Fat Guy

We discuss human behavior in the grocery store, among other things.

I stopped by the store this morning to ask if they pay for the bags. I didn't speak to an owner or authorized corporate representative -- just one of the section managers -- but what I was told is that they don't pay for bags. There's a company in Brooklyn, apparently, that sells bags to product manufacturers and prints advertisements on the bags. The product manufacturers offer these bags for free to the stores as a way to get their logos out there. The company is called Mediacy if anyone wants to do more research.

There are things in the store that it's okay to take without paying for, such as free samples. Kids aren't so dumb that they can't tell the difference between a produce bag and a candy bar. If my son winds up in prison for grand larceny and says, "But dad, you took produce bags," I'll say I was wrong.

Today I used three of them: one to pack grapes for my wife's lunch, one to act as a trash bag in the car, and one to hold a sandwich for my son's breakfast. I don't necessarily use three every day but I do use them fairly often.

I'm not sure it's relevant to anything, but these bags don't come on rolls. I don't know the right name for the format but they're kind of bound like a checkbook.

The bags do no damage to the environment sitting in my cabinet. In New York City we have a plastic-bag recycling program, and if they actually recycle the bags that's probably better than nothing.

By the way, I'm guessing the bags don't cost the store anything. They are emblazoned with ads. I'm guessing this pays for the bags. I wonder if the supplier with the ad is providing the advertised product with accompanying rolls of bags.

Holly, doesn't all that assume the cost is not already factored into the purchase price?

A regional chain.

Okay, that's your yardstick. Mine is to have a whole lot of them just in case. Given that I've run out of them in the past I like to have an inventory. I think since the dog died the inventory has been increasing because I just grab some extras each time I shop. But if I stopped taking them altogether I'd go through 100 in a few months, easily, given all the different things I use them for. I used three today. Were every day like today that would be 93 in a month.

Under that theory, it would not be a crime to take a roll of bags. The store could tell you not to take them, just as they could tell you not to take one bag. But there wouldn't be a basis to call the police to chase you down and recover the roll. Still, it seems excessive to take more than a few bags.

The produce bags from the store where I shop are quite sturdy. They're useful as small trash bags in the car, for picking up dog poop (though our dog is long gone), for packing a sandwich, for all sorts of things. They perform an equivalent function to large baggies.

If the value is zero it's probably not theft. In every state I know of, there are levels of larceny with the division between petit and grand falling somewhere around $500. This doesn't mean the smaller amounts are not theft, but it does indicate that one is less serious than the other. But I don't think the question with something like a produce bag is value. It's more one of implied consent. The bags are out there. They have no purchase price assigned to them. There are no rules written on them ("Take only one bag per six oranges") and most likely no such rules exist even in the corporate manual. Etc.

I know that but I think the distinction illustrates that it isn't sophistry to talk about a spectrum of culpability.

I wonder if cashiers who pack groceries in a million bags are stealing too.

Or if I make six separate trips to the store and buy one orange in a bag each time. I'd love to hear from someone in the business how stores account for and view this stuff.

From a legal standpoint I don't think "stealing is stealing" quite cuts it. The law certainly recognizes degrees of theft. I don't think it's a rationalization to say that taking a plastic bag from a grocery store is not the same as taking a million dollars from a bank. From a moral, legal and common-sense standpoint those things are different. But there are also situations where taking property is not theft, for example where there is implied permission such as when you take the toiletries home from your hotel room.

So I figured out a thing to do with ice: chill tea and coffee. When you have effectively infinite ice, you can fill a huge glass with it and pour hot tea or coffee over.

I was in the supermarket the other day and, as I put oranges in a plastic produce bag, I grabbed a couple of extra bags off the roll and stuffed them in my pocket. Later at home I added those bags to my collection of produce bags -- I must have a hundred or so. Is this taking of bags within the normal bounds of ethical behavior, or is it theft? Ditto for other store packaging, like deli containers at the olive bar. Do you do it? Think about it? Care about it?

That seems to be standard procedure at many stores. I hate it.

I'd like to add my vote here. I think one of the worst packaging ideas -- and it is in wide use -- is cream cheese in foil bricks. Once you open it, it's incredibly difficult to get it closed and the nature of the product is not conducive to being transferred to another container without significant loss.

What's the difference between UHT and ultrapasteurized?

I once did a tasting panel for a beer company that I can't talk much about because I promised not to. What I did notice was that there were a couple of people whose taste I trusted and we three agreed on pretty much everything, but we were a clear minority. The larger portion of people on the panel, who probably reflected popular taste, gravitated toward the Miller Lite end of the spectrum of preferences.

Whether it's Cook's Illustrated, a newspaper or somewhere online, I rarely if ever agree with the findings of tasting panels. On the one hand, I admire the conditions under which many tasting panels operate: blind, multiple tasters, etc. On the other hand, a tasting panel is only going to reflect the taste of the group it represents. If you form a tasting panel from a pool of people who think McDonald's is the best restaurant in the world, the results will reflect those tastes. How do you all feel about the tasting-panel results you've heard about.

Am I the only one who keeps a few containers of UHT milk around for when the refrigerated milk runs out and I don't feel like running to the store for more? I also think that, while UHT milk used to taste weird, they've made improvements to the product. The stuff I've been using, from Organic Valley, is pretty good.