Now really…Exactly how difficult is it to shred lettuce for salad? Enough to pay almost 5 times the price to have it done for you? I decided to go on a quest to analyze the price of convenience. I was in the grocery store and realized I was bombarded in almost every department by convenience items. In addition to the salad greens, I found carrots, onions, celery, and bell peppers all chopped and packaged “for our convenience”. Smart potatoes – the pre-packaged russet potatoes, uniformly sized, for baking. Seriously? We can’t even select our own potatoes and scrub them at home to bake them? I have to wonder – convenience or laziness?
I went to my favorite HEB (which I love) to take a serious look at the prices we pay to save a little work. I am certainly NOT pointing fingers at the store for offering the items in question. Obviously, there are enough people buying to make it worth their while. But in these tough economic times, when I hear shoppers lamenting the cost of groceries, I have to wonder what they’ve put into their shopping carts.
Here’s what I found:
8 oz Shredded Iceberg Lettuce $1.53 (or $0.19 per oz); 1 Head of Iceberg (25.44 oz) $0.99 (or $0.04 per oz)
11 oz Diced Onion $3.97 (or $0.36 per oz); 1 Yellow Onion (12.3 oz) $0.60 (or $.05 per oz)
10 oz Matchstick Carrots $1.68 (or $0.17 per oz); 32 oz Carrots $1.68 (or $0.05 per oz)
12 oz Sliced Green Apples $3.97 (or $0.33 per oz); 16 oz Granny Smith Apples $1.17 (or $0.07 per oz)
14 oz Celery Sticks $3.97 (or $0.28 per oz); 1 Bunch of Celery (avg.1.75 lb) $1.28 (or $0.05 per oz)
Bottom line: If you want to stretch your dollars at the grocery store, skip “convenience” and grab a cutting board and a sharp knife instead!
