I've been doing fairly good reducing my trips to the store. Frozen vegetables are a great alternative to salad bars. A stash of these can last quite a while in the freezer. I just parcel out a serving each day heating it up in the microwave with a bit of salt, water and butter.
My weakest link is fresh milk. I go through close to a gallon in two days. Yes, I do drink lots of milk; now made with sugar free baking chocolate and just a dab of brown sugar; it's heavenly.
People have suggested I stretch my milk supply with dried milk. Interesting to note that my dad had a big part in the development of powdered milk.
I do think cutting my fresh milk with powdered milk is a good idea, but, so far, I have had trouble finding powdered milk where I shop. Looking for powdered milk means lingering longer at the store.
I must admit that long aisles of products can make my head spin. The aisle with all those tiny bottles filled with naturopathic supplements is scary.
One of the dance studios, I have gone to, talks about the dance of the supermarket. These days, it's the dance of avoidance. That dance studio is now doing it's dance practice online; or at least trying to recreate the experience of dance online.
All this stuff always gets me to thinking. In the supermarkets of today, it is the dance of avoidance. Before the virus, I'd even alter my path to a different aisle just to walk past some cute guy in the next aisle over; like taking the scenic route to that pragmatic need for a product.
This kind of "dance" can still happen, even now, as it is easily done maintaining even 15 feet of separation. In today's grocery stores, most people just look like masked bandits so I'm more apt to do the dance of avoidance than connection.
I still say hi, when seeing folks I know. Also I see little point in being anxiety prone when people quickly pass closer than a 6 to 10 foot radius of me. This sometimes happens on narrow, lonely trails in the woods as well, but I doubt that's a problem in quick passing.
Sometimes I do hold my breath passing folks on the trail in a park, but I also let out enough breath to say, hi. If longer conversation happens, we can stand back even 20 feet as there's usually lots of distance along a trail.
The few stores I have shopped at have been okay. Not real crowded. I haven't been to the big stores that can often be magnets for the big crowds. I have just been to some medium sized places.
As for the dance on city streets, I'm usually on my bicycle. The bicycle is a god send for relieving cabin fever while still maintaining distance from other folks.
Recently, I've noticed, here in Bellingham at least, that that traffic is much more careful than normal. Cars and people are maintaining distance better around me on my bike. The virtues of not being in a hurry.
Someone suggested I buy more than one gallon of milk at a time. Duh. I bought two gallons last trip to the store. That should last me the greater part of a week.
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Earlier I wrote.
I'm learning to eat at home more. I used to use restaurants, delis and salad bars each day. Cooking is still not my forte. I only know how to make macaroni & cheese out of the box, but I can toss in lots of vegetables, tomato sauce and so forth. I can put things in the microwave. Cook a frozen pizza in the oven, heat up stir fry vegetables, make a peanut butter sandwich.
I'm enjoying lots of my low sugar chocolate milk mix from the blender using baker's chocolate and a dab of brown sugar. Just a dab. I've always eaten lots of apples. Apple sauce is easy to store. Things like canned tuna fish are good. Bran cereal with nuts and raisins; good.
Turns out I haven't been panic buying, but I do, for the first time in my life, have a better stocked kitchen. One of my goals is to be well organized and not buy stuff that goes to waste.
More of my thinking about shopping on Flickr.
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