Image Credit: Miss604

By Daniela Ginta

The Way I See It

GINTA: Online food shopping — what might get lost in the process

Feb 10, 2020 | 1:35 PM

GI REMEMBER GOING GROCERY SHOPPING with my parents. Okay, let’s call it tagging along. We’d go to the farmer’s market where the chance of getting samples from smiling vendors was mighty high, and then we’d go to various local stores to buy stuff like bread or whatever my Mom needed for cooking and we could not find at the farmer’s market.

I loved being part of it. I learned a lot about food, and once home I’d go through the bags, poised to find my favourite items or just unpack the bounty. One part that I came to think about many years later as I was doing my own shopping was the connection with the vendors, cashiers and grocery people in general. Past just a nod and obligatory but often robotic, ‘How are you?’, that little bit of chat is a small piece in the human puzzle we’re adding to every day.

One of today’s conveniences that, according the latest news, will be seeing tremendous growth in the next years, is online food shopping. With everyone complaining of diminishing free time, gaining some wherever you can seems the right approach, and shopping for food online makes sense, right? Isn’t time worth saving?

I recognize that there are situations when running a grocery errand is not possible, either due to health reasons or others. So yes for options, including willing family members, friends or neighbours. But what do we stand to lose, if anything, if we switch to online food shopping?

The experience of not picking our own food items based on what looks good to us then, and instead have someone else fill a basket or cart — and even bring food straight into the house all the way to pantry and fridge. This at a time when many people are already removed from knowing where food comes from, how it grows, what it takes to do so. Hence the unfortunate reality of large operations which rely on heavy pesticide and fertilizer use, and industrially-raised livestock, which come with a plethora of serious concerns – lack of humane care, which affects consumer health and has for a long time carried a high environmental price tag, too.

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Some may equate the experience of seeing and touching food, assessing, and ultimately deciding what comes home as a menial, boring task. It is if you choose to see it that way. There is joy in putting together even the simplest of meals, as long as you play an active role in choosing the ingredients and then creating the food. When kids are around, that becomes a learning experience. After all, we all need to eat to live so learning how to feed oneself is an obligatory skill, no?

Online food shopping does not take all of that away, but it strips away some of it. On top of it, it is mostly large stores that can afford to offer online food shopping and/or delivery. Local stores which are vital to a healthy local economy are the kind you go to in person to shop.

As for shopping with kids, yes, it might take longer, but what a great learning experience for everyone. Kids can learn about what is allowed in stores and what is frowned upon, and they can learn to help with groceries.

I shopped with little kids in tow, either in a sling, stroller or hanging onto my pants. I shopped with kids in carts and I had them push the carts themselves and being an integral part of the shopping adventure. It takes longer sometimes, and some runs go better than others, but you know, now that it is all behind us, I miss it.

Just like the self-checkout, which I do not use because I like the idea of connecting with a human being when I shop for food, online shopping offers speed and convenience. And yet, going for a grocery errand is a part of life that has its own inherent joyfulness, small as it may be. It is also part of how we build and maintain a connection with the community.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.