If you know me, you know that I love to grocery shop. Which may sound strange to some people because it is the one task that they dread every week. For me though, it’s something that excites me and I looked forward to my weekly trip to the store back in the states. I love to spend countless hours on Pinterest finding a new recipe to make for the week ahead. I guess now that I’m writing this it does sound quite pathetic but when I have you over for a dinner party you’ll say it was well worth it! However there was quite a bit to learn about grocery shopping in Zurich.
A Whole New World of Grocery Shopping
- The most obvious- I can’t read most of the items.
- Thankfully google translate has come to the rescue multiple times to help me make sure I’m putting the correct items into my cart
- Weighing fruits and vegetables
- Back home I’d put however many fruits / veggies into my cart and the person at the register would weigh them and ring it up. Maybe they aren’t as familiar with veggies and are wondering what you even brought them. No drama with that here in Switzerland! You grab your fruit / veg and then you go to weigh it and type in the number that relates to your produce and it prints out the sticker and bam, an easy peasy process come check out. Honestly, the states could implement this one!
- Buy what you can carry
- Not having a car means I can only buy what I can carry back home that trip. Which also means that I’m going to the store more frequently. Let’s also make note the fridge size is about ¾ smaller than what I’m used to and freezers are big enough to have some ice cubes in there. I’m overreacting obviously but they are smaller!
- Lack of Items I’m used to from the US
- Wheat thins or triscuits are no more. Goldfish, nope. Pop Tarts good joke. (I never bought them anyway but I’m painting the picture for you here!) It honestly makes you wonder why the US has all of this on our shelves in the first place. And then becomes a no brainer as to why the US has a huge obesity rate amongst children and adults. I’ll save you for this and not get into that topic now!
- Eggs and Milk
- Are not stored in the fridge which was so new to me! I have finally found milk in the fridge, but have been having a hard time finding skim milk or something that isn’t at a 2-5% milk fat! Eggs, that was a new one to me. All these eggs lined up beautifully on a shelf just sitting there. I was like ummm nope I can’t do it! But I finally did and I can’t taste any difference there.
The result on grocery shopping in Zurich. I don’t hate it! Yes, it’s different and not always convenient. But I am able to listen to people speak German and get some extra steps in for the day which is really good for the mind and body!
Eggs in the US are in the fridge because they’ve been washed. Most other countries don’t do this, which means they can sit out on the shelf.
Milk in Mexico is also in boxes that are left out on the shelf. It’s interesting how dairy is so different around the world. Here, there is non lactic milk and lactic milk and that’s it 🤷🏽♂️. That had me real confused at first.
I hope you two are enjoying life!
It’s crazy that they wash eggs I feel only in the US haha. With the milk I will have to look into the lactic / non lactic if that’s the case here too I’ve not looked into that!
Thank you for reading my post 🙂 We are enjoying the Swiss life! <3