A Peek Inside My Grocery Buggy

[Note: This post was written before I committed to 100% vegan on 1 January 2015.]

I go to the grocery store at least every other day. Here in South Carolina, on a small island, my favorite choices are Harris Teeter and Fresh Market. Harris Teeter is closer to my house and is where I end up shopping most often.

We don’t have a Whole Foods or similar health food supermarket, however I manage to find everything we need and want with an occassional visit to our local, small health food store, an out-of-town run to Whole Foods or the like or an online order.

Here’s what I picked up this morning at Harris Teeter.

My frozen banana stash for ice cream is getting low, so I need to stock up. I buy both organic and conventional bananas, picking mostly for level of ripeness. Grabbed a conventional English cucumber, organic head of celery and an organic red bell pepper for dinner later. Picked up some organic fresh raspberries for my husband.

A: Amy’s frozen meals (Pizza Snacks & Pesto Tortellini Bowl) to have on hand for my daughter. I have an evening meeting this week and am traveling next week, so these come in handy.

B: Bags of frozen organic fruit for my ice cream recipes. Today I grabbed one each of blueberries, strawberries, peaches, mangoes and raspberries.

C: Frozen Pasta Wench ravioli for my husband. Nice to have on hand for a quick meal.

D: Irish Butter for my daughter’s breakfast toast (Alvarado Street California Style bread with scrambled eggs – local, farm sourced).

I picked up these two dozen eggs this morning, not at Harris Teeter, but rather at a little healthful lunch spot who kindly carries local eggs for purchase.

E: Nature’s Path Organic Peanut Choco Crunch granola bars for my daughter’s lunchbox. I make her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole wheat bread and pack it with this granola bar and an apple or a banana.

F: Organic Filippo Berio Extra Virgin Olive Oil. This is the oil we use for heated food…to oil a sautee pan or make garlic toast with California style bread. For prepping water for pasta we use light olive oil and sea salt. We also use light olive oil for baking. The premium cold-pressed organic extra virging olive oil we use for salad dressing or to drizzle over pasta. We don’t cook with it.

My total at Harris Teeter was $81.80 and the two dozen eggs were $15. This amount may seem like a lot to some and reasonable to others. For a family of three, we spend a large portion of our income of healthful food because it is a priority of ours.