My second stop on the discount grocery store tour was Aldi. Owned by a German family company, Albrecht Discounts, Aldi is one of the no-frills discount grocers who eschews fancy displays and wide product selection for low prices. Perhaps most interestingly, Aldi is owned by the same company as Trader Joe's, its higher-end counterpart. While Trader Joe's carries more organic selections and higher quality meats, when it comes down to the come down, they have similar products on the shelf. It's heavy on the private label items, which means that the organic honey at Aldi might be the exact same thing as the organic honey at Trader Joes, only with less markup (because the cashiers at Aldi don't ring bells or wear Hawaiian shirts?). I have issues with Trader Joes for other reasons, but if you're going to buy private label stuff there, you're going to pay extra for the fun stores and fancy graphic design.
But on to the bargains. I was really happy to see that Aldi had a significantly higher percentage of organic products than Bottom Dollar (more than milk!). The first one I happened across was honey, at $3.19. It was also sourced from U.S. producers, which is good. Definitely cheaper than I've seen it elsewhere.
I also saw a few items like organic salad dressings, but they are still processed foods and wouldn't be the greatest choice. Stick to salad dressings that have to be refrigerated, since they are usually made with real ingredients, or go with lemon juice or olive oil/vinegar. Remember that just because something says organic doesn't mean it's a whole food or healthy.
Just inside the door were bags of nuts at really reasonable prices. While they were all conventionally produced, nuts are among the products that are more protected from pesticides because of their shells. Organic nuts are another hard to find product, so these are a great alternative. And if you can bother to chop your own walnuts, you can really save on the price per pound by getting the bigger bag.
Many stores carry generic K-cup single serve coffee pods now. While I think it's better from a waste perspective (and a quality coffee perspective) to use a refillable cup, these K-cups were relatively cheap, but still fair trade. Wouldn't be a bad thing to have on hand for guests, etc.
The produce section left a lot to be desired, since most of it was thrown all over the place. That could have been a product of the fact that we were there toward the end of a major shopping day and it might have been picked over by ravenous shoppers. It was mostly conventional, but the prices weren't nearly as good as Bottom Dollar for the same items.
I did find organic salad greens in the refrigerator case, but they were small containers and for $2.49, not any better than the prices at Whole Foods!
There were two decent options for milk, including Organic Valley 2%, which is a great buy at $3.48 for a half gallon. Organic Valley sources all of its milk from family farmers, and at Aldi it was a great choice. If that's still too expensive, they also had an off-brand gallon of milk for $3.77 that at least was from cows that were not given rBGH, even if their diet wasn't organic.
Aldi had good prices on staples, just like Bottom Dollar. Rice and oats were the primary ones I found, but Aldi has a more limited selection than Bottom Dollar in general.
The non-milk dairy and meat were not any different from Bottom Dollar and there wasn't anything to recommend there. But Aldi had two options for sandwich bread - both 12 grain and whole wheat - that didn't have high fructose corn syrup and were minimally processed.
Probably the best buy I found at Aldi was the organic canned tomatoes. A 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes was only $1.49, which is a terrific price. They also had organic marinara sauce for $1.99. I like to make my own sauces from regular tomatoes, but in a pinch, this would be a good, affordable choice.
It's also important to choose organic tomatoes, not just because of the lack of pesticides, but because most organic tomatoes are grown in California, which is better than Florida, where the humid climate and poor, sandy soil make for poor growing conditions, which lead to the use of more chemicals. (If you want to know more about this, Barry Estabrook's Tomatoland is a great read.)
At the end of the store, Aldi also had a good selection of frozen fruit and vegetables at decent prices. It would be worth doing a real cost comparison on the frozen fruits and veggies at different stores to see where the best deals are, since they are essentially the same thing.
It's also worth noting that Aldi starts their workers at well above minimum wage. We saw a sign for $11.75/hour starting out. I like to support stores that don't hoard profits while condemning their workers to never make ends meet.
