Tuesday Tip | Weigh your pre-bagged produce
Did you know that the weight of prepackaged produce (such as potatoes or oranges) can vary?
Typically, each container/bag will have at least the amount promised on the package, but some will have more produce than they're "supposed" to.
For instance, when I bought a 3 pound bag of oranges at Aldi yesterday, I easily found a bag that weighed 5 pounds and I bought that one instead.
Since the bags are pre-weighed and sold per each and not per pound, a 5 pound bag ends up costing almost half as much per pound as compared to the 3 pound bag.
Obviously, you'd only want to do this with produce that you know you'll be able to use before it goes bad. If you can't get through 5 pounds of oranges in time, leave the bigger bag for someone else. 😉
Have you ever tried weighing prepackaged produce? I'd love to hear!
P.S. On a related, but opposite note: if you are buying produce sold per each and you have a small household, you might want to look for a small package, even though it won't save you money.
Buying only what you can use helps prevent food waste, and that's a big environmental win. For instance, even when I had a smaller household, I used to purposely look for a smallish head of lettuce since I knew we probably wouldn't use up a big head before it went bad.
(And actually, I still do this when I buy cilantro or other super perishable produce.)
I do this with strawberries as I always fear that there is less in these smallish baskets. I haven´t done it with bags of oranges or potatoes. When I buy fruit that goes by piece (e.g. avocado or mango) I go for the nicest/ripest one which is not necessarily the biggest.
My grandmother used to say to look for the smaller ones - since most people go for the big ones, the smaller ones tend to be better quality.
I have counted the apples in the bags at Aldi. I shocked my husband when I told him to hold on, and after checking a few, I had a bag with one more apple than the rest. (I know this isn't weight but when you are using these for snacks, 1 apple is 1 more snack )
I do this too!! My kids don't care is they are slightly smaller apples and I get an extra snack out of the bag!
I've counted bagged avocados and found six instead of five. Win!
Same here!
Most of my food comes from the food bank.
The food bank portions are designed with a family in mind; they want to feed me AND my kids.
I'm just me. No partner, no kids. I spend a significant amount of time pushing back against them trying to give me more than I can use before it spoils. Which is very similar to your practice of finding the small head of lettuce that's the right size for just the two of you.
I hope you can find someone to share with! At one point I had a similar situation, so was able to give and trade with neighbors...
Looked at your blog- great!
I never knew this in all of my years of grocery shopping! If you have any other grocery shopping tips and tricks, I would love them!
That's such a nice discovery. I have never weighed a bag of produce before and always assume that each bag weighs exactly or roughly the same as labelled.
I think this only happens in America. In Vietnam, where I'm originally from, you can buy 3 lbs for something, but it ends up weighing 1.5 lbs >_<
Really interesting! Does Aldi have scales? I have never noticed them before, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything! 🙂
Yeah, mine does! It's by the bananas, on a shelf. Maybe yours has one now too?
Mine does too, but it's tricked me!! A bunch of the produce had switched to a per pound price and I didn't realize. I thought a bag of grapes was 2.50 pretty bag and got a big bag pleased they were on sale... Got home and realized it was per pound and it was an $8.00 bag of grapes. -_-. I've gotten caught a few times now not realizing, so now I'm really careful reading the signs.
My local Aldi only recently displayed a scale. It feels a bit more like a regular grocery store now!
I've been doing this for years, I think ever since I read the Tightwad Gazette many, many moons ago. I guess I thought everyone knew that, but obviously not, and I didn't used to know it myself. Ha.
I weigh all my bagged produce, and I generally get an extra 0.5 to 1.25 pounds, but never have I found a "3 lb." bag with about 5 pounds -- that's a deal! I have not bought a bag that was actually what it claimed to weigh in, well, decades I guess. That's what bugged me about Trader Joe's when I went into our local one -- produce was priced "each" and no way to weigh them or the few bagged items. Maybe they have scales now or maybe other TJ's always did, but I haven't been in there in quite a while. The no-scale thing just turned me off.
My solution to the no-scale thing at TJ's is to buy the largest pieces I can find. In the past, I've gone home and weighed them, and found the price-per-pound is less than other grocery stores I shop at. Has worked for bananas, apples, pears, etc. The other thing you can do while in the store is to just compare weights by holding two bags (like bags of potatoes, onions, etc) and getting the heavier one.
