To Market We Must Go

Photo Credit: SunshineandRetail via Compfight cc

You know that moment when you realize your household is out of food, and you are 3 days short of the day you were planning on going shopping?

Yeah, we've arrived there.

Don't get me wrong, it isn't as though we can't go to the store. It just means that we are going to have to go today to get us through the next 3 days, and then again on Friday to do our regular shopping for the month. And any week in which you have to go to the grocery store twice is not a good week, in my opinion. I must acknowledge my gratefulness that I have the means to go and buy groceries, but that doesn't make me like the flickering lights, the lines, or the air of impatience in the average grocery store any better.

We have still not completely gotten a handle on shopping for the household now that better than 90% of our meals are prepared at home. We got a lot closer this month (only missing by 3 days), but holy smoke do we go through a TON of food nowadays, We're having to buy things we never used to buy (shrimp and other seafood springs immediately to mind), and we're having to buy daily quantities of items (like fresh produce) that used to only make occasional apperances on our plates. It takes an awful lot of provender to get two people through a month when you are no longer relying on fast food and pizza to supplement your diet.

One thing that has totally improved is food waste. We used to throw away pounds of unused produce and leftovers every month. Now we are scraping the bottom of our crisper drawers looking for one last pepper or cucumber. This makes me very happy - throwing food away every month used to drive me crazy. It feels not only wasteful but insulting given the amount of hunger in the world - a moral failure on my part, if you will. It is an unintended happy side-effect of healthy eating.

But the real kicker here is that starting this month we have to begin planning for 2 months worth of "protein shake only" diets in the next 90 days. (One month each, surrounding our surgery dates.) We're getting lots of help from friends and relatives on the protein shakes already, but 180 protein shakes in the next 3 months eats an awful lot of grocery money. Not to mention that we're going to have to figure out single-person meal planning for whoever is not current going through a pre- or post-surgical diet.

The bright spot? By the end of summer, this will all be behind us. With each of us only being able to handle only 2 - 4 ounces of food at any given meal, our grocery shopping should go WAY down. Leaving us plenty of money to spend on protein shakes, multivitamins, bottled water, dietary supplements...

Damn. I am never going to get out of this going to the store thing, am I?

Wondering If Cardboard Counts As Low-Carb,

- Hawkwind