I'll definitely be checking out Aldi for particular items on my grocery list. Plus, the more shoppers purchase their organic products, the more likely they are to start to carry more and expand their selection. It's worth a trip!
While I truly believe you can shop at health food stores on a restricted budget (and that "Whole Foods, Whole Paycheck" is not really grounded in fact), it's true that discount grocery stores offer some major bargains. So what if you're trying to eat clean, but you want to reduce your grocery bills? I've been checking out some local stores to see what they offer, and this weekend I went to Bottom Dollar. These stores are popping up all over the Pittsburgh area and boast that they offer the lowest prices around. But what about quality?
My first surprise was the large selection of produce. While they didn't carry any organic produce, they had a wide selection of fruits and vegetables. Even Whole Foods doesn't carry organic produce for every item all of the time, so if you're going to go conventional, it's definitely worth going to a discount store. While I advocate for organic produce, some items are less likely to carry pesticide residue. For example, these onions were only $1.98 for three pounds, and you're going to peel the skins off anyway before you use them. They also carried larger bulk bags of onions and some other items like potatoes, which lowers the price per pound.
After the produce was the meat and seafood area. I didn't find anything in the meat section I'd recommend, since it was all completely conventionally raised. But I was surprised to find frozen fish filets and seafood with a sustainability label. Some of it was sold at a very affordable price per pound - even under $2. While sustainable labels are tricky when it comes to fish, as I learned in this book, this is a good step in the right direction and for a really good price.
In the dairy section, they offered organic milk, which is a good step forward since organic milk cannot come from cows given rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone). (They were stocking it at the time so I couldn't snap a pic.) I also found unsweetened iced tea in the same refrigerated section. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find pre-made unsweetened tea in stores, since most options are full sugar or "diet" with nasty artificial sweeteners. For only $1.98 this Gold Peak tea was a bargain.
The majority of the products in this store were conventional and hyper-processed. The entire section of inner aisles had row after row of chips, cookies, pop, and junk masquerading as good food - canned soups with insane amounts of sodium, breakfast cereals jacked up on sugar.
But I did find a few snack items that would qualify as 'clean' under my definition. They carried several options for unsweetened/no sugar or sweetener added applesauce - even one for kids on the go.
One of the best finds was the low price of staple pantry ingredients. It's not always easy to find organic oats, lentils and rice, even at health food stores. Bottom Dollar had brown rice with no additives for 78 cents/pound and you could also get lentils for less than $1/pound. Oats are typically not GMOs, so that's another one that is passable not organic, especially for these prices when you're trying to stretch a budget.
Spices were also relatively affordable there. I prefer to buy spices in bulk so I can buy small amounts at a time and not have them go stale, but their prices were great on small containers here.
One more positive was the variety of fruits and vegetables available frozen. I prefer frozen vegetables to canned if the cans aren't BPA free (BPA is an endocrine disruptor). While all conventional, the vegetables were incredibly affordable (less than $1 a bag for many types) and the fruits were as well. Frozen fruits like berries can be very expensive, if they are even available at all.
In addition to the food, I also happened across an isle with a small seasonal section with grilling items and you'll never believe it - canning jars. The display had a note saying it was set to go away this week, but I liked to see the store even carrying the products. Who knows if it would put the thought in someone's head to take up canning!
I found Bottom Dollar to have some good choices for basic pantry staples. If you avoid the processed food in the main aisles and stick to produce, seafood and dry, whole foods, you can get some good, clean products for cheap. Enough that it's definitely worth dividing your grocery list for different stores, even though it might mean more work.
I also checked out Aldi this weekend, and will be trying Save-a-lot and Good Cents over the next few weeks. Look for posts on those coming up!
We also decided to switch our warehouse membership to Costco from Sam's Club. Costco carries a lot of organic staples, like extra virgin olive oil and tomato paste, at bulk/warehouse prices. We'll save money getting some organic staples there. Plus, they carry the natural shampoo/body wash I use now. Win win!
