Are You A Grazer?

[Feralpeg]

I'm watching ABC News "What Would You Do?" They said that one out of five shoppers eat as they shop. A lot of them don't pay for what they eat. I had no idea that this was so prevalent.

So, is it right or wrong to eat while you shop? Is it okay as long as you pay for what you ate when you check out? What about tasting produce?

I can honestly say that I have never done this. I've seen people open things like cookies for kids while shopping. I always told my daughter she ha to wait until we paid for the item. It blows me away that this is so accepted.

 

[JessicaR]

9 out of 10 shopping trips I do not eat a thing. Every once in a while I shop and am starving. In that case I grab a luna bar and throw the wrapper on the belt when I pay.

When my kids were little they were treated to an animal cracker box while we shopped - also paid at check out. No biggie.

 

[mhsjax]

I'm watching ABC News "What Would You Do?" They said that one out of five shoppers eat as they shop. A lot of them don't pay for what they eat. I had no idea that this was so prevalent.

So, is it right or wrong to eat while you shop? Is it okay as long as you pay for what you ate when you check out? What about tasting produce?

I can honestly say that I have never done this. I've seen people open things like cookies for kids while shopping. I always told my daughter she ha to wait until we paid for the item. It blows me away that this is so accepted.

I do get a drink sometimes at my store, I pay for it at the end. I go there all the time and they told me to, that it was ok. They do give samples of the deli meat as they slice it. And occasionally I have 1 grape just to make sure it is ok. ALthough I don't know what I would do if they weren't, I wouldn't put them back, so I guess it really is kind of stupid.

I do see parents sometimes open cookies for a small child and sometime they will get some popcorn chicken for a child. the managers see this and in fact will sometimes wait on the customers doing it. I really don't have an opinion on it, I never went that far, I always brought something for my little ones when we were out.

 

[low-key]

I dont shop, I know what I want and get in and out of a store, then its Mission Accomplished

 

[CurlyGirl]

I am the one who puts a pound of grapes in the bag, weighs them and, when I get to the register, the cashier says "That much for like 20 grapes?" because I've eaten most of them while shopping!

For some reason, though, I only do that with grapes!

 

[VAfamily1998]

I've never done it. With my luck, if I ever tried it, I'd get to the register to pay and realize I left my credit card/atm card/cash at home and had no way to pay!

As for doing it for small kids...I've done 95% of my grocery shopping over the last 11 years with a child under the age of 5, and never had to do it. If my kids were really STARVING while we shopped, I'd take the item I wanted to give them and pay for it at the register, then give it to them and continue my shopping...but I've never had to do that...

A lot of the grocery stores I go to (Harris Teeter, Costco) offer free samples of certain foods throughout the store anyway...

 

[DisneyScraps]

i have never done this, it seems really odd to me. Even if you pay for it at the end it still seems odd. I see people sampling grapes and things like that at the store. I would never do that either. A grape doesn't touch my lips until I have washed it.

 

[Jennasis]

Never ever done this.

 

[goofyernmost]

The only time I do it is when I buy grapes. They are not cheap and if they are sour I do not want to throw away that much money. So, I sample one of them. If I like them I buy a bunch, if not...I walk away. I must repeat that this is the only time I ever graze.

I have never worried about washing them, not even after I get them home. Unless, they are washed with anti-septic soap (eech) not much is accomplished by rinsing them off anyway. The chemicals stay, the germs stay..so what's the point.

 

[nmmom95]

I never eat in the store, but I don't think it's a big deal as long as you pay for it at some point.

 

[Conservative Hippie]

A few times while pregnant I would drink a bottle of water while I shopped and pay for it at the end. Two or three times I opened a bag of crackers or something for my daughter when she was younger, but she is 3 1/2 now, and old enough to learn how to wait - plus she gets the free kids' club cookie!

 

[bumbershoot]

Until we worked out the concept that DS needs to be recently fed before going shopping (it took way too long for us to get that LOL), ONLY if we were at Trader Joes, DS could have a banana. And only there because they charge per banana, not per pound.

 

[JOCAmom]

I have never done it but I think part of that has to do with the fact that I worked as a cashier in a produce store for many years. People would come up with all kinds of half eaten foods that had to weighed and expect me to touch it. Nothing like having someone hand you a plum with bite marks saying their child was hungry. I know, I know....I handled money all day which is dirtier than anything but for some reason that just skeeved me out.

 

[allyphoe]

Nothing like having someone hand you a plum with bite marks saying their child was hungry.

Eww. The couple of times mine bit into a piece of fruit, I went back and got a second one that was bigger, and asked the cashier to weigh the uneaten one twice.

 

[FireDancer]

I've opened a bottle of water or a box of cliff bars and had one. It is rare but it has happened. They got paid for in the end.

 

[JOCAmom]

Eww. The couple of times mine bit into a piece of fruit, I went back and got a second one that was bigger, and asked the cashier to weigh the uneaten one twice.

I did see that happen too and it was appreciated. The instances I spoke about were not common but enough that I just could never let my kids open anything in a grocery store.

 

[MrsJackSparrow4Life]

I don't do it with anything that has to be weighed but I don't see how it makes a difference with items that are priced per unit. As long as the item is payed for it shouldn't matter where it was consumed.

Growing up, going grocery shopping was considered a treat for my brother an I since my mom would give us a chocolate milk and a box of animal crackers to munch on while she got her list taken care of. Would we have stayed quiet if we didn't get them? Sure...but this way something boring turned into something fun.

 

[CurlyJo224]

I voted "never okay." It could be the "okay if you pay for it" but more often than not that doesn't happen, or you get lovely situations like handing a cashier a banana peel. How will they weigh the banana that the kid already ate? Usually it's just a random half eaten (or completely eaten) bag of chips or bottle of soda left on a store shelf. If you need to eat or drink, buy your snack, then do the rest of your shopping.

And then people wonder why stores' prices keep going up.

 

[fall08CP]

No matter how hungry I am, I've never eaten food while grocery shopping.

However, demolishing a bag of chips the second I get in my car? I plead the fifth.

 

[Mrs. Sojourner]

Oh, I am going to confess I totally let my kids do this when they were younger. (A lunchable if it were around meal time or a box of animal cookies if it were at another time.) It is how I survived grocery shopping with a 5 yr old, 3 yr old, and newborn while DH went to grad school fulltime and worked two jobs and our nearest realivie was 6 hours away. We always payed for what they had eaten and it made shopping 100 times easier. I actually never thought anything about it.