Whole Foods is too expensive?

It really depends on what you’re buying and what your priorities are, doesn’t it?

The Whole Foods house brand, 365, 1% organic milk is $1.49 a carton which is cheaper than the organic 1% at Winco… about half as much. We use about three of those a week at our house ( lots of cereal goin’ down around here). For the same price of the big name, mass market breads at Winco, I can get a really great loaf of artisan, in house baked bread.

Can I overspend at Whole Foods? Of course I can. But if you’re willing to be a careful, dollar concious shopper, you don’t have to confine yourself to Winco.

Something else to go to Winco for

Remember the Trident Salmon Burgers I was waxing all yummy about? Well, I saw them at Winco today, over in that odd little freezer section that seems to be an orphan section with the Tilapia and Shrimp.

If you like salmon, these are moist, tender and very flavorful, and they were a good deal at, I think $2.98 for a box of four.

Best loaf for the price: Winco Foods

Here in Reno, I buy almost all of our daily bread at Winco Foods - also known as Cub Foods in other parts of the country. I’ve tried all the big commerical brands and found them to either be lacking - as in whole grains and flavor - or giving me what I didn’t want - higher costs, added artificial ingredients and such.

The bakery at my local Winco is a pretty big operation, and although it’s not putting out the fancy artisan stuff that I sometimes want, for every day bread it can’t be beat.

They offer a full line from Old Fashioned White to Whole Wheat, and the prices are about a buck a loaf less than the acceptable national brands - yes, you can buy cheaper but after a look at the ingredients list on those packages, why?

I get the Multigrain, Whole Wheat and occasionally, the Light Rye. We go through a lot of bread around this house in a weeks time, and each time I’ve tried to substitute another brand, I hear the howls of grief.

The Winco bread is consistently good. The texture is perfect, and it’s moist enough to eat untoasted, yet makes great toast. The flavor is mild enough for my husband, yet just gutsy enough in the true whole grain flavor to suit me - although that’s one reason I will occasionally pop for an expensive loaf of some artisan whole grain baguette.

They even will give you the nutrition facts on a hand out sheet if you ask, since their labeling is pretty bare bones. Last time I picked one up, the calories, fat, sodium and such were well within acceptable levels. There isn’t anything in the ingredients list that doesn’t absolutely need to be there to make a loaf of bread - in other words, nothing that my grandmother wouldn’t have recognized, which is my criterion.

Winco is located throughout the west in Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho.