Ideal Bite

Are you all about the '10 items or fewer' line?

Submitted by idealbite on Fri, 01/05/2007 - 7:00pm.

Daily Tip

The Bite:

It's overrated. It might save a couple minutes, but if you fill up your cart and later, your fridge, you'll make fewer overall trips to the store, and save energy, cash and (dare we say?) even time in the process.

The Benefits:

Pollute less. 1/2 of the pollution associated with transporting your food comes from your drive to and from the store (the other 1/2 comes from the transport from farm to distribution center to store).
Both fridge and freezer are more efficient when you pack them full (but not so full that cold air can't circulate). In a power outage, they'll even hold the temp for twice as long as half-full ones.
Save cash on electricity bills and gas.
Save time. Even the time spent parking can make you think twice about going to the store for just a couple items.

Personally Speaking:

Last time Heather drove to Rainbow Coop (her fave grocery store in San Fran), it took her 20 minutes just to park. After which point she called up Jen to say, "I'm moving to Bozeman."

Wanna Try:

Stock up the fridge, but be smart about your produce choices so that you aren't letting all your new goodies spoil before you get a chance to eat 'em.
Fridge empty? Pack it with water-filled containers to keep efficiency high.
Ideal Bite's BYOB Tip - always remember to bring your own bag to the store.

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Bang For The Bite

If 10,000 Biters cut their number of grocery shopping trips in half, in a year we'll save enough gas to drive a car roundtrip from San Fran to Bozeman 1,365 times.