But don’t let a little math scare you.
I am often, actually very often asked about grocery/food shopping.
So I decided to give everyone a little math homework for their grocery haul.
I want you to take the first ten foods you put in your cart. Then get out of the way of people behind you. Definitely don’t block the cheese aisle. People really like cheese.
🧀 🧀
I want you to count all the ingredients listed in the first ten foods you put in the cart. You do NOT have to count salt, pepper or other natural spices.
For example
Salted Butter - the ingredients are butter and salt. This would count as one.
A sack of potatoes. That would be one.
A whole raw chicken to roast. That would count as one.
A loaf of bread. As I have not eaten nor bought a loaf of bread in a long long time, I’m not sure how many ingredients go in to bread, but let’s say 6.
Processed Mac N Cheese. This probably has 10-30 ingredients listed.
I hope you get the idea.
When you are done counting the ten items, divide that number by 10 as that is the amount of items in your cart.
A good number would be less than 3.
A very good number would be less than 2.
A perfect score is 1. This means everything you bought is real food.
Oh,
One other thing that might complicate the count just a bit. If the food is in a box, carton or plastic container, and does NOT need to be refrigerated, add 10 to that foods number. Example would be vegetable oil. So yes, processed dead food is a high count.
Example of what I bought today.
Eggs =1
Mozzarella cheese balls =1
Mozzarella slices =1
Lamb chops = 1
Bronzino =1
Onions =1
Smoked salmon = 5
Salmon cream cheese = 4
Cottage cheese = 1
Tomatoes = 1
Those were the first ten items.
The numbers add up to 17.
17 divided by 10 = 1.7
That puts my grocery haul in the very good range.
Let me know where your grocery haul number ends up. You should always try to lower that number to get to more #RealFood.
Questions and comments encouraged.
This is an easy one. I went shopping yesterday ...
Blueberries 1
Cabbage 1
Carrots 1
Cucumbers 1
Bok Choy 1
Onions 1
Red Bell Pepper 1
Cottage Cheese 2
Eggs 1
Heavy Cream 1
Coffee beans 1
I stoped purchasing all prepared foods, boxed foods/meals, or shelf stable “meals” over ten years ago.
That would be easy because I always start in the produce aisle buying fresh fruit and vegetables so obviously a one - but honestly I don’t buy much in the way of prepared foods so the count would be very low even with the next 10 items which would likely be cheese, fish, meat, eggs, etc.