I’ve written a couple of posts about shopping at Costco. (See real food finds at Costco and wild fish at Costco.) Yesterday, however, Jesse and I had such a great Costco trip that I need to revisit the subject again. If you, too, are a Costco member, I greatly hope that your local Costco also carries the bounty that I just discovered at mine. If not, I’d consider suggesting that they start carrying some of these products. 🙂
Grass-fed Butter
When we entered the dairy aisle, this wonderful sight greeted us:
Our local Costco (in Superior, Colorado) hasn’t had Kerrygold butter in nearly a year, so suffice it to say I was EXTREMELY excited about this. I LOVE Kerrygold butter. While raw, grass-fed butter would be the absolute best butter option, raw butter is ridiculously expensive here ($21/pound from my local dairy, and that requires you to drive to the dairy to make it yourself) and I just can’t afford it. While not raw, Kerrygold butter is exclusively grass-fed and thus is chockfull of vitamins and other nutrients. It’s also absolutely delicious. The price at Costco is amazing: $2.27 for a half pound. When I can’t get Kerrygold at Costco, I buy Organic Valley pasture butter from my local Vitamin Cottage, but I don’t think it’s as tasty and it’s a lot more expensive–$3.35 for a half pound.
I don’t know how long this butter will be at Costco, so we bought nine pounds. (I’m not sure how long that will last us, but probably not as long as you’d think.) If you live near the Costco in Superior, get yourself there right away to stock up on some Kerrygold!
(Oh, and if do you end up buying a lot of butter, be prepared for some snide comments. The woman behind me in line remarked that I “must be a Paula Deen fan” and then proceeded to tell her husband that Paula Deen was “the one who was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.” Argh. The person ringing us up nearly also says something as well; sometimes they’re quite nice about it but other times you’d think I was buying heroin or something. But whatever. I can handle some snideness in exchange for my Kerrygold.)
Nutiva Coconut Oil
As if nine pounds of Kerrygold butter wasn’t enough excitement for the day, when we got to the oils aisle we saw this:
Nutiva coconut oil! I have to say I was completely shocked. Who would’ve thought Costco would start carrying coconut oil? And a virgin, high-quality coconut oil at that. We’ve been buying Nutiva for the last year—it’s really delicious stuff.
The price was fantastic: 26 cents an ounce. I normally buy my Nutiva coconut oil through Amazon subscribe and save, which at the time was the best price I could find. I just looked it up now: 48 cents an ounce. Needless to say, I will be buying all of my virgin coconut oil at Costco now if they continue to carry Nutiva.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Have you heard about how many extra virgin olive oils don’t actually meet extra virgin standards? (See this post if you don’t know what I’m talking about.) This has made me wary of buying just any extra virgin olive oil. I actually bought Chaffin Family Orchards during their “olive oil futures” sale last fall, but my stash is about to run out so I was in the market for something new. I was delighted to find this right next to the coconut oil:
I didn’t know a lot about California Olive Ranch, but I’ve eaten it at my parents’ house so I figured it was worth trying. (My mom is a health-conscious olive oil connoisseur, so I’d trust her to pick out a good variety.) When I got home I did some of my own research. According to this study, California Olive Ranch’s oil passed as truly extra virgin, unlike many other brands of olive oil. I was also very impressed by what I read on their website. As far as I can tell, California Olive Ranch is the real deal. And the price at Costco was great: only 22 cents an ounce.
The variety of olive oil that Costco is carrying is the Miller’s blend, which the bottle describes as “bold and peppery.” I’m not sure if that means it will be too aggressive for our normal olive oil applications, but I’m really not worried. Jesse and I both like the taste of unrefined olive oil, and if it ends up being not mild enough for things like salad dressings I’m sure it will still go well with vegetables. Last night it was delicious on broiled zucchini.
(Side note: According to that research I mentioned earlier, Kirkland organic extra virgin olive oil also passed the extra virgin standards. I’ve never bought it before but now I’m thinking it’s probably also an excellent choice! I didn’t notice the price but I’d bet it’s less expensive than the California Olive Ranch.)
Color Me Impressed
When I wrote my first post about Costco, I mentioned that while a lot of the food that Costco carries is processed junk, they also have a pretty good selection of real foods. I’m so impressed that their selection of real food seems to be expanding all the time. As the real food movement grows who knows what we’ll be seeing at Costco! I, for one, am very excited. While I buy a lot of my food from local farmers, that just isn’t possible for everything so I’m glad that Costco can help me afford and access the healthy foods that we need.
Do you shop at Costco? What real foods deals have you scored lately?
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