A real time-saver at the supermarket

Image via Wikipedia
You can save time shopping in Teaneck. 

I stopped at the Stop & Shop in Teaneck for a half-gallon of lactose-free milk on Friday and discovered a real time-saver -- a portable scanner that allows you to check out and bag your groceries as you walk up and down the aisles.


When you have everything you need, all you have to do is scan another bar code in the self-checkout lane, swipe your credit card and sign -- and you're on your way.


You also can get credit for reusable bags and redeem coupons. 


The system -- called "EasyShop" -- has been in place for more than a year in Teaneck, according to another shopper. You pick up your handheld scanner just inside the entrance by scanning your store card.


The system is ideal if you shop once a week for a large number of items, which you can scan and place in reusable bags as you guide your shopping cart through the store.


I bought a half-gallon of Stop & Shop Lactose-Free Milk ($3.49), Nature's Promise Organic Lemonade ($2.99) and naturally raised Australian Lamb Chops ($6.49 a pound). 


Nothing was on sale, and I paid more than I would have at my usual supermarket, ShopRite.


I also noticed that items on sale, such as Tropicana Premium Orange Juice, cost more than ShopRite sale items. For example, two 59-ounce bottles of Tropicana were $6, compared to $5 at ShopRite.


But Stop & Shop has a much larger selection of organic and naturally grown or raised items than ShopRite -- all sold under the Nature's Promise label.

ShopRite or shop wrong?

Image via Wikipedia

It seems like I have been patronizing ShopRite forever. I recall moving to Englewood 30 years ago, and visiting what passed for a supermarket downtown. I can't remember its name, but nearly every shopper felt they deserved better.

We eventually got better -- urban renewal and a shopping center anchored by a ShopRite. Late 1980s, early 1990s? Can't be sure, but it became my main source of food locally. From the outset, produce was a weak point and it never really improved, despite the addition of organic products.

But the store began carrying Readington Farms chicken, a cheaper alternative to organic that is raised on vegetarian feed and without antibiotics; free-range, grass-fed Australian lamb and beef, the latter often for under $5 a pound; and packaged cold cuts without preservatives. Unfortunately, you couldn't count on every ShopRite having these products.

For example, the Rochelle Park store, which I began to patronize after our move to Hackensack in 2007, isn't strong on Goya and other Hispanic products, and doesn't even sell plantains. It also doesn't carry preservative-free cold cuts; the deli guy told me when he stocked them, they rotted on the shelf. And the fish guy there once confided he sprays a preservative on seafood. Gross.

Now, I shop at the Hackensack and Rochelle Park ShopRites, but my wife insists on returning to the Englewood store, which has been expanded at least twice. I get most of my produce and fish at H Mart, the big Korean supermarket in Little Ferry, or at Costco in Hackensack. 


I occasionally visit the Stop & Shop in Teaneck for the chain's naturally raised food, sold under the Nature's Promise label, which can be found throughout the store -- meat, dairy, lemonade and so forth.  

But Stop & Shop doesn't carry the items ShopRite imports from Spain and Italy: artisan, bronze-cut pasta; lemony lady fingers, and carbonated, 100%  fruit juice, to name just three.


Over the years, my visits to ShopRite became less frequent as I relied more and more on Fairway Market in Harlem (and now in Paramus), Trader Joe's, Costco, H Mart, Whole Foods and Fattal's Bakery. Yet, I don't think I'll ever stop going there for something.

Shopping, cooking and tasting notes

Have you seen these Stop & Shop TV commercials where a woman learns to make pizza at home to save money and invites friends over for dinner? I don't want to learn how to make pizza, but I was interested in mention of  $4.88 for 5 pounds of clementines with a store card -- the lowest price I've seen.

Image via Wikipedia

I visit Stop & Shop about once a month to look over its Nature's Promise offerings that are found throughout the store. These are naturally raised or grown items such as poultry, meat, eggs, milk, organic lemonade and so forth. Yesterday, I went to the Teaneck store for the clementines and to pick up a few things I needed to serve the delightful Syrian meat sandwiches called arayes, which we've enjoyed at Aleppo Restaurant in Paterson. (My spelling of arayes is just a guess.)

The box of clementines looked to be identical to those from Spain, but this one was from Morocco. Still, you can't beat the price (reduced from $7.99) and they turned out to be sweet, though harder to peel than their Spanish counterparts. I weighed the box and fruit  in the store and they totaled 5.32 pounds.

