Supermarket Sweep

Image via Google

I couldn't resist using that title.  Did anyone else watch that game show growing up? I remember taking it in when I was home sick from school (and probably supposed to be sleeping) and pretending to race around our hometown grocery store looking for specific items for my mom's cart.

That's kind of how it felt yesterday when I went to the grocery store for my first unprocessed grocery buying experience.  Not that I was in a hurry (and good thing, it took me forever!) but that I found myself carefully inspecting anything that came in a box or container to make sure it indeed qualified as unprocessed.

How can you be sure it's unprocessed?  Some things are easy - fruits, veggies - obviously unprocessed. So does that mean everything that is packaged is processed? Well Andrew over at Eating Rules, who created October Unprocessed, uses the kitchen test for these items.  If a reasonable person (like yourself) could reasonably create the product in their own home given they had the ingredients, then yes, it passes and is considered unprocessed.  A good rule of thumb is - if you can't pronounce it, it shouldn't be going in your body.

I started my trip at Trader Joe's to get a few things that I knew they had that Hy-Vee wouldn't have.  For instance, Trader Joe's homemade 100% Whole Wheat Tortillas.  Made fresh and from what I've heard, are delicious! I'm going to try to use them in my favorite Sour Cream White Chicken Enchilada recipe.  Speaking of which - sour cream.  Soooo processed - but delicious. Argh. BUT never fear because TJ's again doesn't let us down and has a Simply Sour Cream product that doesn't have any artificial flavors, ingredients, or stabilizers.  Just sour cream.  Of course, one could argue that sour cream HAS to be pasteurized so therefore is processed, but we're not aiming for perfection here friends, the name of the game is awareness. Side note: I did pick up one "cheat item" at Trader Joe's - Cookie Butter.  Yum.  But definitely processed. It is however somewhat more natural than most store bought peanut butters by looking at the ingredients (potential bias). What can I say, we all have our vices - at least it's not ice cream (more on that later)?! I picked up a few other things at TJ's including some yummy pumpkin spice coffee without artificial flavors and got out of there only spending around $24.00.

My next stop was Hy-Vee.  I love Hy-Vee  I do, I really really do.  Add to that the Fuel Saver card and life is good.  But I digress. At Hy-Vee I purchased all of my produce which proved to be the fastest and easiest part of the errand.  Lots of fruit for breakfast and snacks and veggies which I made into the Southwestern Chopped Salad that I mentioned in an earlier post (review to come - it's for lunch today!). Once that was done my focus was on snacks, and trying to take two of my favorite recipes and turn them into unprocessed recipes.  I did a lot of reading, and most of the time I was pleasantly surprised by how natural some things are.  I struggled though when it came to finding the green chiles for my Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas. Who knew one little tiny can could be so complicated!  But pretty much every can contained a little thing called calcium chloride (here used as a preservative - also used to melt ice on roadways...not kidding). So after examining EVERY can of green chiles that Hy-Vee had to offer I finally just picked one that didn't have any other weird preservatives in it and chalked it up to it being a very teeny sacrifice.  It also contains citric acid, but as others on this challenge have pointed out to me, you CAN actually by that powdered for canning and whatnot so technically it passes the kitchen test.  Fair enough.

In the end I spent about $75 at Hy-Vee and walked away with at least a couple weeks of meals and snacks for a grand total of $100.  Not bad. I did learn however that it is hard to buy in advance since you are using so many fresh ingredients! Hence why the chopped salad was prepared immediately!

So there you have it, my first unprocessed grocery experience. I know some of you may be asking - but how is it going otherwise? I have to say - not too shabby!  I've managed to stay on track, even with going out for lunch with a coworker once and having to carefully pick what I would order.  I'm ecstatic to have pumpkin spice coffee that is unprocessed (I've been substituting my favorite Stash Double Bergamot Earl Grey Tea for the last two days). And I've been feeling really good! I don't have the sugar highs and lows that I had before when I would snack on candy or grab a cookie after lunch, which is awesome. The only tough times have been walking through the lobby at work and smelling the cookies baking at the cafe and hearing my friends talk about eating ice cream.  Oh how I miss ice cream.  I do want to do some investigating and see if there are any unprocessed type ice creams out there.  But at least for October I'm going to leave well enough alone and try and kick that habit. Not that I am going to try and never eat ice cream again - because we all know that without ice cream there would be darkness and chaos. And we just can't have that.

Image via Pinterest/Etsy

Happies of the Week (because I forgot these the other day): 

FaceTime with my new nephew (with some help from his mom & dad)

Honeycrisp apples (with or without cookie butter)

More energy = more productivity at work and home