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The Fine Art Of Grocery Criticism
If, as it has been written again and again, the internet and peer reviews are destroying the careers of movie critics, then surely food criticism can’t be far behind…first came restaurant review sites like Yelp that amalgamated community opinions on local greasy spoons and sushi joints. Now Zeer has come along to apply the community-review model to grocery-store items. The beta site has nutritional information on all sorts of products, from frozen edamame to the newest Dorito flavor, plus community reviews of said products.
I’m not sure how helpful it is.
First of all—there’s the issue of price. Yes groceries are getting stiflingly expensive, but individual items don’t involve the same financial commitment as say, a night out at a restaurant. Restaurants are expensive enough, and babysitting hard enough to nail down that one really doesn’t want to waste a night at an overrated restaurant, and so I think there’s some value in community restaurant reviews. Some comments might be bat-shit crazy, but usually trustworthy themes of rude service, soggy fries, or fabulous chocolate cake emerge from them. In general, I think the amount of money you’re thinking about spending is proportional to the amount of time you’re going to spend researching a product. I might be pretty careful about my next hotel reservation, but I’m less easily convinced by a group of strangers on my decision to buy my next box of pasta.
And then there’s the element of time— I do tend to check out community reviews when I’m shopping on a catalog site that can actually deliver the product to my doorstep once I’ve made my decision; but Zeer can only provide advice without being able to get food in my belly. I’m not sure that’s worth a trip to the computer before a trip to the grocery store, where I can read the nutritional labels in person.
To be fair, I think Zeer or sites like it could be helpful for someone who’s just entering into a specialty diet—gluten-free, meat-free or nut-free, say, both for positive reviews of xxx-free products and for double checking whether products are, in fact xxx-free.
But ultimately Zeer naturally gravitates towards food that has to have nutritional labels, that is processed ready-meals, snacks, cookies, and sauces. The truth is, for the most part the most nutritive foods are the unprocessed ones that don’t have labels like apples and swiss chard, and wild-caught salmon. I get more help with those from reliable recipe sites like Epicurious.com or foodtv.com.
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Now be fair - I just went to Zeer and learned about The Best Taco Shells Ever.
Where would I be without that candid, no-holds-barred review?