.)
- Using dried instead of canned beans is shockingly easy. Sure, it took some planning ahead because I had to soak them overnight, but they were WAY tastier and cheaper.
- I definitely made more items from scratch and even learned how to make paneer (Indian cheese), which was super easy.
- Bulk tea leaves are fancy and satisfyingly ritualistic. I was worried that I'd miss the ease and Britishness of pouring hot water over a tea bag, but I was surprised that I actually enjoyed using bulk tea on a regular basis. I just pulled out the old tea balls and away I went! A little extra cleaning up, but well worth the savings and deliciousness.

Will we continue? For the most part, it's so easy in the spring and summer to shop from the edge because we practically live on produce anyway (and because our farmers market offers SO much). I still have a bit more kitchen organizing to do, but I'll probably stick to trying to buy from bulk as much as possible.

Shopping the Edge With the Better Half

First, a confession. I was back in DC (where I'm from) last weekend and the shopping from the edge experiment took a back seat. I didn't do much shopping there, but the little I did do (with my mom) did violate some of the rules I've laid out for myself. The night I made pizza for my parents, I did a pretty good job: only the pizza sauce and olives were from a center aisles. But when I was shopping for a party that my parents were having for their newest granddaughter, I was less able to adhere. It's not my household (anymore) and, thankfully (for my parents) I'm passing (slowly) out of the stage in which I think I know more than they do. Besides, they conserve in other ways like doing all their dishes by hand even though they have a dish washer.

In my absence, my husband was instructed to at least try to keep our house a center-aisle free zone. It was a risky maneuver.The first time we went shopping together, he asked if he had to adhere to the rules when he was shopping. "Do what your conscience tells you to do," I told him. "You don't want me to do that," he retorted. "My conscience will let me do pretty much whatever I want to." Clearly I'd forgotten who I married. My husband's mantra is, in the famous words of South Park's Cartman, "Whatever. I do what I want."

But to my pleasant surprise, what the old man wanted to do this time was actually participate in the experiment. I expected to find telltale frozen pizza boxes and soda cans in the house, garbage, or recycling but instead E stuck with eating leftovers, frozen pizza crust, and grilled burgers. His veg intake might have been a little low but so was his consumption of over-packaged, processed foods. Yay old man!

The good news is that we're down from averaging about three bags of garbage a week to two. But the biggest difference is probably in the number of items we're putting into our recycling bins. Yes, you say, but recycling is good! And reducing is better!

Shopping From the Edge: First Trip to the Coop

By far the greatest success of this first trip to the coop was purchasing both brown sugar and dried cherries in bulk for two reasons: I remembered my containers from home and it couldn't have been easier. In fact, I love that I don't have to deal with moving the brown sugar to a more resealable container because it's already in a mason jar.

Mason jars, which I do sometimes use for actual canning, make me feel warm and fuzzy and nostalgic for a time that I have no memory of. They make me want to grow and ferment things and store items in my pantry that I bought out of a bin at The General Store along with a few yards of calico, a spool of grosgrain ribbon, and penny candy. The make me want to hold chicken eggs up to the light to determine whether they've been fertilized. In fact, I have so many mason jars used for so many different things in my kitchen (making yogurt, storing food, growing sprouts), that sometimes I have to remind myself that I do not live in a little house on a prairie.

I have to admit that my first trip was rough. I was tempted by each of the middle aisles, especially the one that has bars of really dark chocolate. I was panicked that I would be hungry for a snack and there'd be nothing to eat at home, which, of course, is silly because there's always cheese or yogurt or fruit. I even perused the bulk section for snack foods. I was impressed by the array of items I'd never noticed before: all shapes of pasta, olive oil and maple syrup, and more types of teas than even in the tea aisles.

I will return to the bulk section. And I will like it.

May Food Experiment: Shopping From the Edge

For four consecutive weeks (beginning this past Tuesday) I'm shopping exclusively from the perimeter (and the bulk section) of my coop (and, of course, the Farmer's Market). What do I hope to accomplish by doing this?

1) Healthier Eats. Even at the coop, where they stock the shelves with local and generally more healthful foods, the aisles in the middle of the store are filled with items that are more processed than items on the perimeter. Some "health experts" even advise avoiding those middle aisles to lose weight. Since I'm breastfeeding right now, losing weight isn't a goal as much as eating healthy, but if that ends up being a side effect, I probably won't complain.

2) Less Packaging Waste. I'm going to be shopping from the bulk section a fair amount and hopefully I'll get better about bringing containers from home to pack in the store. Right now we average about three kitchen-sized bags of crap that we throw out each week (plus our recyclables). I'm hoping to see a decrease.

3) More "Experimental" Cooking and Cooking From Scratch. Most of the items I'll be buying will be raw ingredients, which means if I'm craving, say, granola bars, I'm going to have to figure out how to make them myself. Amongst the other items I'm going to have to learn to make from scratch: polenta, pizza sauce, vegetable stock, mustard, and mayonnaise.

4) Less Food Waste. I find that the more involved I am in the process of making food, the less likely I am to let it go to waste. So, for example, I might let a container of Chinese take out sit in the fridge until it grows alien life forms and has to be tossed, but my homemade yogurt is a precious, precious commodity that I will not let go to waste. I also hope that by learning to cook more from scratch, I'll be able to cook more meals just with what I have available in the pantry and fridge without having to make extra trips to the grocery store.

What, exactly, will I be "able" to buy. Produce, eggs, milk, butter, (and cheese -- I could perhaps learn to make it , but that's a little too hardcore for me), meats and fish, and whatever is in the bulk section plus whatever I can get at the farmer's market. Even though the frozen food section is on the perimeter of the store, I'm going to be skipping that part (especially since I can get fresh produce these days). I'm also going to skip the bread section and learn how to make bread from scratch.

What do I anticipate happening?
1) By about week 2, I'm going to wonder, "Why the hell am I doing this?"
2) I'm going to love baking my own bread, but it's never going to be as good as the bread from local bakeries and it's never really going to be time effective.
3) I'm going to succumb to desires for: cereal, pre-made chicken stock, and condiments.
4) I'm going to be forced to organize my kitchen to stay on top of bulk food purchase.