http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3089596Oh my.
Purveyor Donating Member (1000+ posts) Tue Apr-01-08 12:19 PM
Original message
Food Price Hikes Changing U.S. Eating Habits
More people say they are eating at home, buying food in bulk
Melissa Marks didn’t used to give much thought to her trips to the grocery store — if she needed a gallon of milk or a carton of eggs, she’d just hop in her car and get it.
These days, Marks, a single mom with three kids, is tying her grocery store trips to the day she gets her paycheck. Instead of making a run for just a few items, she’s thinking up menus and compiling a list beforehand. The kids are eating more generic brands and getting fewer luxury items like sweets. She’s also clipping coupons and choosing which store will get her business based on who has milk on sale that week.
With both gas and food prices rising, Marks, of Brownsburg, Ind., also is cutting back on restaurant trips, sending her kids to school with pre-packed lunches and eating last night's leftovers for lunch the next day.
"Things have been tight before, but we’ve never seen it like this," she said.
Steadily rising food costs aren't just causing grocery shoppers to do a double-take at the checkout line — they're also changing the very ways we feed our families.
The worst case of food inflation in nearly 20 years has more Americans giving up restaurant meals to eat at home. We're buying fewer luxury food items, eating more leftovers and buying more store brands instead of name-brand items.
Record-high energy, corn and wheat prices in the past year have led to sticker shock in the grocery aisles. At $1.32, the average price of a loaf of bread has increased 32 percent since January 2005. In the last year alone, the average price of carton of eggs has increased almost 50 percent.
Now, my sympathy of course goes out to those trying to raise families, and the predicament of high food prices.
However.
Americans spend a far lower percentage of their income on food, than anybody else in the world. Tell me this isn't a great country. In the socialist paradises of workers and peasants, it's not uncommon that people pay 60-67% of their income on food, as compared with our 8%; and one imagines that in some of the more horrific places, people give all they have, for food.
In 1960, the "average" American family spent 33% of its income for food. Around the turn of this century, Americans were spending 8% of their income for food. In 1960, that was for groceries only, food prepared at home. Forty-some years later, that 8% had long before been expanded to include restaurant food.
Since food is essential for life, it seems a natural law that food should demand more of our resources, than things not strictly necessary for life. I do income taxes, and am not surprised that the more-primitive of the people for whom I do income taxes, spend more per month on credit card fees, credit card interest, and credit card penalties, than for groceries.
There's something really wrong with that.
alyce douglas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Tue Apr-01-08 03:05 PM
Response to Reply #7
38. and these thugs will not give people an increase in their minimum wage, no, they (Congress) will give themselves a raise, but forget about the American people, this is a class war.
Notice how carefully the primitive avoids saying "Democrat" Congress.
RoadRage Donating Member (1000+ posts) Tue Apr-01-08 02:12 PM
Response to Reply #1
32. I belive it.. and it's tied to BIOFUELS
I just read a few articles in last weeks TIME magazine that showed some great insight into the growing problem of "BioFuels". It discussed the fact that many farmers in the US (NE, IA, KS, etc) and abroad in South American - especially the rain forrests are planting corn & soybeans to use as alternative fuels.
Unfortunately there are some very high costs with this that weren't really thought out. The loss of carbon from the rain forests being cut down is huge. The replaced soy & corn doesn't have NEAR the carbon release back into the environment that the rain forest does. But, the profits that land owners can make from this land is much greater once converted - so money wins.
In the US, millions of acers of land are now being farmed for Biofuel (corn and soy) and not for food consumption. This is costing everyone, as less supply of corn, soy, grains, etc. is going up.
That is why we are seeing (and will continue to see) sky-rocketing food prices. Farmers make more money selling these commodities for fuel then they do for food.
The road-kill primitive thinks farmers get a substantial chunk of the ultimate price of something?
Farmers don't even get a cent--it's something like .9 of a cent--from a loaf of bread that costs the consumer $1.15. One assumes for the primitive favorites, such as the 99-cent bag of Cheetos or the bottle of beer, the farmer gets even less than that.
All the other costs come from processing, fancy packaging, marketing, transportation.
After which the primitives discuss raising chickens, and the cost of chicken feed, and then the low-calorie primitive pipes in.
SoCalDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Tue Apr-01-08 01:22 PM
Response to Reply #20
21. We have TONS of bugs.. They could probably do fine foraging for bugs.
Of course the chickens could do fine, excepting their output of eggs would be substantially less, and the quality of those eggs substantially less.
franksolich thinks the low-calorie primitive should examine farm animals from the socialist paradises of the workers and peasants, to see what great "food producers" they are.
And then speaks the Obamaite cali primitive, who doesn't want black people crowding Vermont:
cali Donating Member (1000+ posts) Tue Apr-01-08 04:45 PM
Response to Reply #30
44. they sure do
that's mostly what I feed my chickens- old lettuce, noodles, bread heels, casseroles I'm sick of. And yes feed has gone up.
no_hypocrisy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Tue Apr-01-08 12:27 PM
Response to Original message
4. I get a kick when articles like this make cooking meals at home to be a symbol of frugal living and cutting back. The healthiest meals are the ones where you control the ingredients and can exclude sodium, carbohydrates, and sugars, not to mention additives.
That's why food stamps should revert back to their original intention, of supporting the farmers and sustaining the poor; back when food stamps were used only for ingredients for food, and not packaged foods--flour, eggs, sugar, coffee, bread, peanut butter, milk, cream, fresh fruits and vegetables.
