In a current Walmart commercial, a woman, gleefully selecting produce, picks up a bunch of bananas and puts them on the scale. I can’t remember the last time I weighed any produce, but I don’t understand the banana weighing at all. It seems to me that one buys the number of bananas that will get eaten before they go bad.
Since I’m at work today and things are a bit slow, I’d love to hear about the produce weighing habits of other Dopers. What produce, if any, do you weigh? Have you ever weighed bananas, and if so, why?
I never weigh bananas. I buy lots, and eat them all when they are at that perfect ripeness. Mmmmmm, bananas. My friend oooks at me when I bring a lot for lunch.
Your friend is an ape. Give him some of your bananas.
I weigh all my produce when I shop – bananas and all.
I keep a running tally (no Belafonte jokes, please) so I don’t get an unpleasant surprise at checkout.
Well, to sell a banana per banana is just barbaric. Everyone will rush violently toward the produce section in search of the “top banana”. Mayhem will ensue. Little old ladies will be penalized for buying the small banana. That is a world I shudder to live in.
Same here, except not always. Only when my checking account is low, and I need to be careful not to go over.
Aren’t bananas sold by weight? Meaning, you’d have to weigh them? In the grocery store I shop in, they have a huge produce section and they have scales scattered around so you can punch your produce code in and get a bar code sticker with the total price on it to stick on the bag. It makes the checkout process a lot faster if the drone at the register doesn’t have to figure out what you bought (is this Boston lettuce or leaf lettuce or Romaine?) and look up the code.
In any case, I think bananas are vile, and are proof that there is a Hell, but if I did ever purchase bananas, I’d weigh them.
Nah, we just really really love Discworld. She refers to me as the Librarian.
My husband, on the other hand, finds it very amusing when I anounce “I am in a banana mood” and eat several at one sitting. I’ll be more than happy to eat any Jadis doesn’t want.
We generally have enough cushion in the old checking account so that we don’t keep a running total any more, but back in our poverty days, yes, I’d be sure to weigh every bit of produce. Now, I only weigh those prepackaged bags of produce. You’d be AMAZED at how many times a bag will be marked 5#, for instance, when it only weighs a tad over 4#.
If I’m making a recipe that calls for a specific amount of fruit that I don’t normally buy, then I’ll weigh that produce, too.
I also check eggs. I open the carton, and gently move each egg in its little compartment. If it’s been cracked for any period of time, it will have leaked, and the egg will stick to the compartment. If it moves freely it probably isn’t cracked.
You beat me to it, Larry!
I never weigh produce. I get however much I think I’ll eat at the excellent produce store three blocks from home, when I pass it as soon as I get off the bus. It’s nice not having to make a special trip.
I never weigh anything either. With ‘big’ foods like bananas and apples/oranges, I always buy a certain number of them. When it comes to smaller varieties like beans or mushrooms or grapes, I just grab whatever mass I know I will need to feed the tribe.
I used to weigh loose potatoes, for instance, but canned that practice as too much hassle. The less time I’m in that supermarket, the better!
I don’t weigh the bananas I buy; I just choose the number of bananas I want… but when I go to the checkout, the checker puts them on the scale and types on the product code, and Ping! the number of grams pops up on the screen. On the receipt it shows up as so many grams of bananas.
Jadis, your store has you weigh all your own produce? I see enormous opportunities for ‘fudging.’ Heck it’s probably built into the price already
You don’t have to, but I’d say it’s encouraged based on the availability of the self-service scales and codes on every produce sign. Sometimes if I’m lazy, I won’t tag my own produce and then I get to the register and the 16 year old clerk has no idea what the difference is between a Spanish onion and a Vidalia onion and stuff like that…so it’s faster for me to tag my own. I can see how there would be room for fudging, though…as for whether it’s built into the price, I don’t know. Prices seem to be in line with other stores in the area, and I tend to buy stuff that’s on sale that week anyway. 