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Bay Area. Last time I was in the store, strawberries were around $3 a pound. For some sad looking strawberries, probably completely tasteless. Bell peppers were like $3 or $4 a pound as well. In the summer, the same berries are $1 a pound. When they are tasty and in season. Same with the Bell Peppers. The greens are about $.69 a pound in the summer. Melons are like $2 a pound (or more), but in the summer the price is $.49. When they are in season.
I am skeptical of winter strawberries for $1 a pound.
Right now the cheapest conventional produce is broccoli, oranges, grapefruit and carrots. Potatoes are about $.50/pound. All clocking in somewhere around $1 a pound.
Unless the supermarket has a spectacular sale, I buy our produce at Sprout's. I've found them to be the freshest of all the stores around and their sale prices are excellent. (We also get produce from a local co-op, but that's not available to everyone.)
Moderator cut: We really do not need what appears by some to be a sales pitch. If you wish to discuss local stores, post them in the appropriate forum. This forum cover the entire United States (perhaps the whole world?)
Last edited by Poncho_NM; 02-02-2013 at 11:06 AM..
Though I basically agree with you about our diets being our own choice, I also realize and we all have to understand: 1-not everybody even has the intellegence to think about the connection between diet and heatlh: 2-their enviornment growing up exposed them to unhealthy choices and 3-it is no different today than in years past. Some have always eaten a healthy diet, some middle of the road and a certainl element of our society have lived on junk food. Even when it comes to illnesses like diabetes, the difference today as compared to 30 or 50 years ago: we didn't used to even get checked for it and a huge part of soiciety never heard of welmess check ups. one more thing, the availbility of fast food hasn't helped.
Obesity rates have gone up tremendously compared to even 15 or 20 years ago. Really, did we even see morbidly obese people then? Now it is so common that hospitals have to have dozens of bariatric wheelchairs and beds.
At the clinic where I work we have a bariatric lab chair and bariatric blood pressure cuffs.
When I was in school you seldom saw an overweight child. Now it is extremely common.
another issue and netwit sorta hit on it: our families in some cases grew up on farms. They did not always eat healthy, low fat, in fact they rarely did, but they also worked hard The word exercise wasn't in their vocabulary, they just did it via physical work. Even for those of us who are over 50 or so: we remember when we didn't have dryers, we hung our clothes on the line: we did a lot of ironing, we didn't have light weigh vacumns, we didn't have dish washers. Who heard of a micro, a blender or remote control? Our everyday activities meant burning calories. We also spent more time playing outside, kids rode bikes or walked everywhere, every child had PE in school.
This is why I get a llitle miffed at people who put down overweight people. yes, it is a conscience decision but it goes deeper than that..
I was thinking a little bit about something similar. My grandmother's family weren't farmers, but she would often talk about how her dad and brothers would eat bread spread with lard or bacon grease becaue it was cheap and it gave them enough calories to get through their hard working day. I can see how these traditional fried family recipes are a throwback from when people didn't sit at a desk all day and in front of the TV all night.
I agree 100% with OP's post. Gee whiz, many of our parents cooked by deep-frying a lot and a salad was a wedge of iceberg lettuce with a dollop of bottled some red-colored dressing. And they bought soda by the caseload and my many fillings attest to that!
But many of us, concerned with our health, and wanting to be vibrantly well, have evolved to cooking differently. Roasting, sauteing, poaching instead of deep-frying. Little sugar, healthy fats, big yummy salads with a rainbow of colors.
Everything we need to know is out there and readily available--and free at the library in the many nutrition and cookbooks and over the 'net.
So, sure it's a conscious decision to eat garbage and expect the medical profession to fix us up with surgery, by-passes and lots of pills.
If we truly want to change, it's easy--no one "has" to teach us. To the eager student, much learning is self-taught--but it has to be desired.
Some are mired in their old habits and comfortable there. 'Tis a pity.
Unless the supermarket has a spectacular sale, I buy our produce at Sprout's. I've found them to be the freshest of all the stores around and their sale prices are excellent. (We also get produce from a local co-op, but that's not available to everyone.)
Sprouts Farmers Market is a privately owned chain of specialty with over 100 locations in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and Utah. Sprouts Farmers Market recently acquired and merged with Sunflower Farmers Market. I have used them... We have a few in my area.