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October simplified update: Finished the dining room organization this weekend and now have only two remaining rooms and the dreaded basement. Trying not to let my momentum fade because I'd love this house to be cleaned out by the holidays. Listed my first pair of running shoes on eBay (they were the wrong shoe for my foot) and have continued to sell more books on Amazon.
Mostly favorites and something brand new this week!
New this week is a giant bunch of turnip greens. The email from the farm says you can cook them like spinach, so they might end up sauteed with some chard.
We eat salad all the time in our house and never get tired of it. Why? Because the ingredients are just so delicious. No waxy peppers or red tinted wilty lettuce. They are always colorful and vibrant and they taste like something.
Pea shoots are one of the varieties in the mixed greens bag this week. More tendrils!
The giant pile of peppers will probably be cut into strips and frozen for future fajitas.
Don't forget that comments are open on the FSMA rules until November 15. There's still time to add your voice. For help on how to do that (and to see the comment I submitted), click here.
DIVE! actually came out in 2010, but as part of my quest to watch as many food and environment documentaries as I can, I added it to my queue. The film focuses on waste - in particular what America throws out. The dive to which the title refers? Straight into a dumpster.
In just the first few seconds of the film, we're reminded that America wastes 3,000 pounds of food per second. So in the time it has taken you to read this far, we've wasted several thousand pounds of food.
It's true that 40% of the food that's wasted is thrown out in our households. But what about the other 60%? The film follows people who actually dumpster dive for discarded food from grocery stores.
I was shocked to see how much food they would find on a nightly basis that was perfectly edible. Entire bags of avocados or packages of tomatoes, where one had gone soft or moldy, but the rest were fine. Slightly wrinkled blueberries or bags of salad greens that were one day away from "expiring." Even more shocking was the amount of meat wasted. In the span of seven evenings, the people in the film found enough meat to feed a family for a year. Being outside in the cold night? It stayed refrigerated and sealed. And in the garbage.
The people who do this see it as civil disobedience - actively opposing the immorality of perfectly good food thrown out by corporations when millions of Americans go to bed hungry each night. I see it that way too. Because of the Good Samaritan Act passed during Clinton's presidency, companies are protected from liability for food donations. But many still throw out food in advance of expiration dates. And refuse to donate it, even when asked.
Regardless of the morality factor, it's not even good business practice. We waste 50% of the food produced in this country, to the detriment of our environment, economy and our societal well being. One person in the film is quoted as saying "when you waste food, you waste life." Every time you throw food out, you're not just wasting that food, but all of the resources that went into producing it - water, time, labor, etc.
This film reminds us that we've forgotten that food is precious. It's a valuable gift. We take it for granted and consume it divorced from its true cost. Say you throw out leftovers. What if you also dumped 1,000 gallons of water down the drain at the same time, and then put $5 on your kitchen counter and set it on fire? Would you be more likely to eat, share or preserve that food if you were aware of what you were truly wasting?
While this film felt like a "first documentary" from the filmmaker, with a lot of footage that seemed like it was recorded on someone's iPhone and a lot of "I tried to get someone from X store to speak with me and they refused," it still kept my attention. It also made me interested in reclamation programs that work with companies to salvage discarded food before it's lost to rot or spoilage and help get it where it needs to go to feed people. Even though I probably won't be dumpster diving anytime soon, I will probably ask my grocery store what they do with the food they throw out when I visit this week.
People often tell me that they are interested in eating clean for lots of reasons, but that they are having trouble actually starting or taking the first step. Sometimes they don’t even know what that first step is. To think about making a complete 180 degree change in the way you eat is overwhelming and the process can be intimidating, especially when you feel like you have a lifetime of “bad” habits to overcome and a demanding schedule. Also, there are many definitions floating out there about what constitutes “clean eating.” In my own lifestyle, I define clean eating as choosing minimally processed, whole foods (heavy on the plants), organic when possible, and staying away from heavily processed restaurant food.
Here are some simple tips if you’re interested in transitioning to clean eating, but have found yourself blocked by the idea of getting started.
