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The commissary -- use it Stateside, too
It’s easy to know what to eat on a ship. But what do you do when you have to figure all that out for yourself?
In cooperation with Navy nutritionists and fitness trainers, Jennifer Person Whippo, RD, Navy program manager for nutrition, polled 750 Sailors, both officers and enlisted, in Jan. 2009, asking what they wanted to know about nutrition. The results were surprising.
‘‘It was ridiculously parallel. We didn’t think we would see it, but everywhere we went Sailors would say, ‘Tell me what to eat for breakfast’,” Person Whippo said. ‘‘They thought a Pop-tart and a Starbucks Frappuccino was breakfast.”
That research helped create the Navy Operational Fitness and Fueling Series, a nutrition and exercise plan launched Navywide last year. The emphasis is on exercise, of course, in partnership with the solid nutrition that comes from eating real, recognizable food. It’s easy to decide to eat well. It doesn’t even sound like much of a challenge to put down that sugary breakfast bomb, especially when you factor in how expensive fast food meals can be. But how do you replace unhealthy, expensive habits with the good food your grandmother used to make?
First, shop like your grandmother. Look for foods that look, well, like food. Meats and produce, grains and dairy products in as natural form as possible. You might not find much of that on a drive-through restaurant menu, but it’s all available at a grocery store if you’ll take a few minutes to shop, and then a little more time to cook for yourself. For Sailors and other military, there’s yet another incentive to cook at home shopping at the commissary is a bigger bargain than stores out in town.
NAS Patuxent River Commissary deputy store director Reginal Flowers has worked in commissaries here and abroad. The biggest difference? Once people return to the US, they don’t always think to shop the commissary first.
The commissary at Pax River is smaller than some, with an average sales of $2 million per month. But Flowers reminds Sailors that shopping at the commissary “is part of your check, kind of computated in there as your pay.” It makes sense to take advantage of that benefit, just as you might use tuition assistance and other programs for service members.
“Overseas, everyone knows to go to the commissary, because where else are you going to shop? But Stateside, a lot of people don’t know about it,” Flowers said.
The commissary is not only an inexpensive place for Sailors to shop; it often offers items that aren’t readily available out in town.
“We know the needs of military personnel. We have a bigger international section (than most grocery stores) and some items that are uniqueI’ve never seen them at other stores,” said Flowers.
Though some larger commissaries have a “single Sailor” section displaying smaller portions of meat, Pax River’s shop doesn’t pre-package those items. They do have a butcher, however, who can cut meats to order and educate a shopper about how to cook them to their best advantage. With this winter’s particularly mild weather, grilling meats and vegetables can be an easy, delicious and quick way to eat well, without making a mess or spending a lot of money.
Flowers also suggests shoppers consult www.commissaries.com to create a shopping list, learn about new recipes, see what’s on sale at our commissary, and keep an eye on product recalls and other information.