Turo Virta: 1:07

Welcome back to the Fit Me Turo Fitness podcast. One of the most common things I hear when we talk about healthy eating is eating healthy is too expensive, and there is definitely some truth to the fact that grocery prices have increased. But another part of the problem is what happens after we walk into the supermarket. We buy too much. We buy things without a plan. Fresh produce goes bad. We misunderstand labels. We pay extra for products because they look healthier. And sometimes the food we throw away is costing us almost as much as the as the food we actually eat. My guest today is Carol Ann Gates, a former supermarket and deli operator and award-winning cookbook author who has spent much of her life in the grocery business. She is the author of Grocery Shopping Secrets, a book designed to help people shop smarter, select fresher foods, store them properly, reduce food waste, and save money. Today we are going to talk about how to eat well without overspending. What grocery stores know that most shoppers don't. How to make fresh food last longer, and the mistakes that are quietly costing us money every week. Karen, welcome to the podcast.

Unknown: 2:28

It's great to be with you.

Turo Virta: 2:31

So, Carolyn, you basically grew up in the grocery business. What was that like?

Unknown: 2:41

Our first store was very tiny. My dad started it in 1940. The aisle. were so small you could only travel. So if you forgot something in one aisle,

Turo Virta: 2:58

I I hear you, Caroline. I hear you really bad now, or I can't. You can't hear me. Yeah, now now it's okay. Yeah.

Unknown: 3:05

Okay, And so, mother taught my father was very picky about produce and what he sold. He always wanted to sell the top quality products, but but at a low price. So he taught me to select superior perishable products before I learned the alphabet. In the United States, we have a commercial where mr. Whipple owns his supermarket, and you don't squeeze the the toilet paper in his grocery store. But in my father's grocery store, we didn't squeeze the tomatoes. So he taught us to hold a tomato gently in our hand and tap it to to see if it gave to gentle pressure to know whether it was ripe.

Turo Virta: 3:59

So how different is the grocery? Because obviously you have been long in the business. So how different is the grocery business today compared with when you started.

Unknown: 4:12

Oh, it's very different. For example, we didn't scan products; everything had a price on it. You know, you would have we had a little stamping machine that would stamp 79 cents in purple ink on cans, and now when you pick up a can, you really don't know what the price is unless you look on on the price tag on the on the shelf, the shelf tag. So it's extremely different. I'm not sure I would have wanted to go through the grocery business during COVID, that would have been a very difficult time. I remember going into the store and the people who worked there, I thought were really quite brave. Everyone coming in, and you know, they never knew if they might be bringing COVID with them. So, and I also think it's gotten more competitive. It's very price competitive, especially with the big box stores. Now, do you have a Costco or Walmart or a Sam's in Italy?

Turo Virta: 5:18

Not in Italy, no. But in Europe, I think there are some some of them, like in other countries. But in Italy, we don't have.

Unknown: 5:27

Okay.

Turo Virta: 5:29

So, what is in what you think now that shoppers understand much better now than in in the beginning of your career?

Unknown: 5:39

That shoppers understand. Well, there is so much more variety. For example, I love the chipollini onions, which I think you have a lot of in Italy, and we have them every once in a while, which is something that we would have never sold in. In our grocery store, there's just a greater variety of products. I think shoppers have more access to information online, so I think hopefully they're more informed.

Turo Virta: 6:20

Yeah. And what do you think? It's do we actually understand in verse?

Unknown: 6:27

I'm sorry. Say it again.

Turo Virta: 6:29

What do you think we understand worse now than earlier?

Unknown: 6:33

Oh, worse. I think a lot of people find their supermarket to be the enemy. That supermarkets want higher prices, even the large chains compete against one another, so when they do their ads, it's an invitation welcoming you into your store. Supermarkets do not want high prices. They know shoppers are concerned with price, so most supermarkets want lower prices.

Turo Virta: 7:11

So let's start then with the big objection. So is eating healthy actually more expensive? You mentioned price earlier. What is your opinion?

Unknown: 7:25

No, I don't think so because I think when you're eating healthier, you're eating whole foods, and I think a lot of the convenience foods, for example, boxed macaroni and cheese, can be inclusive than just making it on your own when you know what's going into your food.

Turo Virta: 7:47

And where do people? Is it

Unknown: 7:49

important?

Turo Virta: 7:52

Sorry, go ahead. No, I wanted to ask if I

Unknown: 7:56

know if you're.

