The Power of a Shopping List

When in the grocery store, I have come to rely upon the power of the shopping list. The list keeps me focused on buying nutritional choices and away from impulse shopping.

Some time ago I noticed that people with shopping lists tend to fill their shopping carts with fruits, vegetables, and other foods that are good for you. With my list in hand, I find I also filling my shopping cart with a focus on nutrition. Lately, while hanging around the vegetable stand, I heard a woman tell her friend she never brings a list to grocery store,that she never knows what she will buy. That says it all, I think. She is whimsy shopping, I call it. I noticed her cart a few minutes later full of donuts and sweets. If there ever was a commercial for having a shopping list strategy, she would be the star.

The shopping list also pushes me swiftly by those little kiosks that the friendliest people staff at the ends of the shopping aisles. They smile and offer their tasty treat samples, enticing customers to buy. Now I merely fly past with my cart, saying, "If it is not on my list, it does not go into the cart." They have big smiles when they greet people. I have bigger smiles when I move on to my next item on the list.

Preparing the shopping list is also encouraging me to sort through the many cookbooks I have been given over the years. My aunt was a great cook and wrote a cookbook, which I rely upon. My mother was not to be outdone as a cook, and she was a collector of cookbooks. I have also inherited these, and it a tall stack. With my great stack of cookbooks I now plan my meals better, noting on my shopping list what I will need at the grocery store as I plan meals. I imagine those who create shopping lists also share in this activity. I can imagine us all sitting at a kitchen table, planning the week's meals, and then going to the grocery stores, lists in hand.

I do add a pack of cookies now and then on my list, as a little sweetness is a good thing, but I do not fill up on donuts now. I also tend to make my own desserts.

I recently read of a man who built a house without a kitchen, as he had no use for such a room. That seems the craziest extension of a society that is moving away from being self-efficient in food preparation. I will venture that this man has never used a shopping list and probably never even goes to the grocery store, eating out at restaurants. He probably has never been given a cookbook as a present either.