a trip to the grocery store

[Grip of Death]

Here's another topic to chew on...

when you walk into a grocery store, you see all kinds of food products. You see some food out in the open, and you see some in boxes, some in vaccum-sealed packages, some in bags and so forth.

I bet when you were little, you thought that eating all these foods were normal, right (as a little child)? Because all of the foods were housed into one roof. And the grocery store has to feed the whole community, right?

Well, Last year, I was not only educating myself about weight loss/health, and losing weight, but I was also taking an "Intro to Business" class during the summer. And I came to merge those two diciplines together to bring out the idea that grocery stores... are just a business too.

Does a business care about your health? hell no. They want your money. Now, I know you're going to be scratching your heads on this one when you've read articles about food companies trying to lower the unhealthy content of their food. For example, a company that makes cookies would take measures to do away with trans fats in their products. On the outside, it sounds so nice that a business cares about your health like that. But in reality, it's just one measure a business will do... if it can have your money. If people don't like trans fats, eliminate them. Having no trans fats in your products means that they will be popular. And hey- if people can live longer because of the lack of trans fats in your products, that means they'll probably buy more products in the long run! All of these reasons are similar to why food makers went along with the whole "low fat" or "low carb" craze.

With the "low carb" crap, even I, early last year, surmised that it couldn't last long for a craze. A diet isn't something you do for 6 months. It's something you do... forever. Besides, it's not like you can hunt atkin's chocolate bars in the wild, at that. What a nice money-leeching ploy.. gonk

Your thoughts about grocery stores?  

[Fuzzykit]

These are all companies that know they're relied on, and so can get away with cutting back on costs and putting crap into their products so they can make an easier profit.  

[Aeren]

have any of you ever been to a food co-op, or like a natural food store. they are really quite interesting. they are more expensive but the food their isn't processed to death like most supermarkets. everything is organic and whatnot. if i had the money i would shop exclusively there.

i agree that they are just out to get your money. sucky but entirely true. which is why most diet products are crap.

newsflash:

if you lose weight, you would stop buying their product,
so if their product truly was the miracle pill/whatever then they really wouldn't profit as much as a few lucky cases of results and then people just wishing they'd get results and keep buying their product.  

[Fuzzykit]

Mental note- buy more natural live bio yoghurt. It seems to give me a lift. ^^  

[Grip of Death]

Dispite my observations that the grocery store has a lot of crap in there, my family still shops there like it's a ritual or something. I'm really gonna have to work with them to motivate them to adjust their current eating habits. sweatdrop

The organic food stores sounds like a really interesting place to go to. I've never been though. But I've been in an asian food store or two that my chinese friend has brought me too. They've got interesting things in there. Just avoid the pocky, lol!  

[Fuzzykit]

My family will never stop buying from the supermarkets. Though occasionally I manage to steer the, in the direction of the health food store. ^-^

Pocky... gah! *Twitch* Strawberry Pocky is my favourite. ^^;

I go to Oriental City regularly. It's a shopping mall, with a food market. You can buy all kinds of funky stuff there. Including 'instant jellyfish'. o.O I also go to Wing Yip on an occasion (a small oriental supermarket).  

[Aeren]

we don't have any asian supermarkets anywhere near me. i've never had pocky either. what is it like?

and i love shopping at natural food stores. but so expensive. bleh.  

[Fuzzykit]

Pocky is yummy and, unfortunately, very more-ish. >_<; It's a stick of cracker biscuit dipped in chocolate and comes in different flavours. heart

My favourite health store items are munchy seeds, dried fruit and crystalised ginger (a few of my friends think I'm nuts for liking the latter). heart domokun heart  

[Indie_Marauder]

We're not exactly rich, so a supermarket is the place we shop... for me, it's will power versus junk food. At the particular place we shop, every two centimeters seems to be covered in some sort of literal junk food (seasonal candy, chips, on sale pop, etc). It's rather annoying if you want to avoid it! :p You have to go to the other side of the store for the fresh fruit and vegetables , even the bread. I swear, they think everyone has a metabolism like Jennifer Aniston... I'd love to venture into the natural food stores...but it's so expensive... bah. sad  

[kochi~mochi]

eek Poor Aeren! No pocky? Its the best thing in the world! I don't get it often though. The small table made of pocky boxes (supported by wood) was made mostly by donations (of the empty boxes, naturally) from friends.

On the subject of supermarkets, does anyone have any thoughts on what to do if you can't get your mom to go to the health food store for everything because its expensive? and easy and quick to prepare dinners for one person? My mom has night classes, so heat-it-up food has been the answer for a while... Need to stop doing it, but its hard to think of other food when your hungry and its right there.  

[Scarlet Sayuri]

pocky is yummy, and as long as you eat it in moderation (1 stick vs 1 box) it's a great little snack. I've found it at several regular grocery stores, usually in the candy isle or the aisan (or international) food isle. Just look around a little.

the grocery stores will put out any food that they think people will buy .. it's up to us to determine what food we should actually purchase and consume. part of having a healthy life is educating yourself on what sort of food you should eat ... including what you should buy from the grocery store. The most helpful tip - the fewer ingredients the better, the less steps it had to go through to go to you the better (like vegetables and such) .. the fresher the better.  

[Divash]

So very true! I remember the day I realized that just because a carton of Ben & Jerry's was smaller than those huge cartons of other brands of ice cream didn't mean that it was a single serving. I felt so betrayed. One carton of Ben & Jerry's is FOUR servings. The same holds true for many/most packaged foods that come in smaller sizes -- they are usually two to four servings per package, not one serving. I had never bothered to read the labels before.

By contrast, one apple is one serving of fruit. One peach is one serving of fruit. One pear. One kiwi. One... okay, well, a banana is two servings, but that just means you can share it with your friend or spouse or kid. Now, that's something I can appreciate: natural packaging. The peel tells you how big the serving should be!  

[drummer06]

There also seems to be a major deterant on those of us who want to loose weight, price. Candy is always ALWAYS going on sale or cheap, this is a quick, tasty and cheap snack compred to the much more expensive breakfast bars. They're just as high in calories but the candy is empty calories, a candy bar can be 65 cents while these bars are five dollars for four bars