Comment by dxbydt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dxbydt | Hacker News Reader

Ha! I figured out the reason even before I read the whole article... always a gratifying feeling. That said, there are tons of food hacks if you want to save 30-40% and have a strong stomach. Buy your cashews, cumin seeds, turmeric, groundnuts, papayas, guavas from the nearby Indian store - there's tons of them in CA. Most of these are sourced from Fiji, Philippines, India etc, whereas Safeway would source cumin from Oregon and charge $5 per ounce. You can literally get a whole pound of cumin for that price - but no, you don't get the "organic certification", or the bar code or the USDA assurance sticker or anything that lets you know where the cumin came from in case you get some food poisoning and want to lodge a complaint. The Indian store lady dips into a giant cumin bottle and pours out a pound of cumin and takes $5 cash and no sales tax ofcourse wink wink. So yeah, depends on your ethics and cash situation. Say you want a little pep in your walk and like some extra endurance - used to be ephedra was legal and you could pop into your Chevron foodmart and buy a pill. Now it's no longer legal, so you go to the Chinese store and get the strongest ephedra tea - free market ftw. Ofcourse if you brew something strong and land up in the hospital, the medic can't really help you since who knows where that tea came from and what else is in it. Literally no American supermarket can compete with an Indian store when it comes to say cashews. Your Target gives you two pounds of cashews for $15. The Indian store gives you two kgs... that's 4.4 pounds! Ofcourse it won't come in a nice airtight jar with feel-good marketing on why you must eat your servings of USDA nuts for optimum health - instead, it's going to be wrapped up in a cone made of newspaper.

If you have a "tropical palate" and a strong stomach, you should definitely try some of these shady joints. It's a trip.

> "and no sales tax ofcourse wink wink"

Actually in CA, many groceries are not subject to sales tax, just FYI. I'm not sure where the distinction is drawn, but it seems like the less processed the food the less likely it will be taxed.

Not sure why this is downvoted. California, like many other jurisdictions, seems to make a distinction between groceries/"raw" foods, and "prepared foods" when it comes to sales taxes. Unprepared foods are generally exempt from sales tax, while store-prepared foods are not exempt. E.g. an unsliced bagel in NY is untaxed, but a sliced bagel can/must be taxed. Fruit and vegetables likely fall into the untaxed category.

From Wikipedia: In grocery stores, unprepared food items are not taxed but vitamins and all other items are. Ready-to-eat hot foods, whether sold by supermarkets or other vendors, are taxed. Restaurant bills are taxed. As an exception, hot beverages and bakery items are tax-exempt if and only if they are for take-out and are not sold with any other hot food. If consumed on the seller's premises, such items are taxed like restaurant meals. All other food is exempt from sales tax.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_and_use_taxes_in_Califor...

It is more complex that that: hot food might not be taxed if it is "to go" (Starbucks and their breakfast sandwiches ....), Whole Foods will always apply tax to its food bar items, the ice cream parlor down the street will apply sales tax if you say "for here" but not if they assume take out.

It is very very confusing, and I haven't really figured it out yet.

Sales tax on food in general tend to be pretty arcane. Notoriously, McVities sued the British revenue services to have some of their biscuits classified as cake instead of biscuits, because there's no VAT on cake. (They won.)

The original idea was to reduce the regressive effects of sales tax by making basic necessities tax free. Coffee, ground beef, and potatoes are considered basic, but having someone prepare your food for you is a luxury. This general philosophy based on need has been around for decades (centuries?), and it was not originally motivated by getting to people to "eat less processed foods" or other health reasons. Of course, since then all sorts of changes have been made for a variety of reasons.

also, ethnic grocers often have: - much fresher product - more varieties of a given item (e.g. mint) - stronger flavor / less watered-down varietals - items you can't find in mainstream grocers (e.g. rau ram)

At least in SF, no "strong stomach" is required - the ethnic grocers source from the central valley, same as everybody, and fruit is peeled and herbs are washed, same as you'd do with stuff from Safeway.

In particular, rau ram ("vietnamese coriander) is simply amazing-- it started showing up in grocers the past few years and my gf introduced me to it (she's from southeast asia) and it's mild and fascinating, and I keep finding new uses, both cooked and raw. 100% of people seem to like it, and if you're not sure, start by using it whole to flavor rice.

But you can only buy it in ethnic grocers.

(SF readers: the civic center farmer's market has one herbs farmer with all the vietnamese herbs: mint, rau ram, vn shiso, etc - $1.50 for two massive bunches, and much fresher than any grocer)

Seconding buying spices from Indian markets. Here in NoVA you can get a pound of spice for as much as Safeway sells 2oz of it.

Spices from India can often have dangerous levels of salmonella and other contaminants.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/health/12-percent-of-us-sp...

That looks like a FUD article, but still "Can" doesn't mean "will"!

Also, at least in Indian cooking, most spices are cooked very well, which will kill any trace of Salmonella. So, unlike the spinach and lettuce that get recalled regularly from the grocery stores, if you are using these spices for Indian recipes, you are totally fine (w.r.t salmonella).

I'd be more worried of spices that are laced with pesticides.

Well, we have been buying spices from Indian grocery stores in Northern California for the last 15 years. BTW, the better known brands of Spices that you get in larger supermarket chains also are imported from India/Vietnam etc. So, not much of a difference other than the price for the brand/packaging, the supermarket expenses and margin percentage.

I was actually surprised that a chain like Costco couldn't beat the Paneer price (was ~50% more) compared the neighborhood Indian grocery stores I go to! I'll have to check on dry fruits though. I've seen many Indians going to India usually buy dry fruits from Costco instead of Indian stores.

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