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How much should your food really cost?
Posted on March 10th, 2009 15 comments
There has been a lot of concern lately about rising food costs. And while I sympathize, I wonder if we aren’t a bit spoiled, thinking that food costs should be lower than they already are. In North America, we’ve really become accustomed to low food costs when most other parts of the world pay a much higher price. And when we look at the tools that have enabled our cheap food prices (factory farming, for example) we must wonder whether the tax we pay as a cost to the environment is really worth it.
In my post, “Wingin’ it on a budget” I mentioned that I paid a much higher price to get organic, humanely-raised chicken from a local farmer. Although I probably paid about three times as much for the meat as I would in a grocery store, you have to wonder why it’s so much cheaper in the store. What I paid is probably much closer to the true cost of raising fowl in an ethical fashion.
I do believe that it is possible to reconcile frugality with paying higher prices for food - it just takes a re-evaluation of what and how we eat. For one thing, look at how much food we waste. Crunchy Chicken has a link to a study published in 2004 by the University of Arizona called “US wastes half its food”. Although the study must be outdated, I wonder if these findings have changed:
On average, households waste 14 percent of their food purchases. Fifteen percent of that includes products still within their expiration date but never opened… [The] average family of four currently tosses out $590 per year, just in meat, fruits, vegetables and grain products. Nationwide… household food waste alone adds up to $43 billion, making it a serious economic problem.
If you started taking stock of your own edible food waste, you might be surprised with how much you are actually throwing out. Getting creative in the kitchen by properly storing your food, making dishes based on what you have available, storing unused portions and promptly eating them up, and simply knowing how to use up less desirable food can all be used as ways to cut down on your food waste.
In my post, “What are you wasting?” I mentioned some of the ways I had recently cut back on my food waste. I have a few more tricks that I have recently learned that I will share with you in an upcoming post. But for today, I mostly just wanted to share the idea that by giving our food more respect and by learning what we can do to take full advantage of the food we already have, we will need to buy less. This, combined with responsible shopping (for example, relying on cheap products like dried beans and lentils for protein, and eating less meat) can reduce our grocery bill despite rising food costs, all the while contributing to sustainable environmental practices.
15 responses to “How much should your food really cost?”
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I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand - I completely agree that we have been spoiled on the prices of food, and perhaps if we paid more we would waste less. However, I think it is such unfortunate timing. Here it is estimated that 1 in 12 people in America are out of work, and now is when food prices go up?? I know that is economics, but it is hard enough already for so many.
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You’re singing my tune. I buy my eggs at the farmer’s market. Yes, I could get them for half the price at the grocery store, but what’s the true cost? By cooking from scratch and reducing waste I’m still saving money, and I feel much better about what I’m buying (and feeding my kids, too).
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YESSSSSS!!! thank you! I totally agree. My grocery budget seems extravagant to some people but I insist on paying good prices for locally/ethically grown food and giving a decent wage to the producer. I grew up farming and realize the true cost it takes to raise an animal and a crop, and how tough it really is for producers to even get by without selling out and doing the factory thing. or having second full-time jobs in the city (my mom and dad both worked full time and farmed full time, plus all us kids farmed full time.) Its nearly impossible. Just like the “true” cost of fuel (i.e. we pay pennies but the climate and environmental damage is INSANE and isn’t “paid for” in any sense) we really don’t know the true cost of food.
I too will pay two or three times more than store prices if I can put it straight in the hand of a farmer or artisan. Last week I bought a package of handmade chicken chorizo sausages at our local gourmet grocer that were made at a tiny place on Vancouver Island. They were three times what I’d pay for chorizo at Safeway, but they were UNBELIEVABLY good, and I’d like to think that some person out there is doing something they really enjoy and I’m supporting them in doing that. Plus, the food is better for you and WAY tastier. I realize that not everyone can afford to do that, but alot of people can. If you can afford to eat at a restaurant often, you can afford higher quality groceries!
Thanks so much for your recent environmentally focused posts, I really enjoy them. It seems like you’re always thinking just what I am.
