Woolies' delivery was right on time at 8am today, a cool cloudy Friday on the Sydney's Eastern Suburbs' beaches.
The always polite flourescent-clad tradees hauled the twenty unfortunately-plastic bags of pre-sorted groceries from their truck on the street, down my alley, up three flights of stairs, and set them gently on my kitchen table. Delivery is free for me since I bundle all of my food and wine shopping, but I give the guys a $5 tip. Why doesn't everyone in a civilized country do this at least fortnightly?!!
I studied Fresh Direct in business school, the first big online local grocer, in New York City. I'm not sure if the model has changed much, but it makes a lot of sense. As a registered Green in two countries, I feel I have to buy my groceries online, for the same reasons I bought a hybrid SUV when I started to drive again. It's evironmentally intelligent.
Online grocers ship the food directly from a warehouse or clearing house directly to the consumer. That eliminates long-term warehousing, envionmentally-toxic transport to supermarkets, the resource-hungry supermarket itself: heat, lighting, refrigeration, maintainance, original construction materials. The food at a supermarket sits for days or weeks, where as in a tuned online model, like Walmart's distribution model, it does not sit at all. That reduces cost of inventory, cost of labor, cost of damaged product, and the consumer basically gets a better product, which I definitely see in the produce I get online versus the former-backpackery Woolies right next door where the food is about to rot. Woolies can be much more generous with promotions in the online model, too. Woolies Online also has flawless customer service, by email even, which i prefer.
Some friends think I am arrogant or lazy for not buying my groceries in the supermarket when it is literally right next door, but that is not the point. This is the wired generation, and this is a better way, and it will improve our lives if we embrace it. I did sign up for online grocery delivery in the agony before I had my first hip replacement, but I've had no reason to switch.
BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!
Sure, this operations model is efficient, but what if i want to poke around in person and see for what I am hungry? My Aussie-government-paid men's health centre provided me with a dietician after my accident, and she and I have this down now. My carer Matt and I learned through trial and error and consultation with my dietician Miriam, later Jessie, what foods were right for my body. Matt did this himself, too, and lost I think about 50kg, gradually. I have a tendency to do things impulsively, because my frontal lobe was damaged, where inhibition lives. So walking through a supermarket is not an ideal way for me to shop. Oh, cookies and chocolate and ice cream!
Long story short, I now have a private online store at Woolworths, which anyone can set up. My list of favorites is everything I have ever ordered, that is in stock, in season, all of which has been approved by my dietician and carer. The list includes homewares, wine, spirits, everything. Woolworths has consciously, I think, provided me with a ultimate TBI prompting tool for stocking my house every week. It works the same for normals.
Maybe I dont get to comparision shop as much as customers in supermarket, but i figured out recently that just about everything in my normal diet, except soy milk, is a whole food. I usually but the top quality lower priced Woolies house brand. It's a flat commodity. And since I save so much time and effort and cost not driving to a store, who cares about missing a few discounts? I seem to rat out some big discounts anyway, hoarding my usual items when they go on sale.
I usually order the same things, but first I have a quick look at my pantry to see what i dont need. It's so easy. And for those of you whinging about your failure at diets, it is the best way to diet. One can view an entire week's or month's comsumption and analyze it and adjust the foods. My weekly haul is now always nutritionally balanced. Miriam says it does not matter when you eat things during the day, as long as they get in your system. It's just calories in and calories burned. How easy is that? Furthermore, she says it is fine, and recommended for me, to eat the same thing every day, but to just vary the nutrition throughout the day. Does anyone notice why this is better than some crazy popular starvation diet? Besides the nasty effects of starving yourself, the same-thing-every-day-diet is sustainable for life, with minor adjustments as one gets older and perhaps slows down. (I havent.)
My friends in American were shocked that I have continuously and effortlessly lost 500g a week, week after week, for the past two years, about 33kg in total. Well, I gained back 4kg in restaurant meals on the road this trip. I dont really see it year on year like they would, except I can wear all of my designer clothes from 2002 again now. Before I left Sydney for Cape Town, I was 77kg, at 48 years old, the strongest, leanest, fittest I have ever been in my life, even when I was a full time athlete at 30, and even a year after a couple of hip replacements and with a disintegrating knee, and a brain injury. How is that possible?! It was not just from exercise- which had been more that moderate but also limited by my injuries and surgeries- but from a smart, efficient, web based diet and food fulfilment plan which was 100% free and available to anyone in a city.
I clean my fridge and empty any dubious food into the bin on the night below my delivery. So my fridge is always super clean and hygienic, and Matt doesn't need to worry about this old man robotically eating rotting food.
Day two
I pre-prep everything I can. I even grated the stick of Parmesan cheese on delivery today before it went in the fridge. Why wait until I am rushed to make dinner, or worse buy some more expensive stale pre-grated version? Head of lettuce: chop and wash and it goes into Tupperware. Fresh garlic: I do the hard yards once a week and it goes into Tupperware. Wait until this arvo and I start making a bag of spaghetti, a bag of oatmeal, and cook some veggies. This fridge will start looking like a container ship, which is precisely what it is. Container shipping and this diet plan are both based on smart business school research methods in Operations. The container goes right into the microwave and on to the plate, fresh and tasty and healthy and with zero incremental effort.
WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
The other smart reason to cook in batches and store in Tupperware portions is reduced cooking and clean up. I have never had a stack of dishes in my sink, except when I have lent out my house. :) There's no reason, really, you have to clean up eventually so best not to leave an unhygenic mess. I cook a lot, but usually it is reheating. When i make batches, cleaning in the moment is part of the process, amd not usually doesnt have to be in a hurry. And frequently the ingredients for dishes are already prepped and in tupperware. Maybe I can do this since I am retired, but I think it is the opposite, it is super efficient and would be great for working people. And dishes go in the dishwasher after the meal; dishwashers are more water and power efficient than hand washing, by the way, Australians.
My freezer is full of fresh frozen wild salmon
I just hauled back four types of fresh wild salmon from BC with major effort but cleverly zero expense. I removed the heavy ice from my bags at check in an hour before the flight when the Air Canada whingey check-in hags complained my first class bag was a few kg over. That arvo, I had asked the fishmonger in Grandville Island, Vancouver, to prep my fish for export, who admitted he had never seen anything like my annual international fish buying spree. I guess he forgot I handed him the Aussie, Canadian, and Air Canada regulations and ordered the same thing last year. He was shocked to verify the Aussie Customs regulations online, and will recommend to others in the future. It is a nice $600 order for him, priceless to me. This year, I am traveling earlier in the summer so I got fresh wild Alaskan Copper River salmon along with some fresh wild BC salmon, fresh BC halibut, frozen wild BC black cod, canned wild Alaskan salmon, and wild smoked BC salmon. One cannot buy wild salmon in Australia. Restaurants and fish markets cannot import it, only individuals can carry 5kg of it on their person through Customs, plus as much canned or smoked as you like, but no fresh caviar. For you Aussies who have never had wild salmon, come to mine for barbie tonight.
Making the weekly oats
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