Grocery shopping with caution

By Jamie Rieger
It’s grocery day and you have your list of needed items categorized and tucked away for your trip to the store. You may even have your meals planned out for the next week or two. Up and down the aisles you go, filling your cart with all the food items, cleaning supplies, and a maybe even a few snacks to last you for two weeks.
Once back home, you unpack the bags and put away all of your purchases. Then, if you are like me, the preparations for the next meal begins. Maybe, that pack of hamburger will be good for some juicy burgers tonight or a pot of chili that you can leave simmering in the slow cooker.
But, alas, those plans are soon dashed as soon as you unwrap the hamburger and the stench of spoiling meat reaches your nostrils. So, instead of the hamburger going into a crock pot or frying pan, it promptly goes into the trash. What a waste of good, hard-earned money!
Your plans for a nice supper are ruined and so is your appetite. Now, instead of a good cheeseburger, you settle for a simple salad for your meal. At least with fresh produce, you can pretty much do a visual check and determine what is and is not fresh and still edible.
Now, throwing out a pack of meat may not seem like a big deal to some people, but for those live with very careful budgets, that is one less meal. Nevertheless, you write off the experience and move on.
That is, until a few days later, when you must return to the store and pick up some more meat. This time, however, the evidence is more obvious as the chicken breasts you were hoping to make for supper are turning green on the shelf. Nope, not doing this again and head to the frozen food section and pick up a TV dinner or other frozen food that will have to suffice.
Now, once may be a simple oversight; possibly even twice or three times, but when you see the same thing time and again, you have to wonder if the health inspector ever pays visit to this place.
I for one, cannot afford to be throwing out good money and now make my meat purchases elsewhere, at places I know I can take home a pack of hamburger and cook it up the day of purchase without fear of catching e.coli.

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