We have grown accustomed to super markets in this country. Those are the grocery stores that sell everything under the sun. In some places food is accentuated by outdoor furniture, decorations and often tires. Its hard to look at all this when you came in for peanut butter and bread at a decent price. At one time it was easy to tell where everything was, groceries stores were laid out the same everywhere. But the world of supermarkets has changed that and now shopping for food is a mine field of dietary and economic danger.
Most of us learned this: all the food you need for a healthy lifestyle you will find on the outer or perimeter walls of the grocery store. It is still true today in some New York groceries. You enter onto the produce wall that takes you to the back of the store to the meats and fish and the third wall usually has dairy products and frozen foods, breads across from them. Everything you need is supposed to be at easy access. The aisles in the middle are the danger zones, snack foods, high fructose cereals, sodas and drinks and ‘seasonal’ merchandise. When I shop for a quick dinner I travel the outer aisles, grab some meat and veggies and maybe cheese or milk. To travel inside the dietetic forbidden zone raises questions of health risk and obesity. Not to mention spending money of things I don’t really need.
Market layouts have changed, unfortunately. In Atlanta I walked into a large chain store, one of those super- super markets with a pharmacy and a wine store and was pleased to see that produce was the first wall and a large portion of the outer aisle. But before I could make it to the cucumbers my eye caught a glimpse of what the store had done. Stacked several cases of drinks near the entrance so you wouldn’t forget to buy them. And directly across from the bags of onions and potatoes was a deli, not just with sliced meats but with whole roasted chickens, fried chickens and containers of heavy potato salad, macaroni salad and macaroni and cheese. There was not one green leafy salad in that deli. They actually had run out of cole slaw.
The second wall was meat and fish and a large variety of packaged cold cuts and cheeses. The store was so large that the dairy items were on the second wall as well. The third wall was a huge bakery next to the pharmacy. There were large plants for sale everywhere and the frozen foods were not on the perimeter but on aisle 12 of 14 aisles.
A million years ago when I grew up in the south we were lucky in Afro American neighborhoods if we got good meat and produce. Most of my formative years somebody in my family had a garden or my father bought produce from the farmers market. I am not about to go into the history of food and racism in this country but I must say that I was not allowed to buy meat until I was 16 and we shopped in a neighborhood where we trusted the butcher to make sure the meat wasn’t as old as I was. At that time I didn’t notice the layout of the stores except that always saw the produce first and the candy last, at the register. You could go into any store no matter how good or bad the meat and it was laid out the same.
Now stores lay out their items to attract buyers. Its not what you need its what the store wants to sell.
In Harlem some years back a grocery chain opened a store much to the delight of the residents. For me it meant I didn’t have to gas up the car and go to New Jersey anymore to shop at one place. The prices were attractive, the merchandise plentiful and it was in walking distance of my home. When I walked into the store I was greeted by a large produce, section. The second wall had a fresh fish counter as well as all the meat your little heart could desire. The third wall had milk, cheese and yogurt, but it also had lunch meats, frozen pizza and calzones. The store was so large that it actually had a fourth with nothing but ice cream and ice cream snacks and a fifth wall with baked goods and bread. When I looked back on the first wall I found not fruits and veggies but a deli that not only made sandwiches but sliced meats and cheeses. Right across from it was a section with more baked goods.
Today’s store caters to the neighborhood, to the clientele. Supermarkets have gone the way of other stores pushing us to buy products we don’t necessarily need. Walk into any grocery these days and you will find the specials listed and often on display at the front of the first aisle. Circulars may inform you of sale prices but in order to know what is in the store you have to look at the neighborhood. Fried chicken is not sold at the deli near my office. Its in a predominately Jewish and white middle class area. There are a million types of salmon and lox there and bagels. At the deli they have buffalo wings. The deli at the supermarket near me in Harlem seldom has more than one kind of lox and has a plethora of fried chicken, fried shrimp and beans and rice. They don’t sell duck but on occasion have pig’s feet. The store near where I work has little pork and duck all the time. Stores cater to the neighborhood and what they think people want without thinking what they need for a healthy life. After all it is not their responsibility to watch your weight, your heart, your sugar intake. They are just out to make a buck by feeding you.
There is nothing wrong with marketing, but there are many people who need help with what they eat and the temptation of finding chocolate éclairs and cupcakes right next to the apples may be more than they can handle. I actually went into a store to buy some meat one day and was shocked to find chocolate angel food cake on a stand between the raspberries and the organic bananas. What does that have to do with fruit? The same with the tortilla chips next to the avocadoes. Are they encouraging us to make guacamole?
They are not encouraging us to do anything but spend money.
The bottom line is that most of us know what to avoid on the way out of a grocery store, the candy and crap they have at the register while you wait in line trying to avert your child’s eyes from the goodies. And we also know that marketing suggests that they put items that children want and don’t need on the bottom shelves. Easy access to easy fat I say. But we don’t realize that they are trying to fatten us up at the entrance to the store as well as the end of every aisle. We need to be aware of the pitfalls of the grocery store, learn to get what we need, not shop and get out.
Otherwise you end with a big grocery bill and an even bigger belly. Not very attractive no matter what they season,
