List your top 5 grocery store items.

Picking a “Top #” of anything is usually accompanied by some kind of categories or qualifiers, but grocery store items? This is wide open for interpretation.

Grocery stories small and large across the United States often have a wide variety of products ranging from non-consumable to all manner of fresh, boxed, canned, or frozen foods. So how does someone pick their Top 5? You could go with your most frequent purchases, or from very specific areas of the store like the bakery.

In no particular order, let us just run through the way I processed the prompt. Top 5’s without rankings.

Meat and seafood counter? Ground beef, chicken thighs and breasts, pineapple bratwurst, pork chops.

Bakery? Cookies, cupcakes, layer cakes, cream cheese brownies, scotcharoos.

Dairy products? Eggs, whole milk, sour cream, shredded cheese, heavy whipping cream.

Deli counter? Fresh sliced roast beef, garlic roast beef, smoked provolone, swiss, kerry gold butter. Yes, I know that the last one should probably go with dairy products but my grocery store stocks it at the deli counter.

Fresh produce? Onions, potatoes, shallots, avocados, garlic.

Dry goods? Well, this one would be where things can get out of hand. What gets included in this category? A lot. Someone might argue that canned goods could be counted in the dry goods category. They’d be wrong, in my opinion. So, the top 5 dry goods for me would include rice, ramen, instant mashed potatoes, dry beans, flour.

Canned goods? Campbell’s Chunky soups, Progresso soups, cream of mushroom or cream of chicken (it’s a toss up), Veg-All, beans.

Frozen goods? Ice cream, pizza, Banquet meals or bowls, chicken nuggets, frozen fruit (typically pineapple chunks, I like to use them in smoothies so I can use less ice.)

I think I’ll stop there and actually make a grocery list, because it’s time to go to the store again.