Like many people who have been holed up in their homes for the past 15 months or so, this past week I entered a supermarket for the first time in more than a year. Omg. I left with one package of granola bites (treat), one cabbage (food), two kinds of beer (treat), and tonic water (treat–Fever Tree, the best!). Hopefully, I’ll do better next time. The whole experience got me thinking once again about what a supermarket really is, and I decided to share something I first posted a very long time ago.

A while back, it occurred to me that although supermarkets appear to be filled with all kinds of new and different products, the fact is that most of the real variety is in the produce department. That’s because except for the dairy, meat, and fish, and the nuts, dried beans, and canned vegetables, the rest of the supermarket is comprised, for the most part, of products made from soy, wheat, and corn. True, the packaging is different and exciting, but the rest of it is an illusion. The snack aisle, beverages, baked goods, and “breakfast cereals” are all made primarily of subsidized commodities. They aren’t food; they’re fun. They don’t nourish; they entertain. Feel free to eat any of them when you care to, but they don’t go in the plus category.

But consider, in contrast, the produce department, and the endless variety to be found there. All different combinations of phytonutrients, basic building blocks to nourish your heart, mind, and soul. There are apples, apricots, artichokes, arugula, avocado, bananas, basil, beans (garbanzo, turtle, canellini, Great Northern, kidney, fava), beets, blackberries, blueberries, bokchoy, boysenberries, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage (green, red, napa, Savoy), cantaloupe, carrots, Cassava melon, cauliflower, chard, cherries, Chinese apples, chives, coconut, corn, endive, eggplant, fennel, figs, garlic, grapefruit, grape tomatoes, grapes, green beans, honeydew, hot peppers, jicama, kale, kiwi, leeks, lemons, limes, lettuce (bibb, green leaf, red leaf, Romaine), Meyer lemons, mushrooms, nasturtium blossoms, onions (white, yellow, Vidalia), oranges, oregano, papayas, parsley (curly and Italian), parsnips, peaches, peas (sweet, Snow), pears (Bosc, Anjou, Bartlett), persimmon, pineapple, plantains, plums, pomegranates, pomelo, potatoes (red, white, Yukon Gold, russet), pumpkins, radishes, raspberries, rosemary, shallots, starfruit, strawberries, summer squash, spaghetti squash, squash blossoms, sweet peppers, sweet potatoes, tangerines, taragon, thyme, tomatillos, tomatoes, turnips, watercress, watermelon, yams, yucca, zucchini.

And that’s just the ones I could think of offhand. I try to eat the widest variety of food that I can find, and I’m always on the hunt for  a few more fruits and vegetables. Our fridge and counters are usually filled with all sorts of fruits and vegetables, so there’s always something to much on. Also, if you have even a little space outside to grow some asparagus and rhubarb, once they’re in the ground they will continue to come up every year for a very long time. So you can have that, too.