Bulk and Bulge

Years ago I used to be a COSTCO member but when I started on my wellness journey I dropped the membership. There was no way I could justify buying food in such staggering quantities for a small family like mine. What is more, at the time, none of the produce, and certainly none of the meats were organic. Now I buy produce at local farmer's market. Most of the meat I buy comes from a local organic farm. And then there is always overpriced Whole Foods.

Most of our meals on JMT will be home made dehydrated dishes. We need 144 of them so that is a lot of cooking and that translates to tons of groceries. I needed to buy them in bulk. My friends assured me that COSTCO sells a lot of organic stuff these days so I decided to become a proud member again. 

Organic stuff or not, I STILL CANNOT STAND this place. Sure, there is some organic produce, chicken, beef, wild caught salmon and that is quite a change from the years before. But nothing else has changed.When I looked around I found it very depressing to see the quality and the quantities of food in people's carts. I did not think carts were loaded to the top with cookies, fatty meats and potato chips because their owners were planning to spend several weeks in the wilderness. Maybe they were preparing for the rupture but that's been rescheduled for October, right? Well, maybe they had huge families to feed. 

Or maybe they just bought into this quite brilliant marketing concept bulk stores employ.

There is some kind of allure in bigger is better for a good price idea. We think, "great, I will not run out of cheese if I buy this huge chunk". Then we think, "wow, it is half the price of what my grocery store charges". Once in the fridge we do not want that cheese to go to waste, we eat to excess, we bulge, we get sick, and then we spend whatever money we saved and more on medical bills. 

And then there is this rush atmosphere I could not understand. People seemed to be in some kind of a haste to get to their carton of ice cream or milk as if there was ever a danger COSTCO would run out of it. In such a rush people don't look at each other, it is almost like cars on a highway, they cut in front of other cars to be just a little bit ahead. Where does that come from? Certainly it is a different shopping experience than that of a farmer's market when one takes time to chat and choose. 

Then I was wondering why would anybody shop there for food. With all the sampling stations, all one needs to do is just go around, try everything there is to try, and leave the store fed to the brim. 

And don't get me started on the checks at the exit. It would be quite difficult to steal any of the oversized packages and what is more, people who do the checking hardly look at what you really have in your cart. 

But like with everything else in life, it is up to us to make choices. It matters what we put in those oversized for a reason grocery carts. It is not COSTO's fault for how they market and what they sell.  They come up with an idea and if it works they run with it. It is us who allow them to do so by the choices we are making. Do you think they would be stocking so much junk food if we were not buying it? So when I go grocery shopping, COSTCO or anywhere else, I ask myself a question: Do I want to spend my money on quality foods now or on medical bills later on? 

When my trip preparations are done, I don't think I will be going back to COSTCO. My family is very small and I don't believe October rupture will materialize and if it does, I might still have some dehydrated foods leftover from our trek.