1. Start small.
While it might feel cliché to say that the journey of a thousand miles starts with one step, it’s 100% truth. Look at what you are eating now. Do you have a soda addiction? Are you constantly going through the drive-thru for dinner? Do you rely on microwaveable, TV-dinner type meals? Choose just one of those areas to focus on. Reducing your consumption even by a small amount is a great first step to eliminating it all together. For most people, going cold turkey is unrealistic for long-term success. In the case of being hooked on soda, try reducing your consumption during the first week by 20%. Or stop ordering soda when you’re at a restaurant and choose water or plain tea instead. When you are comfortable at that level, keep going.
2. Have an arsenal of recipes.
You won’t be able to sustain any kind of lifestyle change if you aren’t eating things you like. Think about the foods you really enjoy and look for recipes that fit in that category. Find some go-to websites or cookbooks where you can easily locate a recipe, especially when a craving strikes. When I have a craving for Chinese takeout, I know where to look for a homemade knock-off recipe that satisfies the craving without all of the extra chemicals and added salt, sugar and fat. I print out recipes that interest me and put them in a three-ring binder that serves as my own homemade cookbook – that way I don’t have to dig around online when I really need something. We’ve also invested in some physical cookbooks that I consider our workhorses. For some clean eating resources, check out this post.
3. Stock your pantry, including your freezer.
We’ve all had nights where your best laid plans for dinner fall through. Maybe you get home from work late or you sat in traffic for an hour and can’t deal with the idea of cooking. If you keep your pantry stocked with basic items, you can throw together an incredibly quick meal. When you make a great chili or soup in the crock pot, freeze half of it for those nights when your plans just don’t work out. It will take you less time to reheat frozen chili than it will to swing through a drive-thru or call for takeout. (Your stomach AND wallet will thank you.)
4. Don’t beat yourself up.
You can’t go from a diet heavy in processed foods and junk to a clean, wholesome diet overnight. Your body almost has to detox from the things it comes to rely on and that it craves. Even when you’re committed, you’re going to have areas that aren’t perfect or that are harder to give up than you thought. Just accept that there will be bumps in the road from the get-go and let them just be bumps – not off-ramps.
If you’re eating clean, what got you motivated to start? How have you kept with it?
This week's share was the first in months to not include tomatoes, which definitely means we're in to fall now. We got a great assortment this week, though.
But before I share what we received this week, I have to take time to mention that the bounty that we get each year from our CSA is truly threatened by new rules that the FDA is trying to establish due to the Food Safety Modernization Act. These rules jeopardize small farms and by extension, our economy, environment and health. You can read directly from our produce CSA why this is such an issue for them here.
Often we think that one voice doesn't matter when it comes to our government and that we're too busy to take the time to speak up when it matters. If you've ever enjoyed produce from your CSA or your local farmers markets, this affects you. Take 10 minutes out of your schedule today to read about these rules and how they will directly affect your community. I linked to resources and ways to comment in this post, last week. It's worth it, if for no other reason than to stand up next to farmers and show your support as a consumer. They shouldn't have to fight this battle alone.
With that said, check out what we received this week.
Depending on what we cook this week, I might slice and freeze peppers, since we have an abundance of them right now. Broccoli will make a great side. (We never get tired of broccoli as a side. Just plain steamed in all its own glory. Yes, I just used the word glory in a sentence about broccoli.)
These greens are great and so flavorful. I love the pieces that have tendrils.
These tiny eggplants might find their way into a slow cooker recipe this week. We've been trying to take advantage of the slow cooker more lately, to take some of the time burden off of cooking at home. In fact, a lentil stew with tomatoes is in the crock pot right now!
The apples this year have been amazing. They are crisp and so flavorful, it makes you never want to touch a waxy apple again. If you've ever wondered why these apples have gray spots, it's from the natural clay treatments they get to ward off disease and pests. It's perfectly fine to eat and you don't even taste it. I think it gives them character.
But taking the prize this week for most beautiful produce is definitely the chard. We like to eat this sauteed with garlic, and even after cooking, the colors are so vibrant.
What did you get in your CSA share this week?