I read it in the Tightwad Gazette too! I love the books and have all three of them. I miss Amy!
Me, too!
If you miss Amy (and who doesn't?), here's a way to get a little fix. After she retired, she consolidated all three books into one and added material from the last few newsletters that came out after the third book was published. Then she opened her "Testimonials" file and added a fat handful of those. The result is "The Complete Tightwad Gazette". It has a light blue cover and is available on line. You're going to love it!
Also, poke around the internet. She occasionally does interviews and they're always interesting. Her kids have even been interviewed and they have a lot to say. IIRC, she even answered questions for Kristen's blogging buddy Katy at The Non-Consumer Advocate a few years ago.
Yes! I have that one on my shelf. 🙂
With only two in the household, I always think about not buying too much, even if that makes the cost-per-pound more expensive. After all, it's not a deal if we can't eat it all. We've gotten pretty good over the years at buying just the right amount so that nowadays we rarely ever waste food.
Yes, I check the weight of bags but I have learned to look at the produce inside too. I have purchased bags carrots and potatoes where they throw in a small broken carrot or piece of potato to bring the bag up to the proper weight. Those small pieces are usually dried out and useless.
Slightly tangential and many of you may already be doing this, but I washed my cilantro, then placed it in a mason jar with water, then loosely covered with plastic bag and put in fridge -- it looks great many days later!!
Me too - I don't wash it first but I put it in a sturdy wide glass about 1/2 filled with water, put the bag I bought it in or a large freezer bag & put a rubber band around the bag on the glass. It will last over a week & even then some will still be salvagable. The only proviso is I remove any leaves lower leaves that would sit in the water.
woops left out a word or two - I put the bag over the top of the herbs & glass.
I’ve wondered about this for awhile now. I don't buy much that is prepackaged, but I always take a close look at the packs of mushrooms to see which looks fullest.
Frugality and food waste intersect in interesting ways. I remember a few years ago reading about the mega jars of pickles at Costco. People bought them because they were cheaper, but there was no way they could finish them before they went bad. At the same time, there are some interesting new cookbooks out on how to cook the odds and ends of things that we have become accustomed to throwing out.
We LOVE Polish dill pickle soup at our house.
DILL PICKLE SOUP
Ingredients:
8 medium dill pickles, thinly sliced and diced
5 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
5 cups of water
5 teaspoons granulated chicken stock (If you prefer, use five cups of canned chicken stock in place of the water and granules)
2 cups sour cream (full or half fat, but not fat-free)
pepper to taste
Preparation:
Coat the dill pickles in the flour; it is easiest if you use a bag and shake the two ingredients together. Sauté the pickles and any leftover flour in the butter and olive oil, right in the large soup pan you plan to use to cook the soup. When the pieces start browning, add the stock. Bring to a boil and turn down to a simmer for about 20 minutes. Turn off the burner and stir in the sour cream. Pepper to taste and serve.
I never thought to do this! There's always a need for more scales. I go around looking for one a lot in supermarkets!
This is a great tip! Also I buy big bunches of cilantro, chop it all at once, and freeze it! It works fine on soups and stuff that way. At least, I think it’s fine, but maybe I’m kind of gross.
I just made stir fry today with cilantro that I froze from my farm share in the fall. Definitely not gross. Cilantro, parsley, and dill can all go straight in the freezer. I don't even prechop them.
WHo KNEW?!?!
I don't buy the by-the-weight bags of produce all that often - in part because I am usually shopping just for myself and don't need 3 lbs of oranges or whatever and in part because I a persnickety about my produce and like to pick out my pieces individually! However, it has never occurred to me to weigh them.
Growing up in a large family (9 kids), I saw my dad (the main grocery shopper!) do this allllll the time. If he was buying a watermelon that was priced per watermelon, he got the largest in the bin. He weighed the potatoes and carrots, etc. And while I agree it's a great thing to do (more for your money and all) I don't have the need to do it with most things because we are a small family (two adults, one child) and I just want to make sure we eat all of the package of whatever before it goes bad, not get the absolute most I can.
Oooh, I feel like I've been getting swindled! I had no idea that the weight varied so much in supposedly pre-weighed bags. Doing this one for sure; thanks for the heads up!
