Food Journal #5

My family generally does its day to day shopping at the D'Agostinos supermarket up the block from my house. This is where we get our cereal, milk, juice, ice cream, cheese, bread, bagels, chicken, fruits and vegetables. My mom does most of the shopping on her way back from work, where she picks up the food she needs to get to make me and my brother dinner. My dad is a vegetarian and gets most of his food from either Trader Joe's, or a health food store in my neighborhood called Health and Hearty.

For more long term and extensive shopping, my family shops at Trader Joe's in union square. I like trader joes for a few reasons. The first being that it is much cheeper than its competitors and quality products. The other is that they only sell their own brand and use ingredients from local farmers in California (where the company is based). I think that this takes the marketing and consumerism out of the food we eat, which personally I'm in favor of. I feel that this is better for the consumer as the prices are better, and the seller can ultimately do better business.

When I was younger, me and my brother used to go with my parents to the supermarket and always would beg her for certain foods, such as cookies, sugary cereals, ice cream and other sugar filled stuff. I can say for sure that I remember seeing most all of these items at eye level when I was younger. Katie said in class that she noticed how most of the children's food items were at eye level for her (she's kinda kid sized) when we took a trip to the supermarket. I think that this is really true and one of the best marketing schemes ever. Kids, especially young kids are pretty manipulative when they want something, all they need is something to want. If you make an item right their for a kid to look at and package it attractively, with a "free prize inside", or a cartoon sponsor, than the kids will sell the item to their parents so they can get what they want. By making it right their, the supermarkets are almost guaranteeing better sales for those items.