"save" news and stories

Here are a few tips on how to save at the grocery store, straight from the grocer's mouth via the New York Times business section. Tom Heinen, owner of the Cleveland-area Heinen's Fine Foods chain, gives us the dirt. This is a recap:

1) DIY everything is not always your best bet. Sometimes it can be cheaper to buy certain pre-washed, pre-cut or otherwise pre-prepared items, because the factory that makes them probably wastes less lettuce/pepper/carrot than you would.

2) Look for local "artisan deals," like Wisconsin cheddar instead of the imported New Zealand kind, or locally grown radishes. If your grocery doesn't have good local deals, ask why not. Whole Foods does.

3) In fact, ask tons of questions of store employees. What's the best deal this week? What did you buy for your own kitchen today? I'm guessing this wouldn't work too well at your local Supervalu. Try it, and let me know!

So..what are you doing today to honor the Earth?

Are you baking Earth Day-themed cookies? Making an organic fruit salad? Walking to the grocery store (with your reusable bag, of course)? Finally starting your own compost pile?

Check out this What Shade of Green are You? quiz on sister site Green Daily, and then read more of their green food coverage.

Tell us, we want to know: what are you doing today (or what do you do everyday) in celebration of the earth?

I noticed that David Lebovitz mentioned a concept that occurs with food stuffs in all walks of life. It is the idea that some things are too special to eat. He mentions that even in a high end restaurant that specialized in expensive, seasonal foods and went out of their way to procure the very best ingredients, some were lost because they were deemed "too good to use."

It sounds wasteful, since the food that is so precious often goes uneaten until it is past its prime, but I know that I am not the only one who is guilty of doing the same thing on at least one occasion. I have "saved" perfect strawberries, wanting to use them with the perfect dessert, only  to discover that they've gone bad by the time I want to use them. I have jars of gourmet marinades, probably from gift baskets or weekends in the wine country, that now have a thin layer of dust because I have yet to open them. Why is it that the "right time" to eat something doesn't always seem like the present?

I now make an active effort to use things up when I get them. Wonderful food is no less "special" because I don't wait too long to taste it and, in fact, may be even better because it's fresher; you will never find yourself scraping mold off the surface of a jar of a particularly wonderful chocolate spread because you waited too long to open it.

Source