I buy one of the smaller lettuces now for the same reason. I also buy small avocados if I can - the smaller ones have smaller stones & I find they are a perfect single serve for me. It took me a long time to realize stocking up on specials & bulk buys is only really useful for families but it was ingrained in me from friends & family & culture. I have realised I wasted so much food thinking I was 'saving'. I buy much less now; less unpacking; less clutter, less waste; less effort & saves me time & money.
- I have been working to minimise my food wastage & seeing how much room my food takes up (including freezing many meals I've cooked in advance) it also made me realize when I move this year I will only need one combined fridge/freezer & I will save big $$ on electrity not having a separate freezer I don't need.
I weigh potatoes as well.....The market sells sealed bagged potatoes and one looked rather puffy....It is supposed to be a 4.4 lb bag (like how they decrease the weight but keep the prices the same?) and after weighing it, it came in at 6 lbs!
Bagged produce with a plastic twisty or clip can have different weights as people take what they want out or put more in, etc.....I've seen blackberry containers and strawberry containers half full.... I'm not so convinced that they were shipped in that way ....I've also seen organic produce missing the organic stickers or as in bananas, some are pulled out of a wraparound sticker and brought to the registers as non-organic priced produce. But I guess that topic will remain for a later post!!
Kristen, maybe a post on the honesty of people (good and bad) can be a good topic!
4.4 pounds is 2 kilos, so it's making the bags uniform in US/Canada, only having to have different printing on the bags. (And the same settings on the machinery in the processing plant.) Just saying it's not always about cheating the customer.
I hate buying cilantro for FG's salsa and having to throw away what rotted. I found a neat herb keeper on Amazon, sturdy plastic with a nice tall lid that comes down over the base. Solves the problem, similar to the way Deidre and Carol do, but if it tips over it's a sealed container and no water leakage. Also highly recommend looking on EBay, or wherever you can find old Tupperware for the smaller version of the lettuce keeper with the spike insert. I've recently slowly used up 2 different heads of lettuce by keeping them in my keeper, without any of it rotting. The spike keeps it from sitting in any water, and you can just pull off and wash what you need when it's needed. And it doesn't take up as much fridge space as their newer models.
Thanks, FG, for the weighing pointer. I, too, had no idea they might be different than labeled.
More than weight I always count how many pieces are in bagged fruit like this. I'd rather have more pieces of fruit that are each smaller than larger & fewer pieces. The larger apples & oranges are more than one serving for my diabetic husband so we sometimes end up with a half eaten piece of fruit in the fridge that gets forgotten.
I weighed my "3lb." bag of sweet potatoes I bought at Aldi the other day before I turned some of them into dinner for tonight: 3.5 lbs! Yeah, free half pound of sweet potatoes! Thanks for the tip - I usually count the number of fruits in a package, say, of apples or oranges, because I think of it in number of servings. But things like potatoes, I will definitely be weighing from now on.
Since the topic of keeping lettuce was mentioned, here's what I do to keep heads of romaine, green leaf and red leaf lettuce longer. In fact this works so well, it's about the only lettuce I buy.
When it comes home, I slice a thin slice off the end to remove the brown part. I then plop it in a pitcher of very cold water. (I use an old, discolored ice tea pitcher for this. The bowl of a salad spinner is another good option.) Let it sit for a couple of hours. Soon the lettuce will look just-picked. I rinse it thoroughly, give it a good shake and drop it in a large (recycled) plastic bag. The double bags that Costco bread comes in work well. I drop in a paper towel or two and stick it in the fridge. I use a little each day for DH's lunch sandwiches. About every third day, I slice a bit off the end so it doesn't get slimy. Keep the damp paper towels in the bag. Unless they're sopping wet, which they won't be if you shook the lettuce off well (or better still, spun it), your lettuce will last longer than you would believe possible. Bonus is that you don't have to wash the lettuce every time you just need a leaf or two. Should it start looking wilty before you can use it all, slice off a bit more of the stem and give it another ice bath. I kid you not, lettuce keeps for weeks using this easy-peasy method.
Wow! That is a tip I have not heard before. Thanks for sharing!
Excellent tip. I also didn’t think of that. Also some good ideas in the comments!