Coming from the other side of the pond (I'm a Brit) and growing up where my folks grew their own vegetables, I've really been turned off by a lot of the stuff

Coming from the other side of the pond (I'm a Brit) and growing up where my folks grew their own vegetables, I've really been turned off by a lot of the stuff churned out by corporations and labelled 'food'. In regard to taste, it's simply not true that all year round food tastes the same as something that is in season. Im not talking about organics here. Heck I grew my own tomatoes in my back yard and they were 95% better than the stuff in supermarkets. Buy some strawberries from a major supermarket, cut them open. They are not not supposed to be white inside. That's because of the manufacturing warehouse process. They are supposed to be super sweet. Usually they are not. Buy some tomatoes. Same deal. Cut it open and examine the cell structure.. Half the time it either whitish and tasteless or the cell structure looks collapsed and will rot real-soon-now. Buy some on-the-vine fancy tomatoes (from your local farmers market).. notice how sweet they taste and how red they look once you slice them.. thats because they've been allowed to ripe naturally. The other thing I find scary is that if I buy apples from the supermarket it takes forever for them to rot. That simply is not right. Personally I prefer to eat stuff that's in season, so my menu changes as the year progresses. I try real hard not to buy stuff from major supermarkets. I find it's usually cheaper to buy stuff from your local farmers market (go late in the day when they are trying to get rid of everything) or local grocer store which gets supplied from farmers. Oh I'm not some fancy shmancy foodie hippie. I just want decent food for a reasonable price.