For me - it's a time issue and not a money issue. I have a demanding job with long hours and we are right in the heart of swim season for my high school senior son.
I rarely take a lunch so shopping on my lunch hour is out and DS is not home until 7:30 or 8:00 at night. However, this is the time of year when he needs to eat a LOT and to have healthy food as well.
If anything, he's underweight.
So, I try to fix some kind of healthy, yet filling, meal every night. It's HARD!
I just watched a very interesting episode of Our America with Lisa Ling last night, and the topic was obese kids.
I got a little ticked off at the one point when the mother of a 300lb 12-year-old girl was talking about all the extremely fattening greasy stuff she cooks, because that's how her own mother taught her. She was deep-frying everything, and her idea of "fruit" was canned fruit in heavy syrup. Lisa asked her if she could cook anything healthful and the lady said something like "No, someone has to teach me. I never learned."
Someone has to TEACH YOU? Really?
I honestly think that in this day & age, everyone in our country...everyone in the civilized world, knows what foods are fattening and which are not, knows which are healthy, and has at least a ballpark idea of healthy portion sizes.
This woman may have learned from her mother to cook fattening food, but she never watched any TV show that talked about healthful fooods? She never saw a healthy cookbook? She had a big huge TV, so I'm sure at some point, some small bit of nutrition knowledge would have trickled in. I see messages about healthy foods every single day in the short time I have my TV on. Even if she couldn't afford cook books (the show profiled poorer families) there are libraries, used books, and TONS of free resources. I can't even imagine the immense number of free government-created resources on nutrition that we've all paid for and are still paying for.
This lady is cooking and eating in an unhealthful way BY CHOICE, not due to any lack of knowledge.
I don't eat the most healthy diet all the time, but I certainly know what is and isn't fattening, and what is and isn't healthy. When I eat fattening stuff, it's by choice. An informed choice. I can't blame it on ignorance.
It just really annoyed me when this woman abdicated all responsibility and said SOMEONE ELSE must teach her. Even the 12 year old girl was trying to tell her mom how canned fruit doesn't really count as fresh fruit.
To me, it's like smoking. This isn't 1955...by now everyone knows that smoking causes lung disease. People have the freedom to choose to smoke, but it's a choice, an informed choice. Lots of people eat really unhealthful, fattening foods, but it's always by choice if the person is an adult with at least an 80 IQ.
I just wish that all of us, those who eat 100% perfectly healthy diets, those in the middle like me, and those who eat crappy diets, could all just agree that what we buy and eat is our conscious choice and not claim ignorance. How much more "education" can we pay for? Mrs. Obama, Dr. Oz, and Richard Simmons could have all gone in-person to this woman's house and spent a full week teaching her about food, and she STILL would choose crappy food.
I just ticks me off when I hear people say "oh the poor just need more education about food" or "it's the person's culture...they don't know any better." It's insulting.
Agree to a point, but in my view, even the government isn't telling people to eat a health diet when it says 6-11 servings of grains a day.
If "too many grains" were the only problem with these obese families, then I'd agree.
There is always conflicting advice out there about what is more nutritious. The government went from the 4 food groups, to the food pyramid, to the more flexible yet confusing "my plate" guidelines. Then you have diet gurus all saying something different.
But none of that is relevant.
Every source would say that eating lots of pre-packaged junk, lots of sweets, lots of grease, and frying everything is BAD. They might disagree about proportions, or prefering/destesting one particular food group (carbs for ex), but they all agree on the basics.
You could ask any 8 year old which foods are healthier and which are less healthy, and which are fattening, and he'll know the answers.
I was watching Martha Stewart cooking show. she teaches you how to cook.. its on a PBS type station. Anyway, it is easy to make delish low calorie food, you can wrap meat and veggies in parchment paper and steam it in the oven, quick and easy.. quicker than going out to MacDonalds and looks good!
You can quickly cook on top of the stove making stir fry and really delicious too.
I like one pot dinners that you have for more than 1 time. chilli and stew is quick and healthy, also i put some salmon in a glass baking dish, top with lemon slices, then i put frozen or fresh asparagus on top and put water in the pan and after cooking time (45 minutes?) its done. it takes only a few prep minutes and then i can plop on my chair and relax from commuting.! voila dinner ready shortly.
I really like the Martha Stewart shows! she makes things look easy and quick.
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