Turo Virta: 7:59

No, no, go, go ahead. Is it is

Unknown: 8:00

it important to is it important to your listeners to eat organically?

Turo Virta: 8:07

I'm sure for some of them, yes, and some of them, I think it's going to be very mixed, like depending on person.

Unknown: 8:19

Very mixed. Well, in the United States, we have what is called the Environmental Working group, which analyzes every year the pesticide residue in food, and every year they come out with a dirty dozen, and those are foods that retain more pesticide residue, which are important to buy organically, and I have a list of those if you'd like me

Turo Virta: 8:49

to

Unknown: 8:49

read it.

Turo Virta: 8:50

Absolutely. The

Unknown: 8:58

spinach, green beans, nectarines, sweet bell, and hot peppers, blueberries, cherry, kale, collard, and mustard greens, and then they have what they call the Clean 15, which are foods that don't retain pesticide residue, and those foods are not important to buy organically, which is avocados, sweet corn, pineapples, onions, papayas, frozen sweet peas, asparagus, honeydew melons, kiwi, cabbage, mushrooms, mangoes, sweet potatoes, watermelons, and carrots. So, in the United States, where I live, organic foods are always more expensive than the non-organic.

Turo Virta: 9:52

Yeah. So

Unknown: 9:53

if if it's important to you to eat organically, I think if you if you know what the clean 15 is, you know you don't need to eat to buy them organically.

Turo Virta: 10:05

Oh, makes and that that makes such sense. All foods like mango, kiwi. What you mentioned in that list, they you know it doesn't matter if you buy them organic or or just a regular product, right?

Unknown: 10:22

Yes.

Turo Virta: 10:24

Awesome. So where is this something, or where do you think that people unnecessarily spend money when trying to eat healthier?

Unknown: 10:36

Well, when I'm in the grocery store, where where I live, our supermarkets have sales once a week, they put certain items on sale, and they will either have it listed online or they will have a flyer in the store. And I watch people come into the store and grab the flyer and then go and shop. I think one of the most important things. To do is to make a plan, so you know what you're going to eat that day. You make a meal plan. You know what you're going to eat for the week. You make a meal plan and you buy what you need to to make what's what's on your you know on your meal plan. I think shopping from a list is one of the most important things you can buy, or most important things you can do.

Turo Virta: 11:34

Yeah, because that would be my kind of next question. What I wanted to ask you is that what do, what should we do before entering the supermarket? Is there something else than making actually a list and plan, or is there something else what we should be doing?

Unknown: 11:53

Well, I think yes. One of the most important things is to keep your fridge in your pantry organized, so the supermarket will bring fresh produce in almost daily, and they will put the the newest produce in the back, and the oldest produce in the front. So it's called first in first out. So you want to keep your fridge organized. Know what's in it. Know what's going to go bad. What you know, you want to use your food before it passes its prime. In the United States, our FDA, Food and Drug Administration, believes we could save 1500 to $2,000 a year by eliminating waste. Wow! So that's also true in your pantry. So if you're in Italy and you need a can of San Marzano tomatoes to make your spaghetti sauce, if you have one that's hidden behind something else, you know if you're keeping your pantry organized and know what's in your pantry so that you're not buying something that you already have, I think that's the most important thing to start using. What you have before it goes goes bad is really important.

Turo Virta: 13:20

Yeah. So then, how do you recognize genuinely fresh produce?

Unknown: 13:29

I have lots of tips in my book about how to recognize it. I'll give you a couple of examples. We love making Caesar salad in our house, which we use romaine for. I believe every day your supermarket will sell some produce that can be classified as garbage. I don't know if if you run into that in Italy, but I will be shopping and see a tomato or a bell pepper that's got fungus on it and is shriveled up and is way past its prime. And I wonder, does the produce clerk think I'm blind that I would buy this. So, for example, romaine, romaine that is lime green in color that has large milky ribs and a big a large butt and rust is not going to be a good quality. So, for romaine, we want it to be a deep green color all the way to the interior. For example, I have another example cauliflower. We love cauliflower in our house, and I was shopping, and the cauliflower that was was displayed had brown spots on it, so when cauliflower starts getting brown spots, it's starting to deteriorate. And I asked the produce clerk, "Do you have any other cauliflower that hasn't started to turn brown? And she said, "This is all we have. It just came off the truck. So in that case, if you wanted cauliflower, you had to buy it. But my week got discombubbled, and I didn't make my cauliflower the day I planned to. And by the time I got to making it, it had turned brown all the way onto the inside. So my book, Grocery Shopping Secrets, has all sorts of tips like that to know if you're getting the best product. I don't know what it's like in Italy. Do you grow a lot of your own food there?

