Grocery Shopping

I don't think I've written much about buying food here, maybe because I don't cook much, or because my idea of a meal is cereal while standing in the kitchen when I'm so hungry I could throw up.
There are grocery stores, much like the ones we're accustomed to, but there are some major differences.
They may be out of things like bananas, carrots (except expensive baby carrots), bread, yogurt, real butter (but they have tons of fake butter), or--like the other day--chicken (I waited while they reshelved it) or other meats (wanna buy hamburg meat? good luck, and it's called "mince meat").
The potatoes are usually soft from sitting in the humidity, there may be nasty, bruised tomatoes or wet bananas (when they're available).
Milk is rarely found fresh...it's all powdered milk (but I drink Soymilk and have no problems).
There is lots of local produce like pumpkin ("punkin"), patchoy (patchoi or bok choy), sweet potatoes (that are really ugly and dark), plantain, ochre, chive ("sive"), celery (which is very small), fig (small, green bananas), bodi (really long green beans), bananas, mangoes (there are to Julie Mango trees at work), papaya (Paw Paw), grapes, watermelon, and others I can't think of. Most people seem to go to the market to buy their produce, but I don't know how to do that, and I don't know if I'll get fair prices being a foreigner, and I try to stay away from crowded places where I can be "marked".
You can also go to small places where you can buy chicken all cut up, and cook all the parts (feet and all).
A good thing about the grocery stores is that it is very vegetarian friendly. There are many Hindus in the country, so the amount of meat-less meat and soy products you can buy is wonderful.
Other produce like lettuce, apples (being from the Northeast, I am really a snob about these, and take forever going through them), strawberries, and the like are the same we get over in the US, only it's taken an extra week to get to us so they aren't as fresh, and they are very expensive. I paid about $7 (US) for a container of strawberries, and I rarely see them.
Most produce is packaged, and you can't choose your own (broccoli, apples, grapes, tomatoes).
Food prices are very high here, especially for the amount of money the average person gets paid, and there is a lot of unrest about the recent increases in eggs, bread, and rice. There have been some robberies of food delivery trucks lately because of this. Also, the road food prices have gone up, causing a lot of anger. For example, there are things called "doubles" and it's chickpeas (called "channa" here) curried and folded into a soft pita-bread-like thing. It's wicked good, but prices have just gone to $4 (TT...divide by 6 to get the US price of things), and people were in disbelief...it's the only thing that was talked about on the radio for a week.
I spend about the same amount on food that I did when I lived in Florida, and there is a lot less to choose from. I miss cereal mostly, and Fluff, and Hummus (which I've seen for $6 US), but I do pretty well with everything here.