Wow. I mean, really…wow. I have to confess, I’ve been shopping at Wal-Mart supercenters for groceries for years. For some reason I’ve always been under the impression that Wal-Mart was cheaper than everywhere else, and to some degree that is true (where places like Harvest Foods is concerned – ridiculous prices at that place), but I’ve always thought it was cheaper than Kroger as well. That’s not so. In fact, with a Kroger card (which is free) you can get things for the same price, if not cheaper! But let me go back to the reason for my ‘wow’. I decided tonight to go to Kroger to shop instead of my usual, and I’m glad I did. I’ve been out of the loop! Kroger had all kinds of things that I had no idea existed. Their produce section was huge and looked nice, as opposed to the very limited produce at Wal-Mart, and the last time I bought sliced watermelon from there, it was spoiled. No, Kroger isn’t playing around. Everything was fresh and stocked (I couldn’t even find a zucchini at Wal-Mart a few days ago!).

Also, I am someone that likes to buy and eat healthy. I don’t like putting ‘hormones’ into my body, and I’m all about vitamin-rich foods and disease-fighting supplements, etc. Kroger had Flax cookies! I never knew there was such a thing on a shelf in a store. I thought that was something you had to make from scratch. They also had an entire section in the produce aisle devoted to organic foods. Try finding something like that in Wal-Mart. You can’t.

I guess I’m just really surprised (and a bit disgusted) at how long I’ve let myself be left in the dark when it comes to grocery shopping. I guess that goes to show that a ‘supercenter’ isn’t all they want you to believe it is. There is this illusion that you can go to one store and get everything from bread and apples to panties and shoes and fishing poles, and while that is true, it’s also true that by doing it that way you’re trading convenience for quality. Not to mention, I noticed tonight that I can spend $117 on groceries alone (which is always my intention when I go grocery shopping) as opposed to $117 on stuff at Wal-Mart and maybe only half of that be food. I always end up buying crap I don’t need, or that I didn’t set out to buy. Why? Because it’s all staring me in the face when I’m trying to pay attention to what I went there for.

So anyway, I thought I’d share this eye-opening experience. No more Wal-Mart groceries for me, that’s for sure.

~steps off her soapbox~