Week 2, Day 6: Food Shopping

It’s kind of amazing to count up all the big and little things that go into making a meal at home.

So far this week I’ve evaluated the tools I cook with, the actual food stored in my house, and the visual spaces where I prep and serve meals. 

For today, I took some time to think through my process of planning and purchasing food, from list making and shopping to prepping and using the ingredients.

My favorite food shopping excursions are usually Target, but this blog is about getting real, and food shopping at Target is really about 75% food shopping and 25% the thrill of the clearance end caps and Spot’s Playground at the front of the store with merchandise that seems to be updated every.single.time I shop there. They have made “I’ll just pick this up while I’m here” an art form. 

A cool side effect of purging my house of so many of those irresistible little treats is that when I went to Target this week, those little seasonal treasures that greeted me as I walked in the door no longer resembled what’s missing from my home, they resembled what is stuffed into a dozen garbage bags downstairs. Pass.

I’d hoped to get to meal planning today, but haven’t done much with it, yet. I did take some steps to make the actual process of grocery shopping a little easier though, starting with my reusable shopping bags. Before today, I must have kept every reusable bag I’ve collected over the past decade or so of using them.  It would be wasteful not to, right? Except that when I go to the grocery store, if I remember my bags, it’s an overflowing tangle of insulated, simple cotton, foldable, produce-specific and a few ripped and barely usable bags and who wants to mess with that in middle of a check-out line? I packed up my favorites, put them in my trunk, ready to be used and repurposed the rest to bag up some of the kitchen and household donations piling up downstairs. 

If you have a meal prep and/or meal planning system you love or tips that work for you, I’d love to hear about it – post a comment here or send me a message on Facebook or Instagram!