Fooducate

Yesterday, we took a family trip to the supermarket.

This sounds odd, I am sure, to hear that four 20+ years old people were excited and, I would go so far as to say-- thrilled-- about a trip to the supermarket, but it's true. It was great.

What brought on this new found energy for a trip to Key Food, you ask?

The "fooducate" iphone app. My sister (to remain nameless) discovered this fascinating tool yesterday and when she came home from work, eagerly introduced the rest of her "sorority" sisters to it. For those of you who don't know, the "fooducate' app, scans the bar-code of a food item and grades it based on its nutritional value. Grades range from A to D-. Despite our best efforts, we were unable to find a food with a grade of an F. And trust me, when I tell you we tried. Apparently even spam, cheeze-wiz, and twinkies have some kind of nutritional value-- grades ranging between C+ and D-, in case you were wondering.

After scanning nearly every food item in the refrigerator and pantry. (We even tried to scan the dish soap to see what would come up-- the app "could not identify" that one.), my mom announced that she needed to run to the supermarket to pick something up for dinner. The rest of us (again, nameless to save everyone's dignity except my own since I, apparently, could care less that I sound insane and am openly sharing this escapade here.) jumped on this news like it was a trip to see Santa Claus-- in the North Pole. We grabbed our coats, made sure we didn't forget the iphone, and made a list of all the items we wanted to scan. For reasons I can't seem to pin down, yogurt topped the list (peanut butter, spam, oatmeal, and pork rinds were also in the top 5).

I can safely say that I don't think I have ever had more fun food shopping than I did yesterday-- with the possible exception of one New Years Day when my mom and I went to Waldbaums for breakfast items on possibly no sleep at all. We scanned everything we purchased and even more that we had no intention of buying at all. The people around us must have thought we were out of our minds, especially when one of us in the group held up the all natural Greek yogurt and screamed (yes, screamed), "it's an A!"

If you have an iphone, you really need to download this app. If you are like me and do not have an iphone, never fear, you can access this online website for similar information, though your supermarket trips will be much less exciting than mine was yesterday.

And now, I am going to fill up my glass with some grade A water.