The Trader Joe's Product Discussion Thread (S/D)

i think if you were in a TJs while they were restocking you would see people throwing apples across the room onto the shelves, it's cool buying salads &c but anything bruisable is always crushed

ps this sounds like i am blaming staff & i'm not, i guess they just don't have good transport or w/e

It's not even just that, here. The produce is not really damaged, just kind of weak!

well you live in a place not easily accessible by ships?

dayo, do you think that the majority of produce in the US is moved by ship?

the bagged kale is my jam though. Smoothies all of the days!!!

in the winter time, yes! xp

or maybe you don't live close to a good railline

Um I think it's all trucked tbh.

Also, does most produce travel by ocean or by air? I've always assumed air for anything perishable because sea takes...a long time.

pretty sure produce from south america travels by ship

I mean it's trucked within the country and airfreighted from other countries to here.

it's very expensive to airfreight

Strangely enough, I've noticed that. But ocean from Asia is like 4 weeks, plus another week to cross the USA by rail or truck, and what can keep for 4-6 weeks in a shipping container? Maybe I don't understand this kind of agriculture.

some kinds of produce don't start going bad the minute it's picked

When I lived in Texas I used to watch banana containers unloaded from ships in the port; lots of bananas would fall into the water and bob around.

I already miss the puff pastry.

If we thought daily about how long ago things were actually picked we'd cry

apples don't go bad for like, a year

frozen vegetables are actually fresher!

and, as a documentary I saw showed, juices from concentrate probably end up with more actual juice content (and definitely more fresh-frozen juice content)

Laurel, did you ever read "East of Eden"?

the containers are often refrigerated

the peanut butter filled pretzels don't have enough pretzel. there's too much air inside.

I haven't had any for days but I still cannot get over the pom limeade

Simpler Times seems to be gone from the TJ's by my office nooooooooooooooooo

RIP $4 six-pack of 6.2% of drinkable beer in Manhattan

I drank the last of my lemur tea hoard today. ;_;

i had the meatless orange chicken last night. it wasn't bad. i stir-fried it with some broccoli florets and added soy sauce, chinese five spice, and the juice of a cara cara orange. i usually don't like tj's asian sauces, but with my modifications this one worked.

the fake speculoos and nutella (almonds not hazelnuts, wtf) are a little weird, but the dark chocolate candy bars with speculoos paste inside are pretty good.

wtf is a speculoos

weird kinky fetish iirc

in a chocolate!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speculoos

so they're dutch windmill cookies! i love those.

more specifically: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speculoos#Modern_paste_version

CHOOSE WISELY: EURO-NOIZE SANDWICH SPREADS OF THE GODZ SMACKDOWN

i didn't see any speculoos when i was there today, but i wasn't looking too hard either.

the falafel chips are pretty good.

Has anyone ever won their raffle?

the chocolate-covered potato chips were promising, but not salty enough, and the chocolate isn't v good quality.

i accidentally bought salt-free potato chips today and they are DIRE

ugh that sounds horrible

they're revolting pieces of flavorless cardboard and i hate them

bake them in a casserole

i don't want chocolate anywhere near my chips tbh

i was trying to think of alternate uses for them -- crunched up on top of something would be good
maybe even on top of a salad?

tonight i made some tj's cod that turned out to be possibly the worst piece of fish i've ever eaten. so disappointed. so weird because i've had the same cod before and it was wonderful.

scrod

i accidentally bought salt-free potato chips today and they are DIRE

far too many times (ok, like three times) i have done this with butter and spent the next three months disconsolately sprinkling salt on my buttered bread...

So much of Trader Joe's packaged stuff is just garbage and so loaded with salt I don't bother with it anymore.I used to like the green curry tuna until I looked at the salt content. The salt free chips being shit seems right -

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/22/FDT41MR2SM.DTL

That paper tests a lot of food products and TJ's stuff is usually always at the bottom.

i accidentally bought salt-free potato chips today and they are DIRE

How about using them as breading for fried chicken?

Give me all your salts

i had some disappointing potato chips a few months back and i used them to add texture to my mac & cheese.