For the arayes, I needed parsley (99 cents for a big bunch, most of which will go to waste) and some Nature's Promise ground beef to add to the naturally raised ground lamb I bought the day before at Whole Foods in Paramus. I also picked up Nature's Promise large brown eggs ($2.99 a dozen) and organic, low-fat milk ($3.69).

Chuck, one of my loyal readers, advised me to use a lot of chopped parsley for the arayes meat, which totaled about a pound and a quarter. I also seasoned the lamb-beef mixture with salt, sumac, allspice, cumin and Aleppo red pepper, and added finely chopped onion and red pepper before hand mixing it.

I split two medium-size pocket breads from Fattal's Bakery in Paterson, spreading and pressing the meat as thinly as possible into each of the four halves. I put them under the broiler until the meat was firm and sizzling, then reunited the halves and cut each sandwich into four quarters. (I made lamb burgers with the rest of the meat and put them into the freezer.)

They were yummy and tasted pretty close to what we've had in restaurants. I served the arayes last night with lamb sausage from Fattal's, yellow rice, canned fava beans with my added tahini sauce and salad.

Image via Wikipedia

This morning, I fried one Nature's Promise large brown egg -- sunny side up -- in extra-virgin olive oil, seasoning it with a little salt and a generous pinch of Aleppo red pepper. I toasted one large and one small roll, and ate the egg with this and that -- a slice of Swiss cheese, some tuna-red salmon-sardine salad, wild lox, kimchi and seasoned tofu. Life is good. We've been eating only egg whites for far too long.

Pork has less fat than chicken breast?

In reviewing old issues of Consumer Reports On Health, I came across an item suggesting that pork has less fat than an equivalent amount of skinless chicken breast.

"Evidence suggests pork is 16 percent leaner and has 27 percent less saturated fat than it did 15 years ago," the September 2006 newsletter said.

"A U.S. Department of Agriculture analysis (funded in part by the National Pork Board) found that a 3-ounce serving of pork tenderloin contains 2.98 grams of fat, compared with 3.03 grams in a 3-ounce serving of skinless chicken breast."

There's no mention of how most pork is raised with antibiotics and growth hormones and fed who knows what. In fact, I've read that pork receives more antibiotics than any other animal raised for human consumption. So if you love pork, be sure to buy the drug- and hormone-free variety sold at Trader Joe's, Whole Foods Market and some supermarkets.

Trader Joe's has St. Louis-style ribs from the Niman Ranch and at least two brands of drug- and preservative-free bacon. Whole Foods has the biggest selection of naturally raised pork, beef, lamb and poultry of any market in North Jersey. Super Stop & Shop carries Nature's Promise, a line of organic and naturally raised food, including drug- and hormone-free pork chops. See previous post, "Kudos for Stop & Shop." (This post was revised.)

What else is in those processed hot dogs?

I would gladly join the lawsuit that was to be filed today against hot-dog makers by three New Jersey residents, who are seeking class-action designation. 

They are asking the court to order the food processors to add warning labels, and cite research showing a heightened risk of colon cancer in people who eat hot dogs and other processed meat.

I stopped buying cured hot dogs and preserved cold cuts a couple of years ago, hoping to cut down on harmful nitrates and nitrites. 

But I also didn't want to eat meat or poultry that was raised with antibiotics and hormones, and fed animal by-products, the industry euphemism for the bits of dead animals that go into the feed. 

Do you really want to eat beef from a cow that ate bits of dead animals and may have fallen down sick on the way to the slaughterhouse, only to be dragged inside to its death?

Trader Joe's, ShopRite, Stop & Shop, Fairway and Whole Foods sell a variety of uncured hot dogs, uncured bacon and unprocessed cold cuts. 

Applegate Farms produces a large variety of cold cuts without preservatives. You can find them at the ShopRite in Englewood and at Fairway in Paramus, among other stores.

I have some Nature's Promise all-beef hot dogs from Stop & Shop in my freezer. They are uncured and not preserved, and contain no nitrates or nitrites, "except for naturally occurring nitrates in sea salt, celery powder and nutmeg." 

Equally as important, the beef used was raised without antibiotics and hormones, and the cows were vegetarian-fed.

--VICTOR E. SASSON