As a geek that loves documentaries, I recently added a bunch of food/environment/science related films to my Netflix/Amazon Prime queues (one of my favorite benefits of streaming vs. cable!). After reading a lot about it on Twitter, I started with Food Matters.
This film focuses around the basic idea that you are what you eat. Garbage in, garbage out – that kind of thing. From the outset, I felt like the filmography was relatively rough – almost manic, with distracting backgrounds and too many vintage clips of instructional films from the 1950s and 1960s.
However, I agreed wholeheartedly with the premise – that this country suffers from an epidemic of chronic malnutrition (as opposed to acute malnutrition or starvation). Far too often in my own experience, I’ve gone to the doctor with an issue and was just given pills and pushed out the door. When I had constant headaches in grad school, the first doctor I saw just wanted to give me pills, even when he knew I was crazy-addicted to caffeine.
The film makes the claim that modern medicine too often treats symptoms and not the underlying disease or condition. Much of what currently ails us as a population can be attributed to our lifestyle – poor diet, lack of exercise and stress. Makes sense. It’s made sense in my own life. I agree with the film’s assertion that the human body has an astonishing capacity to heal itself from many ailments, if given the chance.
Food Matters does a good job of reminding consumers that just like Big Agriculture, Big Pharmaceutical is a half a trillion dollar industry. There is a lot of money involved in treating illness with medicine in this country. Every time you take a blood pressure pill or a blood sugar pill, you are putting money in the hands of drug companies that have a vested interest in you never actually getting off their medication. They make no money from wellness. For the vast majority of the population, it’s affordable and safe to change your diet and start exercising. So why would you want to just stay on the pills when they won’t prolong your life or more importantly, improve your quality of life?
As is the case in Big Agriculture, supporting research for drugs is often sponsored and paid for by the drug companies themselves. Drug companies don’t want to pay for research that suggests that a plant-based diet and an abundance of vitamins and minerals can lead to health. The film also talked about high dosage vitamin therapies that have been studied for years as treatment for various chronic illnesses, including serious illnesses like cancer.
While much of what the film discusses makes perfect sense – that nutrition should be our primary prevention strategy against disease, etc. - it also veers off into more alternative therapies that left me interested, but highly skeptical. For instance, there’s a lot of information on colonic therapies that “cleanse” the body of toxins. As I explained in my post about why I don’t do juice cleanses or lemon juice/maple syrup/vinegar cleanses, a healthy colon doesn’t need help cleansing your body. Don’t put toxins in your body and you won’t have to force them out uncomfortably by drinking 2 liters of water after you get out of bed and having nothing but high fiber juice for days.
The film highlights the Gerson Institute, which champions a holistic therapy for cancer and chronic, degenerative diseases. The therapy, according to their website, includes activating “the body’s extraordinary ability to heal itself through an organic, vegetarian diet, raw juices, coffee enemas and natural supplements.” They claim a great success rate and honestly, I’m not doubting them. Anyone who has ever seen someone suffer from cancer knows that chemotherapy is awful in every possible sense. And anyone who wants to treat their cancer with vitamins and enemas should absolutely have the right to do so. (It’s ridiculous that all of the Gerson clinics have to be out of the country even though they are staffed by MDs that go to the same med schools that other doctors in the U.S. attend.)
But I’m still skeptical that raw juices and enemas are cure-alls. Sometimes disease happens, regardless of the health of your lifestyle. For instance, eating raw foods isn’t going to make my lungs stop being asthmatic. I have a decrease in asthma symptoms because of my increased lung health due to cardiovascular exercise, but I don’t stop having the disease. I also don’t want to go back to my life before being on thyroid replacement hormone – even though my lifestyle has also contributed to a reduction in symptoms.
Overall the film had interesting food for thought, if you’ll pardon the pun. And it serves as a great reminder that the diseases plaguing the west – particularly heart disease and diabetes – can be not only prevented but REVERSED by true lifestyle modifications. I would not put it in the same class of documentaries as Food, Inc. or A Place at the Table, but it wasn’t a waste of an hour.
