I am going to admit something. I HATE Wal-Mart grocery stores with a burning passion. They are depressing. I know it is snobby but the store is usually filled with very LARGE and discontent customers and they are usually reaching for some kind of beverage that they have NO business eating and are usually eating it because it says that it has "Vitamin C" in it, even though it contains 4 pounds of sugar and its total weight is 4.5 pounds.
If you venture over to the fruit section you just might find 24 kids with no parent in sight rudely fingering over every apple or pair they can get their Jell-O-pop-crusted fingers on. That is, if they aren't sneezing over the grapes. Eventually the enormous and angry mother will saunter back by to pick up the little tyrants and promptly smack them over the head and make them replace the pair or apple they have licked and played catch or soccer with. The Irony being, the child should smack the mom, make her put the sugar pops back and fill the cart will all the fruit their little grimy hands can grope.
My biggest pet peeve is that I never find the Soy milk I am looking for. As a matter of fact... they are always in short supply of anything I need.
Are you a Food Store Snob? Or is this just I? Where do you go, or like
16 comments:
I don't enjoy grocery shopping like I used to now that I have 2 kiddos! I didn't know what a good thing I had with my daughter. Now that my little guy is mobile, he's ALL OVER the place. I can't keep him in the cart because he's skinny and a Houdini - bad combination for those mostly broken grocery cart straps. The next time we go to the store I'm taking his leash.
Anyhoo...I like Wal-Mart because it's my best bet for one-stop shopping. I can get my groceries and pick up a kid's birthday gift at the same time. I like Target for some things (clothes, etc.), but I find the groceries too pricey compared to Wal-Mart, and there are usually about 5 things on my list that they don't have. I also love HEB. I know...I'm boring!
Amber LOVES wal-mart.
I think this is just me. hehe.
Well....I wouldn't say I LOVE Wal-Mart. I would say I LOVE Target.
Wal-Mart's just closer and cheaper. If Target were as close as Wal-Mart, watch out. I'd be in trouble.
I love Central Market, and Whole Foods.
I think Wal-Mart is pure evil. I absolutely refuse to shop there.
First there's all the corporate malfeasance about ploughing under all competition with below-market prices before raising prices after said competition is eliminated.
Then there's not allowing workers to organize so that they can pay them substandard wages and mistreat them.
Then there's the cycle that they perpetuate by paying workers too little and not offering health benefits so that they only place they can afford to shop is Wal-Mart.
Add to all that the fact that after Sam Walton died, his family who ran the company abandoned all the principles upon which it was built. Notice the missing "Made in America "signs that used to be everywhere? That's because nothing there is made in America anymore and it's all made of crap in foreign factories where slave-like workers are paid even less than American Wal-Mart employees.
So there's all that. But the reason that I first abandoned Wal-Mart? Their milk always went bad before HEB's.
Every. Frickin'. Time.
The quality sucked. So... after all that, I must confess that I too am a Food Store Snob.
100% agree Cach. Since Sam went to the sweet by and by, Wal-Mart, well... you said it.
Also, this post was in no way meant to ridicule anyone with a weight problem. All of us, with the exception of a few lucky souls, have had to struggle for weight control in this here Rich Country. (So rich that our poor and low-income families make up most of the obese.)
If anything it is a slap at our food industry and the rampant advertising aimed at children and moms by the High-fructose-corn-syrup and Sugar empire. And at Wal-Mart.
Some people cannot control this and it is a difficult road for those and I can certainly sympathize. Hopefully no one took offense is none was meant.
One day in WalMart, I found someone had stuck one of those rolls of raw hamburger back inside one of the beverage shelves. Guess they didn't want it.
Eww.
Gag. OK, you guys, you're ruining my cheap shopping happy place.
For the record, I don't buy milk or meat at Wal-Mart. No way.
Yeah, I dislike Walmart. Some of the reasons are similar, but others are different. I actually really like the lower class feel of Walmart. Unlike other super-expensive grocery stores, it actually draws customers from all walks of life, including those with kids who tend to have less discretionary income. That's one of my favorite parts about Walmart.
What I dislike is how they always seemed to be out of plain generic yogurt in the 32 oz container. Also, it seems to me that Walmart relies on moving large quantities of merchandise and keeps its refrigerators warmer than other stores.
It is the unfriendliness and anonymity of the place that bothers me the most, though. I much prefer the local grocery store (or smaller corporate chain) where the people are almost always helpful and available. Also, my shopping trips are less stressful and more relaxed without the hubbub that comes from having so many people shopping in one place all at once... and yes, that does contradict my earlier reason for liking Walmart.
But my wife shops almost exclusively at Walmart due to the one stop convenience and having two young children in tow most of the time.
Seriously, I think very few people who shop much at Walmart save money. I think that Walmart is so effective at marketing that people spend the money they saved and more on buying more stuff they don't need. If someone is disciplined, they can save at Walmart, but I doubt most do. I would love to see a study on this. Walmart shoppers like my wife claim to save money, but (adjusting for income levels) do they actually spend less? When I asked my wife to not shop at Walmart for one month, we actually cut our grocery/household expenses. She went back to Walmart for convencience sake, but she no longer claims to be saving money overall.
MB
NOTHING beats Trader Joe's. Too bad they don't have them out there in the Midwest! (HA Ha!) Cheap, organic foods. And yuppies galore.
But not quite as yuppy as Whole Foods. Whole Foods is great, but a tad expensive...and too far for me to go there often.
Then, there's the Farmer's Market at Wilson Park in Torrance. During the summer, it's pure heaven! Fresh peaches, juicy grapefruit, sweet watermelon, fresh organic veggies, sweet, tender dates (daaaaaaaaates, agggghhhhh!), vine-ripened tomatoes, and those incredible bean and cheese papusas. Awesome!
So no Wal-Mart for me.
I'm seeing a trend here.
Women = Sure, Wal-Mart's not the greatest but it's efficient and cheap.
Men = Wal-Mart sucks
Interesting....
Trader Joes, I miss that store, there are none in TN.
What is the HEB store?
I really don't like Wal Mart either, every time I go, I wonder why I didn't go to Target. It's always super busy, and the lines are really long.. I do like their low priced cereal though.
Brody can't stand to be in the same aisle as anyone else, so he doesn't make it long in Wal mart....
H.E.B. is a good middle of the road grocery store in TX. MUCH better than Wal-Mart, but not as expensive as Randalls or Tom Thumb.
In Texas we like to pronounce it Heeb. And in Waco, TX, the different H.E.B.'s are differenciated by location, such as...
The Ghetto HEB
and
The Taj MaHEB
Wait a minute...I grew up in TX, and I never remember pronouncing it Heeb! I do remember, though, that as kids, we'd imagine what the H.E.B. stood for, and the last letter usually wound up being "butt."
I haven't had any bad luck with Wal-Mart's milk, but then again we do usually go through it before the use-by date. My favorite milk is the kind at Sam's because it's so doggone cheap. Tastes just as good to me.
Yeah, HEB stands for Howard E. Butts. That was a steady source of amusement for us as kids. Then there's the fact that my little sister's initials are HEB. So she never really liked the place.
And Fancy, you forgot the other two here in Waco:
HEB City (it's new)
Other HEB (the one in Belmead)
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