Saturday 4 January 2014

Shopping in North America

I found this in a Canadian store. Are they having a laugh?
 I've shopped in a few places since being in the States and Canada and have come to the conclusion that I miss LIDL terribly! Wal*Mart is OK but it's certainly not home and has ups and downs/pros and cons. In fact I shall list a few of these...

Downs: 

  • There is so much junk food! Tonnes and tonnes of it and it's far too readily available. I agree with my Dad who says that Americans just have "high quality junk food"!
  • Fresh produce and anything remotely healthy (unless you know where to look) can be super expensive so you really have to completely rethink how you shop.
  • Trolleys (they call them shopping carts) are not the same here and I don't like them at all. They only steer from the front! Now, that's frustrating.
  • VAT is not included in the price you see below or above your desired item. This catches me out more often than not and has lead to a few near-disasters at the till which they call something else...
Blast these...
...shopping carts!

Ups:
  • There is so much junk food! I know I put this as a "down" but, somehow, it's also an "up" just because it's so different and oftentimes hilarious. Seriously, you name it, it's here. From pop-tarts to squirty cheese; fluorescent blue and green drinks to corn dogs!
  • Bulk stuff is easy to find because "everything is bigger in the US"! I particularly like the fact that ice-cream from a store comes in buckets with a gallon symbol and a number beside that. Not your little 2 litre, flavourless nonsense from back home. 
  • Meat is cheap! Us Brits have no idea how to BBQ. (Which apparently is not a verb over here but that's another story.) I can get a good steak back home for ten pounds and the same kind of steak here for 10 dollars. So, with the exchange rate, it's 2/3rds the price. Cool!



And where would we be without the Twinkie?
Hit it Tim!

 A Note on American Cereal - Personally, I have found American cereal has the tendency to have a higher cardboard content than the box it comes in, less nutrition than a breeze block and more colours than Joseph's Technicolour Dreamcoat. If, however, you still want cereal but one that isn't going reek havoc with your intestinal track and have maybe six or so dollars to spare then a small box might be found... So, for me, biscuits and gravy is going to win pretty much every time. (See a photo in my previous post "New Friends, New Recipes".)

Seasoned with Homesickness,

Jacob



Yep, everything's bigger!
Dog food? No, kids' cereal!

















Behold, the wonder: Squirty cheese!







There was certainly a lot of choice in this aisle...







Americans eat these for breakfast toasted if
their technicolour cereal has run out.


"To glorify my Savior, Jesus Christ, the Creator 
of the universe and spread further abroad His glorious gospel." - Yours Truly

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