Turo Virta: 15:37

Yeah, we do have, and we are lucky in that way. We have here, like I have, we have a small garden ourselves, and it's basically delivering like tomatoes, salads, cotton pears. What I have spinach. What else we have? Like zucchini. These kind of vegetables. For six months, for five five months in a year, and then everything else like we have, we are lucky like that they are not coming from far, as in Sicily. It's basically you get always something what is actually fresh from somewhere, some part of Italy. So they are not are not traveling too much. How to say it? Food. So it's it's it's what I what I have recognized here. It's everything is pretty fresh, and we try to at least I try to cook always with the fresh product. So and obviously local products. So I know where it is Coming from, so

Unknown: 16:49

we don't we don't have that luxury

Turo Virta: 16:52

here. Yeah, yeah, I know, and it's it's not it's very rare. Like it's it's I'm I'm I have to say I'm really really lucky. I originally I come from Finland, and that's a different story because obviously summer season is a lot shorter, and there is only short period of time, and in winter time, you basically you don't get anything fresh. They are all all vegetables, especially are imported.

Unknown: 17:16

Yeah,

Turo Virta: 17:17

yeah. But what is then your opinion? Because there

is always big discussion: 17:21

fresh or versus frozen, which is better.

Unknown: 17:30

I I prefer fresh, but fruits and vegetables are flash frozen when they're at their peak, so they are a good quality. So, for example, if you're trying to save money and you want to buy broccoli, you can have buy a big package of broccoli. Frozen vegetables are going to be cheaper.

Turo Virta: 17:57

You

Unknown: 17:57

can take out what you need and then then put the rest that you're not using back in the freezer. So it does give you a backup. It gives you things things that you'll have in your freezer that you can use at a later date. So I think if you're trying to pinch pennies, our inflation has has gotten our worst year for inflation was 2022, which is when Putin invaded Ukraine, and I don't know if you saw that. I have been on podcasts in England and Ireland, and wheat prices soared 34 percent per metric ton. Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe, so we saw significant inflation

Turo Virta: 18:49

then.

Unknown: 18:50

So if if your inflation is bad and you have the option of buying a large package of frozen fruits or vegetables, you know it is a it is a better value. I will admit I prefer cooking with fresh.

Turo Virta: 19:06

Yeah, yeah. No, that's the. It's for me my personal example. Like we have a, we have a figs. We have plums in our own garden, and of course, it's always our problem is that when there is a season for, let's say, for apples. Okay, apple season is a little little bit longer here, but if it's, for example, figs, which is very very amazing, like food or fruit, but it's so short time what you can actually. But I always when there's a harvest time, I freeze the rest what I don't need and use them then throughout the year in my smoothie because of course, like fruits, like that kind of like you can't eat it fresh as if they once they are frozen, you know you can't use, but you can still use it in some other forms, and it basically doesn't matter.

Unknown: 19:59

Yes, yes, and my book has lots of tips on how to freeze everything, including milk and eggs.

Turo Virta: 20:10

Wow! What is what? What do you think? What foods are people storing incorrectly?

Unknown: 20:20

My husband has retired, so he does do some of the grocery shopping, and I have noticed that when he brings food home, he doesn't put it. For example, he'll buy a cucumber or a sweet bell pepper and just stick it into the vegetable crisper. And I have noticed that when it's not in another bag, either a plastic bag or a reusable bag, that it doesn't last as long. I think it's really important, especially with vegetables, that they're stored in an in a either a eco friendly reusable bag or a plastic bag. Some of us prefer the eco friendly. Some of us use the plastic. But I think that's really important.

Turo Virta: 21:10

Yeah, what is then the biggest cause of food waste?

Unknown: 21:19

In the United States, we throw away a lot of food because we don't understand the sell-by dates. Do you have sell-by dates on your canned goods or milk products?

Turo Virta: 21:33

Yeah, yeah.

Unknown: 21:36

Food will be good for a time past the sell-by date. Now you don't refrigerate your eggs in Italy.

Turo Virta: 21:45

No,

Unknown: 21:45

do you? No, no. We refrigerate them in the United States. Our eggs do have a sell-by date, and eggs will be good for three to five weeks past the sell-by date. And how do we know if an egg is still good to use? We have the float test. So if we put it in either a pan or a bowl of water, and it floats, then it we shouldn't eat it. Milk, you refrigerate your milk though.

