Is strategic grocery bagging wise?

Who knew there is a right way to bag groceries? Other than "don't put eggs under a gallon of milk," I've long insisted that there is no correct way.

Friends, however, disagree. Unfortunately, they have support from the grocery-bagging community.

I do virtually all of our shopping for groceries and have done so since Mrs. Brad and I married, despite the fact that I am a terrible cook. A grocery list and willingness to navigate a grocery store will get you places.

Anyway, I have always insisted that it doesn't matter how you bag groceries, as long as nothing breaks.

I openly make fun of baggers who want to put toiletries in a separate plastic bag inside my paper bag. I argue that it won't hurt the vegetables if they touch cough syrup–or even a cereal box.

I take the groceries straight home and put them away. I don't need similar groceries to be in the same bag and in fact, I secretly believe that is a way to create food ghettos.

Right? Isn't a policy of only allowing canned food to be next to other canned food similar to the disgraced former policies in Central and Eastern Europe? (Pay no attention to how we store food. That's a different issue. This is about transportation from the grocery store to my home.)

My philosophy was foolproof. What rational person would disagree?

How about Alex?

We had a discussion about grocery shopping at work recently (I'm sure it had to do with our job. Probably.) and my friend Alex revealed that not only does she organize her grocery list by category (all produce together, all meat together, etc.), she has a strict strategy about bagging groceries.

Similar foods go together. They have to go together, according to Alex. She will put her groceries on the counter in a way to make it clear how they should be bagged.

The sound of my eyes rolling may have been audible. Until . . .

Alex said that cashiers and baggers have complimented her on her strategy.

My immediate reaction was to do what I always do when someone disagrees with me: Make fun of them, then check on the internet to confirm that they're crazy.

Alex isn't crazy.

An article on a website called Insider (presumably about people who never go outdoors) revealed that a survey of people who bag groceries for a living showed that they agree with Alex. Put cold food with cold food. Produce with produce. Put toiletries in their own bags. Bag delicate items (bread, eggs) separate from everything else.

I've spent my life considering that an obsessive-compulsive disorder ("I must have my groceries bagged in a certain way. Don't let the toilet paper container touch the potatoes!") is in fact the correct strategy, according to experts.

It's like when the football statistical experts first suggested that it would be smartest to never punt or baseball statistics experts said a walk was indeed as good as a hit.

Crazy, right? Except for one thing: Apparently, most of the world already knew this. My philosophy that it doesn't matter how you bag groceries as long as you don't break the eggs is outside of mainstream thought.

You should organize your groceries for the ride home. Keep similar items together.

Maybe I will do that. Maybe I'll change decades of behavior. Maybe I'll be like Alex and organize my shopping list and my grocery bag, to ensure that everything stays pure.

Or maybe that's a conspiracy to keep vegetables from mixing with cereal and canned goods, so they'll never realize how powerful they are.

Diversity forever!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.