The "rawer" the food, the higher the proportion that went to the farmer, and the better the health of the food-stamp recipient.
Now, God forbid, one can buy Coca-Cola with food-stamps.
kestrel91316 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Tue Apr-01-08 12:37 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. The ultimate irony would be if this minor-league deprivation causes the average American to be much healthier - highly processed and convenience foods are NO bargain if they make you sick with diabetes, hypertension, and heart failure.
And yes, this is still minor-league deprivation for most people.
A broken clock is right twice a day; the primitive has it right.
Not the Only One (304 posts) Tue Apr-01-08 12:35 PM
Response to Original message
5. A lot of this is because of ethanol
Ethanol biofuel uses corn and about 25% of the total corn crop is used for the production of ethanol. That's a quarter of the supply just taken off the market for feeding us in direct and indirect ways-- as if there was a biblical proportion drought that hit us. And, the problem is going to get much worse, actually-- over a hundred different ethanol plants are under construction now to take even more corn off the market for direct or indirect consumption as food by us. I'm all for full energy independence, but thinking that we should be using our food as fuel is one of the most hair-brained ideas we've ever come up with.
Hmmmm.
The paradise of the European Union, which the primitives so adore, is requiring a higher and higher percentage of biolfuels be used on that continent; what's up with that?
gollygee Donating Member (1000+ posts) Tue Apr-01-08 12:50 PM
Response to Reply #8
14. It might help some people's health but for every person not buying lunchables anymore, there's someone skipping the whole grain bread for cheap white bread, or skipping fresh veggies, which have gotten ridiculously expensive, and serving rice on the side. Or getting the $5 Little Caesar's pizza instead of cooking chicken breasts. Or, even getting chicken thighs instead of breasts. Though to feed a family I bet the $5 pizza is still cheaper. There are lots of cases where healthier food is more expensive.
NCevilDUer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Tue Apr-01-08 01:54 PM
Response to Reply #14
28. That's more a matter of educating them.
Healthier food IS more expensive, but it is also more complete - a meal with healthy food doesn't leave you hungry again in 3 hours, the way a meal of empty carbohydrates will. One sandwich of quality bread is more filling than three of cheap white bread.
Do they teach nutrition in schools anymore, or are they afraid of a conflict of interest with the fast food dealers who run the school lunches?
No, they're not afraid of the fast food dealers; they're afraid of.....
KoKo01 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Apr-01-08 02:36 PM
Response to Reply #28
34. It used to be called "Home Economics" but was considered Sexist...
so dropped from school curriculum. Might have been good if the boys had been forced to take it like we girls were. Since so many guys are on their own and don't know how to budget or cook or shop as well as the gals these days.
lukasahero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Tue Apr-01-08 02:55 PM
Response to Reply #34
36. It wasn't "considered" sexist - it WAS sexist
Had it included boys, it would not have been sexist. It would also have been wise.
Nutrition can also be taught in health class (where it more appropriately belongs anyway).
pitohui Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Tue Apr-01-08 12:55 PM
Response to Reply #8
16. we see in practice that it doesn't help "our" health
please, talk about "facts not in evidence!"
people with smaller budgets to spend on groceries -- i point to almost any inner city in the united states for an example -- are fatter and more prone to diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease -- you can say anything you like but the statistics are known and the statistics don't lie
it's pretty obvious to me as to why poor people are fat and unhealthy, when the choice is to buy $1 "value meal" at the fast food store or to spend $5 and you still have to shop, cook, and clean to have the meal
the higher prices go, the more poor people are created, the more of us have to make the choice based on price rather than on good health
fresh produce has been out of reach for "real" people for several years now
progressoid Donating Member (1000+ posts) Tue Apr-01-08 02:34 PM
Response to Reply #16
33. Well, sort of.
First of all, 2/3 of our nation is officially obese with half of those morbidly obese. This is an epidemic that extends to all Americans not just the poor.
Value meals aren't the only culprit. Yes, some people have to resort to high carb foods when in financial straits. And yes our socio/economic structure has encouraged an addiction to convenience food. Hell, even our schools serve fast food to the kids. But at some point people also need to take personal responsibility for themselves and their families. Having to "shop, cook, and clean" isn't part of the problem. That's part of the solution. Eating out is a luxury, not a necessity.
If there is a fast food business next to a grocery store and I'm strapped for cash, I can get a couple cheeseburgers and fries from Burger King or I can get a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter and make a dozen sandwiches and feed my kids for a few days. I can spend a buck on a two apple pies at McDonalds or I can buy two cans of vegetables at the grocery store.
Unhealthy living has risen steadily in the last few decades. The rise in cheap fast food is a factor. As is the rise in TV viewing. And the rise in ass-stuck-to-sofa syndrome.
SoCalDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Tue Apr-01-08 06:05 PM
Response to Reply #33
51. and mothers who work 40 hr a week outside the home time is a luxury many no longer have..
if you are a stay-at-home, you have the luxury of going to the freezer at noon, taking something out, and planning an evening meal..but if you are at your jobm and realize that you forgot to take something out of the freezer..well.. you're s.o.l.
Mothers who work 40 hours a week so as to pay off that credit card debt, that credit card interest, those credit card fees, those credit card penalties.
And so it goes; it's a pretty big bonfire.