Turo Virta: 22:18

Yeah,

Unknown: 22:19

milk will be good for five to seven days past its sell-by date. And how do we know if it's not good? We give it a good sniff, and if it doesn't smell good, then then we pass on it. Chicken and ground beef or sausage will be good for one to two days past its sell-by date, and we know that it's not good if it starts to turn gray or feel slimy. So in the United States, they believe that 30% of our food supply is wasted at the manufacturer, supermarket, restaurant, and home cook level, and that by using foods beyond the sell-by date, we can reduce our waste. Produce is another thing that is wasted, and I think we aren't using our produce before it goes, before it passes its prime. So it's important if you're shopping or using your products from your garden that you check on on on them in your fridge and know that you're using them before they go badly. Dairy is another thing. Milk, for example, in the United States people with kids buy a lot of milk, and if they're going on vacation and they have a gallon of milk in their fridge, instead of letting it sit there and pass pass its prime or dump it down the sink, we can freeze it, and we freeze milk by putting it into an ice cube tray, putting it in the freezer. Once it's hard, then we transfer it to a freezer storage bag and mark the date on it. We don't want to keep our frozen milk longer than a month. When milk thaws, it will become grainy and slushy, so you can't use it in your cereal or coffee, but you can use it in your smoothies or for baking or cooking. So that way we're not we're not wasting. I think it it takes some effort.

Turo Virta: 24:45

Oh yeah, to

Unknown: 24:46

stay on top of of your your perishable products and to use them before they go badly, especially in today's world when we get so busy.

Turo Virta: 24:56

Yeah, yeah, no, but it's it's still worth of it, and it's it's a it's a lot of money what you save and and also reducing Waste, so those are like I never heard honestly about freezing milk. I never even thought about, but how you said it, it makes so much sense. We had a

Unknown: 25:19

problem here in the states too with eggs. We had the avian flu, which we lost a lot of chickens, and our eggs got really, really pricey here. You can freeze eggs. My book has tips on how to do that. So you can either freeze the the yolks alone, the whites alone, or you can scramble them together and freeze them that way. So eggs at at a time when eggs were so pricey, if I would make cream brulee, which only call calls for yolks, then I would freeze the whites.

Turo Virta: 25:57

Makes sense. So then there's a protein on budget. So protein is something I talk about a. Lot with my audience, and what are the best ways to buy protein without spending a fortune?

Unknown: 26:16

I think well, chicken is high in protein, and I think buying a whole chicken and cooking a whole chicken is good. You can use the entire chicken for either a meal. You can cut it up for bowls. Do you eat bowls in Italy? Or we use it for tacos or fajitas. So I think buying a whole chicken is good. In the United States, we have a lot of fruit bowls where fruit is cut up and packaged together. I like just buying single apples or bananas. I think that's your best value. There's a lot of cost that goes into cutting up fruit, getting it washed, cut up, and there's also the packaging. So I think avoiding the cut. Do you have cut up fruit in Italy?

Turo Virta: 27:22

Yeah, yeah,

Unknown: 27:24

yeah. I think avoiding that is important.

Turo Virta: 27:29

What about then convenience foods? Is convenience food automatically unhealthy?

Unknown: 27:41

No, I don't think it is. I think in the states people like to buy. We have rotisserie chickens that the supermarkets cook in the store. I think the only thing you need to watch there is whether it has been injected. Sometimes they will inject the chicken to give it more flavor and make it more tender. So I think it's important to watch to read the label. We have a lot of packaged salads in the United States. I personally don't like buying them. We had an issue here in the states where our packaged lettuce was making people quite ill, so we avoided that. I do like to buy my lettuce organically. I don't buy a lot of prepackaged foods.

Turo Virta: 28:46

Yeah, makes sense. What convenient foods can actually make healthy eating easier?

Unknown: 28:57

Well, we do have packaged grains that are already like quinoa. We will have little. We have boxes here of quinoa that's already seasoned. I think that is a really good thing. I like buying dried beans. Dried beans, you can do so much with them, and they're really a really a low cost. I think yogurt. Yogurt is good. I like buying canned tuna. Canned tuna is going to be reasonably priced. Canned chickpeas. I love putting chickpeas in salads, so I'll buy a can and and use some of the chickpeas in a salad, and then save some. I think there we do have in the states high protein bowls that are sold in the frozen section. Do you have that?

Turo Virta: 30:01

Yeah.