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What’s scary is that you’re only mentioning what’s happening at the consumer level. You have no idea - or cannot forget to include - the waste that goes on at the different stages just to get to the consumer. Grocery stores end up tossing a fair bit due to spoilage due to overordering and what-not. Then there is the distribution/warehouse stage (damages, poor refrigeration, etc.). Then of course, on the very field the food is grown (or raised for those meat-eaters out there). Can you imagine it all?!?
Like Flirty almost 30, I too love your environmentally focused posts. Being “frugal” is not about trying to squeeze out every last penny that can come out…it’s about voting with your money and making consciencious (oh, I botched that spelling…lol) decisions. In between your enviro focus and Gail’s musings about existential questions, I be happy because really I do not have the same concerns as most of Gail’s commenters (i.e. no debt) so while good info, not too relevent.
Hope the vacation went well. I wondered why you got so quiet on Gail’s blog.
Missed your postings out here in virtual land. -
I once read that what you toss out of your fridge (spoiled veggies, leftovers that never got eaten etc) is you ‘disposable income’. That stuck with me and I have made a much bigger effort to consume all the food I purchase, and have a plan for it!
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Thanks for your comments, everyone! So glad that you are enjoying the more “environmentally focused” posts.
Erran - in fact, the estimate was that 50% of edible food in the US is wasted - partly due to the reasons you mentioned above. I chose to stick to focusing on consumer waste, since I personally have less of an effect on these issues, such as how grain is bought and sold. It’s an interesting discussion, but would warrant a whole other post. But how much waste I create directly depends on the choices that I make and I think we can compensate for rising food prices by taking a cold hard look at how much we waste and start to look at our food in a different way.
The vacation wasn’t great. We went to Cuba but had bad weather. Thanks for asking
Glad to be back to blogging land! -
Go Veg! I think the best way to save money, the environment, and your health/well-being is to go vegetarian! We consume far too much meat and it’s absolutely unnecessary in this day and age. Just imagine how our carbon footprint would shrink if more people stopped eating cow! Well folks, your waistline would too!
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Unfortunately the consumer can only do so much to reduce waste, much of it is at the producer or distributor level. There needs to be a company that buys up the soon to expired goods and repurposes them. I read about a volunteer organization that collects the expired bread from local stores and distributes it to the needy. We need something like that on a larger scale.
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Saver Queen March 12th, 2009 at 15:40
One such organization is Second Harvest (secondharvest.ca). They are a great nonprofit.
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I’m definitely going to look into getting meat/food in more ethical and humane ways.. I recently changed from buying regular eggs to eggs produced by “free run” methods. When I saw how chickens were treated in the other method on a documentary.. basically spending their entire lives in a shoebox just laying eggs I was completely disgusted!! I’m willing to spend more on eggs from chickens that are raised in a free run farm. Thanks for this post. I’m also willing to spend a little more to help out local farmers. I’ve cut my meat intake and I don’t feel I’m missing anything…
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Haha, look at what you did SQ! You started this blog off with the intent of being a frugal advice page, and how it’s becoming an enviro-focus page. Love it!!!
Go veg!
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Hi there-a great post my dear and I look forward to your forthcoming one on this subject. I do tend to buy now what I need and steer clear of offers that lure you in, but don’t always get used.
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Brenda March 13th, 2009 at 08:38
I am planning my garden for this summer, and love how fresh vege’s taste straight from my garden - no transport time. We live on over an acre, so we have space, but you can grow vegetables in containers on your decks, on windowsills, etc. Also, I’m a hunter, and every fall, I get my deer meat, and ruffed grouse and am able to eat fresh from what I harvest (humanely as well). We also catch fresh fish, and eat what we catch. My kids are growing up knowing where their food comes from, and understanding about the food chain - which we are very much a part of. I think more kids should understand this - not that food comes from a store. BTW, just because you go vegetarian does not mean your waistline goes down. My brother in law and his wife are both vegetarians, and they are both overweight.
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I agree that we should give food more respect. I used to make fun of my grandma’s “throw it all in the pot” dinners, but she cooked like that for a reason.
I don’t buy organic food, but I do menu plan. It’s really important to me to use everything up. So when I plan our meals, I make sure that our leftover chicken will get new life as something else.
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