Question for ameirbros: how do you manage grocery shopping...

I'm a busy student and here's what I do:

I buy several large bags of frozen chicken breast. The kind that's coated in a glaze to protect it. I was skeptical, but it's actually really decent. You get good cuts with very minimal fat and no skin, too. They flash freeze it which destroys fewer cells, it's generally cheaper than fresh, and why spend more for fresh when you're going to take it home and freeze it yourself? You're ruining the product you paid for. If I want fresh, I use it that same day. That said, meats that are vacuum packed and/or high in fat, will freeze well. Bacon, sausage, ground beef (72% lean), whole chickens, pork shoulders, pork ribs, etc.

I load up on frozen vegetables. Broccoli florets (go for a good brand that isn't just stems), mixed vegetables, green peas, bags of soup vegetables (just add meat (or no meat), broth and V8 for a delicious soup), stir fry vegetables (these are good for curry), etc.

Then I buy bulk brown rice because it's more filling, and I've started to prefer it.

Meals are as simple as loading the rice cooker in the morning and turning it on, searing a piece of meat, and steaming some vegetables.

For snacks, breakfast, dessert: containers of non-fat Greek yogurt and a bottle of honey. Probably the healthiest dessert you can eat. Add some wheat germ, too. Fruits with skins like blueberries thaw decently enough. I LOVE weetabix, but muesli, raisin bran, etc. are good.

That takes care of the bulk shopping. Now all I have to do is grab a basket and fill up on fresh meats, fruits, vegetables and a quart of milk. Do that once a week, very early in the morning if you can. As soon as they open. 6-7 AM. You'll be in and out of there in less than 15 minutes. If it's summer, you'll also beat the heat.

This man knows how to live.

Frozen vegetables can still be pretty good if you're not getting the shit that's pressed into a little square, and it's easier on time to shop for 30-45 minutes each week than 20 minutes every other day.

Buy a mix of fresh vegetables you'll use within a few days and a few bags of frozen stuff for the end of the week.

the hell are you doing that your greens going bad on you is such a concern, leaving them out in the sun?

>Frozen vegetables can still be pretty good
I hope you don't actually believe that.

are you fucking retarded? I am just trying to figure out how this works?

>containers of non-fat Greek yogurt and a bottle of honey. Probably the healthiest dessert you can eat

Non fat yogurt with imitation vanilla extract and aspartame is healthier. And it tastes better.

I'm not them, but if you're going to cook them into a soup, stew, curry, etc., then buying fresh is a waste of money. Frozen should (in theory) retain more flavor, vitamins, and minerals. The texture suffers is all. If you want a vibrant stir fry or grilled vegetables, then not so much.

i don'y unddysnf.

1. where are you from?
2. you are smart enough to get into grad school, but can't figure out how to shop?

Go to the store, buy the stuff you want, stand in line, pay for it, and go home. No one is forcing you to eat cake, ice cream, and chips.

t. fat kissless neckbeard

Read the rest of the line.
Peas hold up fairly well to freezing. Canned peas are an abomination.
Broccoli Is still decent for use in soups.
Some brands of frozen brussel sprouts are good, but some are always woody tasting trash.
Squash and zucchini have always been good, but I usually thaw then and put them over pork in the oven so even the fresh stuff comes to the same consistency.

you have to go back

seriously. go to the store, buy what you want and go home

if you like, buy a week's worth of a food at a time

if you like, buy just a day or two worth of food

Always go with a list. If you want fresh veggies and fruits you have to go shopping once a week at least, just like in your homeland. I never use a cart when I go to the mart, I can always get my week's worth of food with a basket.

Also, know when the busiest and least busiest times to go are. If you can go in the middle of the day (noon) or very early in the morning, go. If weekends are the only option, Saturday mornign when they open, or Saturday night are your best bets.

Also, pay attention to the local football team schedule. When the NFL team is playing, the market will be empty. If it's a big college football town, same rule applies but for Saturday.

Not him, but I'm also an Euromigo living in USica.
In my country, we shop at least three times per week. Many of us do it daily or nearly so.

I shop once or twice per week, but still keep to my roots. It's not that much different here if you're only buying whole foods and not prepackaged foods. Also
>20+ minutes
Nigga, I'm disabled and I don't complain about it much, likely because I live in an area with literally 12 supermarkets within a 20 minute walk (5 minute drive) of my house. I'm sorry you live in such a desolate area, user.

There's been a psychology study, which grocery stores have adapted to with their market design. You see, we go counter clockwise starting with the front right of the store.