Unknown: 30:03

And then again, I think it's important to read the label to know that you're not getting ingredients that you don't want to have.

Turo Virta: 30:13

What about an organic food? We you talked, you said already little little list what is maybe better to have organic and what not. But when is the organic food worth the additional cost.

Unknown: 30:32

For me, it is milk. For me, buying organic milk is really important. Sometimes in the states, our organic beef is going to be cheaper than the other, so I I do like to buy organic beef, and it is cheaper in the United States. I think it's really hard. Do you have organic salmon or fish in Italy?

Turo Virta: 31:05

It's very hard. At least the part where I do live, it's it might be a different like salmon. Especially we have as we are like where I do I live, we don't have we have very hard to get fish like fresh fish. But then of course if you live somewhere in other parts of Italy, where is where is close to ocean or sea. It's it's a lot easier. So we do have a lot of fresh fish, but salmon. I think that is everything here is coming mostly in Europe. I think it's coming from Norway or

Unknown: 31:46

the organ. It's hard to buy organic fish and wild fish. It's hard in the United States to label them organic because since they're in the ocean and they roam freely, you're you have no idea what they've eaten. So in the United States, we're more likely to find our farmed fish in the organic state. Farmed fish are more likely to be given antibiotics because they live in a in a confined area. So, if it's important to you to avoid eating fish that is given antibiotics. You want to try to get wild fish. If I'm buying salmon, I prefer to buy to buy it from Norway. I think one of the important things is in the United States. Your our supermarket is required to tell us the country of origin and whether fish is farmed, raised, or wild. You can check the growing conditions of fish. So I think that more fish than Chile. We get a lot of our salmon here from Chile, so I think that's one thing that's important. As far as shrimp goes, frozen shrimp is flash frozen when it's hot. I live in the middle of the United States. We're not going to get any fresh seafood where I live, so I prefer to buy frozen fish because I know it was flash frozen when it was caught. We do have fish in our meat case in the grocery store here, but that that fish was frozen and has been sitting in the case for some time, so I prefer to buy frozen. If you're if you're lucky enough to live by the ocean and get fresh seafood, that's another thing.

Turo Virta: 33:59

That's another thing, of course. And this is it's it always depends where you are living, where what you have access, but usually you know what what to get or or what to avoid or at least you should know or you can. It's easy to figure out like what what possibilities because it's impossible that you get if you are middle of the USA or we are far away from sea that it's going to be fresh. It's very likely. Actually, we do have. It's a great service, by the way. We have. There is coming every. It's only once in a week, but there is coming a fresh fish truck. They start very early in the morning, but it's only once in a week they come to sell fresh fish. So that's usually how I do. It's once in a week. It's two less. What I ideally I would like to have maybe two times a week, but it is what it is. So we get once in a week fresh fish from ocean. So, but it's only once in a week. But it's kind of like a farmers market or or something where you get Fresh products, but what about then food labels? Because you, with your experience, you work so long in the industry. So, what grocery labels actually mean something? Because you know it can be very hard to read those labels.

Unknown: 35:30

Well, I do have a whole chapter in my book about understanding food labels. It's about the fat content, what each of the fat contents mean. I think it's important to read ingredients. The ingredients in in the can, for example, if you're buying canned goods, if it's tomatoes, are they putting chemicals in it to preserve it? So. So for me, canned goods will last several years past their sell-by date. So that's another way we can reduce our waste. How do we know if a canned good has passed its prime? It will when you open it. If it's bulging, you don't want to open it, but if you open it and it has black or mold or it's discolored, then you want to discard it. But you can use your canned goods past the sell-by date. So reading the labels is important. I think ingredients is more important now than it ever has been. I think your food in Europe is. I don't think the manufacturers use as many bad ingredients as they do in the United States.

Turo Virta: 37:00

Yeah, that's. So I have a feeling too.

Unknown: 37:05

Yeah, you thought that.

Turo Virta: 37:06

Yeah, yeah. How is it? It's it. It tastes. If I'm in the U.S. for example, and I eat something, it at least the taste is totally different. It's totally different. But what about then marketing side of food labels? Like which labels sound meaningful, but are mostly marketing.

Unknown: 37:33

I think the most overrated is label is fresh in the United States. We have a lot of rules in the United States about what everything means. I think with chickens here in the United States, we have pasture pasture raised. Our chickens are raised in housing coops, and they may have access to the outdoors, but that doesn't mean they go outdoors. So in the United States, some of our labels are deceptive. I don't know what your labels are in Italy, but I think it's important to know if you want to buy pasture raised. You need to know what that label means in Italy, and then know if the rancher or farmer is actually following that. I think knowing what the farmer or rancher the conditions their animals actually live under is what's important.

