“It’s good for you.”
I can hear my wife’s words ringing in my ears every time I peruse the produce section of the supermarket.
There’s no getting around the fact that grocery prices have risen sharply in the last few years, leaving many to agonize, or at least pause, over whether to put an item in the cart or leave it on the shelf. I suspect all but the most well-heeled among us – and community newspaper editor certainly doesn’t put me in that category – do such a dance on a regular basis as we traverse the aisles of the grocery store.
The funny part, I find, is which items I’m willing to pay a higher price for and which ones I draw the line on. It’s far from an exact science, but I think my calculation focuses primarily on how much an item has increased in price in the last little while because I’m pretty sure it doesn’t factor in nutritional benefits.
When we were at the supermarket the other day, I had already done a couple of laps of the produce department when my wife asked what I had found fruit-wise. As is often the case, I had yet to pull the trigger because I was still catching my breath over the prices.
It's typically at this point that my wife reminds me that fruit is good for me, that if we’re going to splurge at the grocery store, it’s probably better to do so on something that’s healthy rather than products with dubious nutritional value.
It’s hard to justify fruit being too expensive when your cart already contains frozen pizza and ice cream – there are healthier items in there too, just to be clear – so I break down and fill a couple bags, only to cringe when I get to the register.
This exercise has become even more painful in recent weeks thanks to the bounty of the summer harvest. Not only has the selection in the produce section grown, but so too have the prices, often reaching a ‘there’s just no way I’m going to pay that’ level, which was the case when I saw nectarines at an eye-watering $7.49 a pound.
Sometimes I wonder whether I’m just being cheap, that I’ve got to get with the times and come to grips with how much certain things cost these days, only to receive a sign that I’m not alone in being taken aback by food prices today. In this case, the sign was followed by a good chuckle.
My wife and I were at the self-checkout of a different grocery store – you have to go to more than one to take advantage of all the weekly deals – when the guy beside us turns and says, “Can you believe it? Eight bucks for these cherries.”
He was shaking his head in disbelief as he made his way back to the produce department to return the bag that didn’t even look like it was half-full.
I feel your pain, brother. My bag of cherries rang in at $12.43.
