I am sure that many here do save seeds when they find something they like and want to try...I don't think the grocery store really necessarily offers the best variety of anything...the best commercial variety but not necessarily the best tasting...or the best for growing in the local area...but I do occasionally save seeds and I am sure mist other gardeners have as well....I usually get lots of volunteers too from where I have disposed of my waste...

Umm...actually you can think of there being two kinds of veggies, hybrids and non-hybrids. The NON-hybrids are plants like their ancestors 20 or 200 years ago, and you can use seeds from them and get the same plants to grow again.
HYBRIDS are another matter! Frequently they are crossed to get a trait for markets, like large size or color. They cross grandparent plants and parent plants, and so on, to get particular traits. So if you take these seeds from one of these hybrids, the result may be a plant like the grandparent plant or a parent plant....which may not be at all what you wanted! Most plants from the supermarket are hybrids but not all, but you cannot tell by looking at them.

In conclusion, you are looking for heirloom seeds. See the heirloom forum for more likeminded folks.
Click here to visit the heirloom forum page.
Welcome to heirloom gardening! Once you have your heirloom gardening growing, THEN you can collect your seeds for next years planting :-)

(All, please note I realize this is a simplified explanation, but I did now want to write a book)

Always an. . .Angel

I do save hot pepper seeds. they usually work well.

I do not usually save tomato seeds from the store. they are tasteless.

someone recently suggested beans but I am not a bean grower.

garlic should be good.

I have done peaches, apricots, etc. with some success and some failure.

I think it is a lot of fun to get seeds from the store and try them out. but it must be done as a fun project and a learning project.

I did orange bell pepper from holland when the color first came out. none of the plants were any good. only one pepper per plant. and none turned orange. haha. taught me a lesson.

now even the hot peppers are going hybrid. like the jalapeno and serrano are hybrids in the stores around here. I can tell because they look different. they are usually too big. ( higher yield ) and the shape changes.

Corn, tomatos, pepers, potatos, and any fruit off a tree aren't good the best way to go as far as taste is concerned, these have all been hybridized and bred to make a very shippable but not so tasty product and planting Potatos from the grocery store should Never!Size>color> ever plant because they can very easily cary soil pathogens to your area and destroy potatos and tomatos wich is no good. Just spend the $10 a year to get your hands on a few different herloom plants and then harvest the seeds for your own personal use. While its not as cheap you will get much more nutritious and tasty food. Beans are however a good choice from the supermarket.

Garlic may not turn out well. The grocery store kind is a softneck that grows well in California and has a very long shelf life. It may not do as well in our colder climates. The same goes for onions- many of them are cultivated in warmer areas.

I think it's just easier to buy seeds, harvest your veggies then save those seeds. This way you can pick and choose your best seeds and even develop an heirloom variety.

What really irks me is the recent trend of big agribusiness to develop and patent-protect the vegetable and flower varieties they sell. They have been known to take legal action against farmers (and gardeners?) who collect the seeds and plant them for the next year's crop. Farmers have even been sued when their own crops were cross-pollinated by, say, Monsanto's or ADM's patented DNA just by the bees, birds, or wind. (Guess who can afford the better team of lawyers.)
This is not likely to be a problem for home gardeners, but another trick of the big corporations is to deliberately develop plants whose seeds will not produce viable, or desireable second-generation crops.

I've experienced both positive and lousy results with harvested seeds. My bing cherry tree has had lots of babies; they grow into big trees if you let them, and the cherries taste delicious, but they are so small it's a lot of work to get the cherry pulp. Most of the time my commercially bought tomato seeds don't produce new tomato plants.

However, two years ago I found a big, gangly shrub growing in my garden (where I had used some of my compost). I asked a gardener helper to cut it down, but, fortunately, he never got around to it. LOL
Next year that "weed" sprouted fuzzy little green fruit which developed into the most delicious, medium size peaches, I've ever eaten! My peach tree has to have sprouted, voluntarily from the seed of a peach I bought.
I also usually find at least a couple of "volunteer tomato plants" in my garden every year in areas where I've used compost or where some tomatoes have fallen to the ground the previous year. And my biggest, most prolific tomatillo plant ever was a "volunteer" like that.

I'd also say that a LOT of my flowers (nasturtiums, marigolds, sunflowers, columbine, campanula, yarrow, poppies, mallow, celosia, lupins, etc.) have grown from "saved seeds."

But I agree with the idea from starting from heirloom seeds. Often this is the best way - maybe the only way - to fight Monsanto, ADM, etc. Go back to the pre-hybrid varieties and cultivate and perpetuate them.

Let me just state that there is nothing wrong with hybrids. A good number of the heirloom varieties that we enjoy are hybrids, what we need to fight are the f1 hybrids that will not breed true.