You ever wonder why there are flowers and shit there? You think anyone's going to the grocery store to buy flowers? No, it's for the impression of freshness. Same reason why the first food items you see there are the produce and deli sections.

The invention of the shopping cart did not pick up well in the beginning. It initially offended men's masculinity that they couldn't have the strength to carry their diet in their hands. So the original stores actually hired models to push around carts in the store to give it a sense of normalcy. Eventually, we came around to start using carts, which was a boon to the grocery stores because (surprise, surprise) you can buy larger amounts of food when you can cart it around.

Just like the more obvious things like putting the staples such as a gallon of milk in the back corner, to make you walk through the place and grab a few more items. Or the impulse-buy items like candy, jerky, and magazines at the checkout registers.

There's a reason behind everything, and the human subcontinent is a powerful factor.

>We usually have larger refrigerators and freezers. It's just fewer trips, and some stuff is more economical to buy in larger quantities.
This. Also packaging of salads with gases gives some things longer shelf lives unopened.

As a grad school student, to be honest, you might do just as well dining at the grocery store soup/salad/pizza/hot deli fixins and pay exactly the same amount of money on your food, plus you save a load of time in what is a pretty time in your life (assuming you don't live with a gf/bf sharing the chores with you).

I tend to shop massive once every three weeks, to keep my pantry stocked for hurricane season, and with my favorites, whether they be chili or italian nights, or just a lifetime supply of coffee and granola bars. I bake to destress. My sister who made it through medical school and residency liked to eat cereal or tunafish-onion-celery salad sandwiches at home on frozen bread toast, along with oatmeal, yogurt and bags of apples. Snacks were always dried fruit and nuts. She seriously NEVER bought anything else other than earl grey tea. All cravings and other meals were eaten out of Wegmans, Cosi, greek place, pho or whatever else was convenient on the way home or out on a Saturday.

For you,if alone, I'd consider some assortment of freezer containers, so that when you do cook, you preplan some leftovers to be enjoyed later from the freezer. Because as another user said, buying in quantity saves money. I section 3lbs of ground sirloin into burgers to cook for my dog, and 1lb portions for one pot dinners like spaghetti or chili. If I want some pot stickers, I typically make 50, and park a few in the freezer. They're about 8 minutes to resteam in a skillet with a little oil. Edamame is a constant thing, so I get it in 5lb bags at Costco. Dunno where you're from, but if you stock up on your rotation of usual food purchases when on sale, you probably will cut down your overall bills 30-50% overall.

Just eat on campus.

I don't know why people who live off campus find visiting the dining hall so taboo. Most schools have bought into the liberal propaganda and offer more healthy options than they do shitty junk food, if that's such a big sticking point for you.

Fuck, the last thing I want to do after a long day of school is walk to my car in some far off parking lot, spend an hour at the store, drive back, and come back to my shitty apartment and cook it.

Plus you can usually tack on a meal plan to your financial aid or scholarships, so why the fuck wouldn't you?

Also, we don't eat fresh produce here, you should know that by now OP.

> When the NFL team is playing, the market will be empty. If it's a big college football town, same rule applies but for Saturday.

this
put your damn eggs in the fridge!
>not buying all your groceries for 1-2 weeks in one go.

not bad. you know how to feed yourself but not how to eat. The routine doesn't bore you?

The food is fucking disgusting at 99.9% of dining halls, I don't even know if places like High Point that pamper the fuck out of their students have good dining halls, plus a meal plan roughly comes out to $15 a meal at most schools, or $10 if you can eat there three times a day with their shit hours, which you might as well go to restaurants/delis at that price

>healthy food is liberal propaganda
And this is why everyone thinks american conservatives are fat uneducated idiots, fucks like you give us a terrible name
I shouldn't even be surprised you think it makes any sense to eat on campus when you have a kitchen

You should re-read this part:

>Now all I have to do is grab a basket and fill up on fresh meats, fruits, vegetables and a quart of milk.

There's a lot of implied variety there.

Don't know what it's like in your shit country, OP, but not all American grocery stores are the same.

Different stores stock different items at different prices. Fruits and vegetables, for example, are always cheaper at ethnic grocery stores.

>I should let the school jew me out of 5K+ to let me eat at their shitty dining hall
Holy shit

meal plan for me would be 2k a semester, thats 4 months.

500 bucks a month on food would be absurd for a family of 4, let alone one person

>limes
No thanks, I'm not a braindead liberal

This is either advanced retardation or advanced shitposting

Depends on proximity to your store. A lot of people go to big stores and buy for the week or freeze. Personally, since I live 6 minutes away from my local store, I just use a small basket and buy for three or four days since im shopping for one. Coupons and sales are also a big help in terms of getting a bit extra with snacks and junk.

