Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Food. food. food. food. food.

Let me begin this by saying RIP to KML. I am not sure what happened, but the "discount grocery store" has closed. Discount groceries are actually dented and expired groceries. It was cheap though. For the past few weeks they have had paper over their windows. It was the only grocery store where the employees smoked and they sold condoms that seemed to have been returned. Amazing.

One of the best days of my life was when I was putting all of the Clif bars into a giant box to be taken to my house. I was messengering at the time, so I would stop in literally everyday to see if any Clif bars, almond butter, real maple syrup... you know the good stuff, had come in. The woman who seemed to be in charge asked me if I wanted a bunch more. I said sure. I rolled out with 168 clif bars for 20 dollars. Dont know what you got until its gone, as Cinderella said. The band not the Disney character.

January has lots of ride time. 2-3 jars of peanut butter per week.
I have been eating the Trader Joes stuff pretty steadily, assuming that it is the cheapest. THEN IT HIT ME.
Most peanut butter jars are 18oz. TJ's is only 16 for $1.79
Whole foods seems pricey at 4.20 for 36oz

16/1.79 = 8.94 TJ's is 8.94 cents per oz.

36/4.20 = 8.57 Whole Foods 365 brand is 8.57 cents per oz.

.5 cents an oz x 40oz/week = Big freaking deal right?

The point is that Trader Joes prides itself on being the cheap alternative. In this case it is NOT cheaper. Not only that, but in my opinion, the TJ's product in question is not as good as the 365 product. Double win, cheap and good. Never assume that something is cheap because it is at the cheaper store, or healthy because it is at the healthier store.

10 comments:

Regan Bailey, PhD, MPH, RD said...

I think it is even cheaper at the Co-Op and you get a discount if you bring your own jars in. PLUS you get to grind it yourself, which is pretty cool. Check it out - been ages since I live in Pittsburgh so it may have changed.

Spice said...

Dude, next time you come to Lancaster, Dinner is on me. I do a mean deep fried turkey.I don't care if you're a vegan.

you're eating it.

Anonymous said...

responsi-Pete here.

steevo, you might want to do that math again.... I get 11.2 cents per ounce of TJ PB and 11.6 cents per ounce on Whole Foods PB

hate to blow up your theory. I still go with the Whole foods; the little jars (16oz) suck

Anonymous said...

don`t know if they have wegmans out in that part of the country...but if they do ;cheaper better ;except TJs has an abundance of veggie burgers ..whole foods is for bike racers that actually make money

ds said...

The Whole Foods honey roasted peanut butter that you grind yourself will change your life. It is $3.99 a pound. Once I tried it, I was unable to eat any other penaut butter again.

Does that make me a yuppie?

-ds

Anonymous said...

Blame the math mistake on the fact you had a brick dropped on you head!

Anonymous said...

Got to agree with Pete...It is Price / Oz. Not Oz. / Price.

Anonymous said...

is the whole foods pb unsalted?

Anonymous said...

I guess there's two ways to look at this, disappointment that your flawed math blows the entry, or stoked that at least 8 people read your blog!!!

rock on dude

Sean

aaron said...

Dude, you're totally getting salmonella...
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE50F7GH20090117