In an article in today’s New York Times, the twin brothers, Tom and Jeff Heinen who own Heinen’s grocery stores (a local Cleveland chain) are featured in an article about how they are trying to remain competitive despite rising food costs.
I thought the article was interesting firstly because a Cleveland based grocery chain was featured in the New York Times and secondly because we too have been struggling a bit with rising food costs. The one tip in the article was to buy more prepared foods because according to the Heinen’s brothers you will end up saving money by not throwing away anything (i.e. scraps from prepping the veg, trimming meat).
I am not sure what to think about that… prepared foods tend to be expensive and are never quite as good as home made. I am more inclined to buy local and try to use what we buy.
Although we are not perfect on this front, we are trying to buy more local produce. Just as the article points out, however, one of our biggest expenses is the amount of food we just throw out, either because we do not make a planned dish and the produce goes bad or we make too much and get tired of the left overs.
In our particular situation it does not help that Whole Foods (AKA Whole Paycheck) is the nearest grocer and in general they are open later than the competition. Also in my opinion Whole Foods has a modest selection of local goods, even though they are trying to market themselves as local (the word local seems to be their seasonal catch phrase as it was emblazoned on shopping bags and large banners throughout the store).
What are you doing to help deal with the rising costs of food?
Well I am certainly not buying more processed, I am buying fresh and processing my own sans the myriad preservatives/HFCS that you will find in an ordinary can of maters
I don’t have a problem with waste, I will take veggies and sautee with a little olive oil and spices and make a meal of them.
Zagaras, another Cleveland area family-owned grocer, is walking distance so I am also able to buy fresh daily … not to mention my weekly trips to the Coit Road farmers market.
LOL … I also call Whole Foods “whole paycheck” and went there once and was really disappointed to find such a small amount of local food.
I am shaking my head at the suggestion to buy “processed food”.
Put me down with Ms. Mom for nay on the premade. It’s amazing how composting makes tossing vegetable peelings feel good. And for bigger pieces it’s veggie stock. Plus, even with recycling, the loads of plastic (or corn) packaging with the premade stuff kills me.
As an ex-Heighter, I long for Zagaras, and it’d even be nice to have a Whole Paycheck or a good Heinen’s nearby. It’s slim pickins where I’m at, but there’s always the Shaker Farmers Market for good stuff, and the West Side Market for fish and incidentals.
I really don’t think that Whole Foods is as expensive as people make it out to be. Sure, it’s expensive compared to shopping at Marc’s or Giant Eagle and buying middle of the road brands. But, for what it sells, Whole Food’s prices are generally in line with Trader Joe’s or Giant Eagle’s higher end stuff.
Plus, I would rather spend more on food without the high fructose corn syrup, nasty preservatives, hormones, etc. and spend less on other items in my life.
I agree that it is worth the extra money to buy higher quality food — but for us our frequent trips to WF (Whole Food’s other nick name around our house) have made a significant impact on our budget. One recent example was paying over $30 in raw ingredients to make tomato tarts. ($10 in tomatoes alone!) We did not even end up eating them all before they went bad (which I realise is our own problem, we could have frozen the left overs, etc). Had Zagara’s been open we could have gotten the same ingredients for much less.
I think Ben and I need to get better about planning meals and only buying what we will actually eat and/or making plans for using left overs. And I need to get better about eating left overs, I don’t care for them — but I need to get over it.
ds — Thanks for the bike advice
No problem. I hope you like your new ride. I think it’s great that you guys bike together as a family!
–ds