Groceries & Being Green

After discovering how expensive a normal German meal can be when you take Euro-dollar conversion into consideration, Schnitzel and Vegi decided that it was time for some home-cooked meals. But where to find a grocery store? After looking around on the net, and painfully trying to dislodge the search function amongst the German-labeled links for the major grocery stores, Vegi finally gave up and decided to go for a walk. While on the walk, she found all four of the major staple grocery stores here in Berlin which include: Pennymart, Lidl, Edeka, and Plus. Pennymart is a little scary- kinda cheapo with lots of children running around. Lidl and Plus are probably the best in my opinion, and Edeka seems smaller (at least the one by our place is) and more expensive but good for things like cheese and dairy.


After shopping, Schnitzel enjoys a hearty meal of pasta, shrimp, and a 6 pack of beer.

We decided to go with Plus for our first major supply run. Among the treasures we discovered were: frozen calamari (2 euro), bucket of strawberry yogurt (2 euro), vegi burgers (1,69 euro), pesto (2 euro), and (my favorite) one euro black caviar! We were a bit perplexed to find that at grocery stores you’re expected to either bring your own bag, or buy one at the market. They have some nice ones at Plus for 1 euro. I think it’s a very cool thing that they’re trying to reduce the waste problem that is plastic bags (which take forever to biodegrade and are pretty awful for the environment). San Francisco was trying to do the same last I heard by prohibiting major grocery chains like Safeway from using plastic, and only allowing paper. However, the same problem exists with trashing paper bags- it creates trash and depletes forests. Reuse is really the best way. I’ve also been told that all bottles are reused and if you bring them back to anyplace that sells the same product they’ll refund you a few cents. Very cool. A remarkably green solution that I wish the American people weren’t so squeamish about.