One in a series of occasional grocery store posts.
After years of visiting a bonanza of farmers markets and ethnic grocers, I drove thirty minutes away from the "high end" regular grocers in my area to a more obviously working class community. My goal? Find the obvious and not so obvious food options at a "regular" grocery store.
This is a local chain: Stater Brothers. In my youth their focus was more on meat than vegetables and they remain one of the few local chains that continue to provide robust service in the meat section. I wasn't sure what the vegetable situation would be these several decades later. This is still Southern California so please don't think I consider these prices to be cheap from others point of view!
I start at the lettuce section and am not surprised to see it limited to three players: red leaf, green leaf, and romaine. I suppose it's four if you count the shrink wrapped iceberg at the other end of the display.
You could rotate those three but the bagged salads might be better, particularly if you have a single tortoise. I'm on the lookout for Ready Pak and their Santa Barbara blend but it's not here, seems like they carry only their in house brand. What I find is only your typical spring mix containing various baby lettuces and a few other leafy plants. This mix claims to include radicchio. Radicchio is one of those bitter lettuces we're always mentioning it; it's got a very obvious bright red and white leaf. Um, maybe an angel whispered about radicchio to the bag but otherwise there is none in here. That's okay, the mix is adequate for what it is. If you were to find a mix labeled as "spicy" or with herbs, it would mainly be this blend with a few more things whispered into the bag. Might as well try one if you see it.
What it isn't is high in fiber and calcium so we need to take a look for some brassicas. I didn't think I'd find more than arugula, kale and radish tops but they have collards and mustard greens as well! All are good, just rotate them in and out. They had collards and mustard greens by the bag as well, but they were large and the bags seemed near their end life. If you had a large tortoise, the thing to do would be to ask the produce guy when they restock those big bags and shop on that schedule.
This is about it for the greens, meaning I'd have to consider using this market as much to round out a diet as purchasing the base one. Pick up any of the following to feed one or twice a week: one mushroom; a slice of one yam or sweet potato; a chunk of any summer squash like zucchini, chayote, gray Mexican, or yellow crookneck, whichever is cheapest; a slice of a winter squash, like acorn; a chunk or two of cucumber. The very top end of a carrot or a slice of red bell pepper. Buy just a few green beans or snap peas; don't worry, the cashier has seen much weirder things. Or use self checkout! Unless you actually like and cook vegetables you need to accept you'll be tossing a dollar or two of uneaten produce away every week as a tortoise owner. Still cheaper than most other pet diets.
I won't leave until I've looked at everything so I move to the frozen section. Our owners don't get great results when freezing their own greens, they get mushy. Commercial vendors, however, flash freeze their produce, which theoretically keeps things a little more sound. Maybe some of the thicker greens could work? If they do, a frozen bag would mean less waste in addition to increased variety.
The first thing I find is okra, which I was hoping for, an excellent food high in fiber and calcium. They carry whole pods as well as cut. If you've never fed okra before or have a small tortoise, try the cut pods. My Russian has eaten okra many times so I get whole pods for her. These are eaten before they've finished defrosting. Sold!
After that I look next to the frozen spinach and find both frozen turnip* and mustard greens! I took both. My own grocery store has collards but I didn't find any here. Normal forum advice would be to mix a little of this into your tortoise's normal bowl of mixed/chopped foods. This is awkward, as my outdoor tortoise has her food thrown on the ground as full leaves. Nor is there ever any romaine in there, so there's nothing extra delicious to sneak anything into. She hasn't eaten a collard in years. Will she go for it? I drape some defrosted turnip greens over a weed and ta da, she eats it later in the day. Same for the mustard greens. I'll try the collards after returning to my own grocer.
It's not a horrible selection, all in all, but I'd suggest supplementing. Whether that means tracking down weeds or scraps from a neighbor's garden part of the year, or adding in dried supplements from one of the vendors frequently mentioned here is up to you. Also consider including a pelleted food as part of the regular diet. For all we talk about shopping or foraging for the best fresh foods, look carefully at what the long term owners and breeders feed; eventually you'll notice all of them point out the different ways they incorporate prepared food items. If it's good enough for the best breeders, it's perfectly fine for the rest of us!
There are a few things this Stater Bros. has I don't believe would be available in average markets elsewhere so I didn't include them in the primary write up. This is a market in a community with a high percentage of Latinos. As a result the store sells a little bit of cut cactus/nopales. I don't think I would have purchased it; cut and cleaned paddles don't keep that well once shrink wrapped. But if you're in the neighborhood, $2.50 isn't a bad price even if a fair amount goes unused. They also sell Jamaica or hibiscus blossoms, which are used to make a traditional drink; it's with the spices in big bags that will last a small tortoise for some time. They also carry, I can't believe this, dandelions, they're next to the mustard greens in the photo I used above. It's confirmed, I cannot go to a store within a thirty minute radius that doesn't sell dandelions. Is this true everywhere or just Southern California?!? Who besides me is eating these?
*You could have knocked me over when I realized I could get turnip greens frozen. I have to wash, sort through, and chop them from the farmers market when I want them and they've been available entirely ready to go for two fifty all this time? Once I'd done the tortoise taste test the rest went immediately into a risotto that initially called for boring spinach.