He's just angry Grandma Carlene didn't bake him the usual sugar cream pie that she does every Sunday.

The only grocery store here within miles is hannefords. Everything is overpriced and ridiculously expensive down to the most basic of thing almost of the time. I buy one or two things every time every couple of days because I bare to buy the most basic of shit and it still come out to almost $30-60 dollars. I rather fucking starve.

>And it seems like everyone is using these gigantic wheeled pram things instead of an ordinary basket.
you some of those ppl have a family right?

im single and usually use the basket unless i get bottled water in bulk

In most European cities I've visited, I could do all my grocery shopping without going a single block out of my way. It was really nice.

Most people in cities live in apartments/flats.

Most apartment buildings have independent dry goods markets on the first floor or in the basement (if your building has a walkdown into the basement area).

Literally every building I've lived in was like that, and that's three different countries. In two of those countries, we could do our shopping for pantry staples from our kitchen window, though one doesn't do that much anymore.
There's a rope attached to a hook or rail and a basket on the other end. Clip a note to the basket with a clothespin and slowly descend the basket down to the first floor. The shop owner sees it, notes which flat it is, fills the basket, you pull it back up and you pay him next time you go downstairs (or he comes to get it).
For produce, fresh meats and fresh fish, we'd go out to the grocer, the butcher and the fishmonger, but for pantry staples, dairy, the odd onion or head of garlic from time to time and snack foods, it's as easy as dropping a basket out a window.

Grocery store on the way back from work for various things, farmers market as needed (open wednesday through saturday only unfortunately) for produce, spices, and some meats, butcher when I need meat I can't find at the farmers market. It's all pretty close by and I'm in a midwestern US city.

This seems so futuristic to me, for some reason. Like a densely populated city in a cyberpunk universe. I would have loved to visit Kowloon Walled City.

Anyone know some good movies to watch on Netflix that fits this description that isn't Bladerunner? I'd also be willing to rent on Amazon.

Terry Gilliam's Brazil

City living is good for convenience but really bad for price. Well at least here in Paris where you get super ripped off. Monoprix for example sells onions for like 3.50€ euros per kilo. I remember seeing a packaged pack of onions (5) for 5 euros. The fuck? I miss London sometimes for the blessed tesco and other cheapo places...

I recently discovered the wonders of shopping at a local Mexican grocery store. Things are dirt cheap. The other day, marinaded chicken drumsticks were like 70 cents a pound. The produce is a hit and miss though.

27 year old single guy here, I used to make a lot of different meals throughout the week but I got sick of going to the store all the time.

Now I eat one meal for an entire week. Please don't be like me.

You live so deep in Buttfuck Nowhere that limes are exotic

What are you eating this week?

I don't know what the big deal is, every once in a while I make myself a big pot of mac and cheese that usually lasts me a week. Gives me a breakfast, lunch at work, and a dinner with no effort aside from baking it.

Right now it's summer and I'm a member of a CSA. My weekly share of veggies is really more than the wife and I can eat in a week. So I spend time processing some of them for canning and/or freezing. I almost never go to the supermarket in the summer. Winter is a different story.

That man has about 3x as much hair as bernie

Tacos

It gets tiring when it's 52 weeks out of the year. That's an exaggeration but it really gets hard to motivate yourself to eat those last few meals a week

Yet, it's extremely low-tech.
Today, many European countries don't do it anymore for some reason, but in the 90s, that was super common in Italy, where I'm from.
Don't quite get why it doesn't happen anymore in most places, though a few in Europe still do. As a kid, we occasionally even bought produce and ice cream this way, because we had produce trucks with loudspeakers, the same way the US has ice cream truckers.
They'd shout into the speakers to announce that they're coming and you'd go to the window and call down with what you need/want. The driver would tell you the price, you lower a basket down with money, he'd take it, fill it with fruit/veg and you'd pull it back up.

I've traveled a bit because reasons. Outside of Europe, it's very common in West Asia, like Turkey and Azerbaijan, but especially the Caucasus countries like Georgia and Armenia. It's grown less common in Europe proper, though it occurs in a few, mostly Mediterranean countries, like Greece and Malta. Egyptians do this, too.
This also happens in East Asian countries, with China having a long tradition of it.
In the Caribbean, they do it in Puerto Rico, Cuba and Trinidad.

When I was in India, I noticed the opposite, with aunties cooking in their fourth storey apartments and lowering baskets to collect money, then pulling them back up and lowering disposable containers full of food.

Are you happy you traveled so much?

You are obnoxious