Turo Virta: 38:50

What about like? Because I see here in Italy a lot of now. It's only recent, the last couple years. It was already like everywhere else was labels like high protein, and and when I read actually the labels now, there is a protein parse. There is somewhere it's everything is high protein. As people are more aware, they know that protein is important. It's hard to get. And when I look at some point, some products which are labeled as a high protein, and you look what is how much protein actually is in, and I'm like that holy shit. There is. It's if you take a like. I take it just an example. It's a small thing, but when I see that here is that there is a difference. Like people know that Greek yucord, for example, usually is a high protein yogurt, and there is a difference. Like if you get like here, what what I buy if I buy some low-fat or zero-fat Greek yucord, it has nine to 10 grams of protein usually per 100 grams, and then there is a product like Greek style of yucord, and that has four grams of protein. And I'm like, that holy city. This is like it promises kind of the same. It tastes better, of course. There is more fat, but it it has basically no protein in it, or like not even half from the other. And it's same with the protein bar. Some of them actually do have protein, and some of them may have some protein in it. But it's just for me. It's there is so much marketing, like I don't know when you can use high protein or or or protein snack or whatever. But it's it's at least in my experience here in Italy, it's so important to look actually how much there is protein and what is what is what would be like because if you don't buy usually that marketing label that is also in the price.

Unknown: 40:54

Yes. Yeah. It's really important to read the label. Excuse me, and know exactly what you're getting

Turo Virta: 41:05

because

Unknown: 41:05

it. In the United States, they do, you know, on the front of the package, they will put some meaningless term.

Turo Virta: 41:12

Yeah.

Unknown: 41:13

But until you really read the label, you don't know. And so I guess they kind of do that in Italy too, huh? Yeah,

Turo Virta: 41:19

absolutely. It have started now. It wasn't earlier. I didn't see like here was I like I was already wondering like there was no basically when I was in some other countries. It was there were already full of protein bars and everything high protein marketed. And in Italy, there was I don't know if it was because of some laws or if they didn't actually market it. But now it have changed so much, and it's there is so much kind of food label marketing with promises what you actually don't even get, not always. Sometimes is, but not always.

Unknown: 41:55

Yeah.

Turo Virta: 41:57

So what about then if what you would put in a healthy grocery cart on a limited budget?

Unknown: 42:10

In a healthy grocery cart on a limited budget, I think fresh fruits and vegetables, or your frozen fruits and vegetables, are going to give you a more bang for your buck. I like having salmon. I like having chicken. I like having some dried dried beans or lentils. I think you get a lot of bang for your buck when you're buying dried beans or lentils. I like having yogurt. I like having fresh eggs. I think eggs are really in the United States. We had a period of time where you shouldn't eat eggs, but right now eggs are considered healthy. I also like having frozen. Frozen.

Turo Virta: 43:15

What about then if somebody who would want to make some change? What three changes could someone make this week to immediately spend less and raised less.

Unknown: 43:31

I like one thing. I really like to do is to plan a soup or a stew that I like to make, and make a large, a large, larger recipe of it, maybe double the recipe. Eat some and freeze it for later. Soups and stews will freeze nicely. I like buying either a roast or a whole chicken and cooking it and having it, using it for a nice meal with potatoes, carrots, vegetables, and then having that leftover meat to make a a bowl, a grain bowl. We eat a lot of tacos in the United States. I like using my leftover chicken for tacos, or you can use it in other ways. So that's one way I like to save money: is to buy a roast, a larger cut of meat that is on sale, and use it multiple ways.

Turo Virta: 44:43

Thank you, Carolyn. There was a lot of lot of value in these conversations. Where can listeners learn more about you and find grocery shopping shopping secrets book?

Unknown: 44:59

My website is carolancades.com, and grocery shopping secrets and my cookbook secret recipes from the corner market are available on Amazon. Grocery shopping secrets is also in an ebook, so you can download download it on your smartphone and take it take take it grocery shopping with you. So if you have a particular question about a particular piece of produce? You're not sure what to look for when you're buying it. You can scroll to that and know what to do.

Turo Virta: 45:37

Awesome! Thank you so much. I will put all the links to the show notes. Thank you so much for listening, and go to check Caroline's book website, and thank you so much for sharing all the valuable tips and teaching us always something new.