After years of visiting a bonanza of farmers markets and ethnic grocers, I drove thirty minutes away from the "high end" regular grocers in my area to a more obviously working class community. My goal? Find the obvious and not so obvious food options at a "regular" grocery store.
This is a local chain: Stater Brothers. In my youth their focus was more on meat than vegetables and they remain one of the few local chains that continue to provide robust service in the meat section. I wasn't sure what the vegetable situation would be these several decades later. This is still Southern California so please don't think I consider these prices to be cheap from others point of view!
I start at the lettuce section and am not surprised to see it limited to three players: red leaf, green leaf, and romaine. I suppose it's four if you count the shrink wrapped iceberg at the other end of the display.
You could rotate those three but the bagged salads might be better, particularly if you have a single tortoise. I'm on the lookout for Ready Pak and their Santa Barbara blend but it's not here, seems like they carry only their in house brand. What I find is only your typical spring mix containing various baby lettuces and a few other leafy plants. This mix claims to include radicchio. Radicchio is one of those bitter lettuces we're always mentioning it; it's got a very obvious bright red and white leaf. Um, maybe an angel whispered about radicchio to the bag but otherwise there is none in here. That's okay, the mix is adequate for what it is. If you were to find a mix labeled as "spicy" or with herbs, it would mainly be this blend with a few more things whispered into the bag. Might as well try one if you see it.
What it isn't is high in fiber and calcium so we need to take a look for some brassicas. I didn't think I'd find more than arugula, kale and radish tops but they have collards and mustard greens as well! All are good, just rotate them in and out. They had collards and mustard greens by the bag as well, but they were large and the bags seemed near their end life. If you had a large tortoise, the thing to do would be to ask the produce guy when they restock those big bags and shop on that schedule.
This is about it for the greens, meaning I'd have to consider using this market as much to round out a diet as purchasing the base one. Pick up any of the following to feed one or twice a week: one mushroom; a slice of one yam or sweet potato; a chunk of any summer squash like zucchini, chayote, gray Mexican, or yellow crookneck, whichever is cheapest; a slice of a winter squash, like acorn; a chunk or two of cucumber. The very top end of a carrot or a slice of red bell pepper. Buy just a few green beans or snap peas; don't worry, the cashier has seen much weirder things. Or use self checkout! Unless you actually like and cook vegetables you need to accept you'll be tossing a dollar or two of uneaten produce away every week as a tortoise owner. Still cheaper than most other pet diets.
I won't leave until I've looked at everything so I move to the frozen section. Our owners don't get great results when freezing their own greens, they get mushy. Commercial vendors, however, flash freeze their produce, which theoretically keeps things a little more sound. Maybe some of the thicker greens could work? If they do, a frozen bag would mean less waste in addition to increased variety.
The first thing I find is okra, which I was hoping for, an excellent food high in fiber and calcium. They carry whole pods as well as cut. If you've never fed okra before or have a small tortoise, try the cut pods. My Russian has eaten okra many times so I get whole pods for her. These are eaten before they've finished defrosting. Sold!
After that I look next to the frozen spinach and find both frozen turnip* and mustard greens! I took both. My own grocery store has collards but I didn't find any here. Normal forum advice would be to mix a little of this into your tortoise's normal bowl of mixed/chopped foods. This is awkward, as my outdoor tortoise has her food thrown on the ground as full leaves. Nor is there ever any romaine in there, so there's nothing extra delicious to sneak anything into. She hasn't eaten a collard in years. Will she go for it? I drape some defrosted turnip greens over a weed and ta da, she eats it later in the day. Same for the mustard greens. I'll try the collards after returning to my own grocer.
It's not a horrible selection, all in all, but I'd suggest supplementing. Whether that means tracking down weeds or scraps from a neighbor's garden part of the year, or adding in dried supplements from one of the vendors frequently mentioned here is up to you. Also consider including a pelleted food as part of the regular diet. For all we talk about shopping or foraging for the best fresh foods, look carefully at what the long term owners and breeders feed; eventually you'll notice all of them point out the different ways they incorporate prepared food items. If it's good enough for the best breeders, it's perfectly fine for the rest of us!
There are a few things this Stater Bros. has I don't believe would be available in average markets elsewhere so I didn't include them in the primary write up. This is a market in a community with a high percentage of Latinos. As a result the store sells a little bit of cut cactus/nopales. I don't think I would have purchased it; cut and cleaned paddles don't keep that well once shrink wrapped. But if you're in the neighborhood, $2.50 isn't a bad price even if a fair amount goes unused. They also sell Jamaica or hibiscus blossoms, which are used to make a traditional drink; it's with the spices in big bags that will last a small tortoise for some time. They also carry, I can't believe this, dandelions, they're next to the mustard greens in the photo I used above. It's confirmed, I cannot go to a store within a thirty minute radius that doesn't sell dandelions. Is this true everywhere or just Southern California?!? Who besides me is eating these?
*You could have knocked me over when I realized I could get turnip greens frozen. I have to wash, sort through, and chop them from the farmers market when I want them and they've been available entirely ready to go for two fifty all this time? Once I'd done the tortoise taste test the rest went immediately into a risotto that initially called for boring spinach.
