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Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores
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Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores
#222I grew up in Montana so I am probably one of the few millennial Americans that probably recalls what life is like before supermarkets. They were just becoming a thing there as I was growing up. (Very, What's Eating Gilbert Grape.) We had an IGA in the small town I grew up in. The fresh food options there were borderline Soviet. We went to a butcher to get our meat when we didn't have meat from hunting. We got produce…
Yes, but the taste of the veggies, fruits, berries and meat is far worse in supermarkets vs buying directly from growers / butchers.
Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores
#223Anecdotal I guess but I’ve visited 15-20 countries across Europe and Asia in the last ~10 years and the supermarkets were largely not great relative to your average American Kroger.
Yeah I think the like lowest end bread at an Italian grocery store is going to be way better than the lowest end "bread" at an American grocery store, but the difference is at the American store there is literally (I shit you not) 50-100 varieties of bread and a lot of them are decent (actually by a lot I mean like 4-10).
In my experience almost none of the US supermarket breads are decent. They almost all have added sugar and don't taste good compared to UK/French/Italian bread. There is one brand called "The Rustic oven" that has come out recently that has no added sugar and isn't bad, but that's the exception.
Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores
#224UK supermarkets are crap, and have got noticeably crapper in recent years. At even large mid-tier supermarkets you will find a paltry range of fruit and veg, and a maeger selection of almost entirely prepackaged meat and fish. I have noticed many things are routinely out of stock and it can be a lottery shopping for a specific recipe. I recently visited Portugal, and in a small city supermarket there was a bakery, me…
> I find this every time I shop on the continent. Are our standards that much lower? Is it just Brexit? I yearn for a European supermarket experience in the UK.
I think it’s an Anglo thing. Canada, the US, and Australia are all like this too.
Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores
#225Farmer's markets are the way to go for produce if you have farms in your area. Some are overpriced and upscale, some are cheaper than your local chain grocery store. You can also buy grains/beans in bulk at lower prices, often direct from farmer's coops, and have it shipped to your door. Get a pressure cooker for beans, a rice cooker, save on the gas prices as they're electric, and use an induction electric stove. If…
I have never seen a cheap farmers market. Around here they seem to be exclusively for and patronized by wealthy older people, who don't blink at paying $7 for a head of lettuce.
The real farmers that drive in to urban areas tend to do the majority of their business with restaurants, often the rather better ones that want high-quality or unique produce (this is according to farmers I've talked to who referred to their farmer's market sales as 'nickel-and-dime'.)
Some of them do a half-off sale for everything they've got at the last half-hour of the market, that's good to know. Some are just buying from the wholesalers, too, that's something to watch out for as others note - but some of those run lower margins than the local grocery stores, so it's cheaper to buy from them.
Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores
#226I grew up in Montana so I am probably one of the few millennial Americans that probably recalls what life is like before supermarkets. They were just becoming a thing there as I was growing up. (Very, What's Eating Gilbert Grape.) We had an IGA in the small town I grew up in. The fresh food options there were borderline Soviet. We went to a butcher to get our meat when we didn't have meat from hunting. We got produce…
Very well said. It doesn't sound like I grew up as rural as you, but I can remember going to small grocery stores growing up that functioned in the same way you mentioned. People around me often had to travel to different cities to find the food they needed (and it's actually going back in that direction due to poverty). I would not be surprised if a large number of people got a good portion of their food from hunting today.
I live near several supermarkets now and they have literally everything, all the time. But it's like you said, it takes time to cook good food. In addition, when you grow up having so much access to quick meals (including restaurant options), you grow up never learning how to actually cook and I think it takes you a lot longer than it would have otherwise. It seems to me nobody knows how to cook anymore because it's barely necessary.
Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores
#227[deleted]
Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores
#228I grew up in Montana so I am probably one of the few millennial Americans that probably recalls what life is like before supermarkets. They were just becoming a thing there as I was growing up. (Very, What's Eating Gilbert Grape.) We had an IGA in the small town I grew up in. The fresh food options there were borderline Soviet. We went to a butcher to get our meat when we didn't have meat from hunting. We got produce…
As a child of immigrants (who were farmers/rural prior to coming to America) sit-down dinner with family was tantamount if you were eating at home that day.
I assumed everyone did this, until I found out most of my friends did not eat dinner together with family. My shock at this was immense.
I wonder if Thanksgiving dinners are equally so contentious as they are cherished because of how rare family dinners have become. People aren’t just used to being stuck together with family at home at one table like that anymore.
Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a British expat, the “yellow onions” you see in US supermarkets are most familiar.
Also as a British expat, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose in Bath had all of the types of onion you’d find in the US pre-pandemic - though I haven’t been back since. I’d imagine Brexit may have ruined that.
I can't speak for Sainsbury's or Waitrose in Bath specifically, but neither Brexit nor the coronavirus has impacted my onion buying ability.
Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores
#230Australia has the best supermarkets in the world, hands down. Why? Because we grow and produce almost all of our fresh produce, dairy, meat, and seafood. There are some exceptions for seasonal things, but the Australian climate allows for almost everything we eat to be grown here. The solution to this problem in the US and the UK is less globalism, not more.
Is that true? I feel like most of the stuff I see in stores in the US is from the US or Mexico. Maybe South America to deal with seasonal changes.