Is expensive food actually so in the end?
What better to write about over a Monday lunch than food?
I never got around to posting about it, but I've been on a "restricted" diet for almost a year now (what an accomplishment) that requires me to find alternatives to cow's milk and cheese, sugar/honey, soy sauce, cashews and products that contain any of the above (and any form of soy), plus some food additives like red dye. For awhile, corn was on the list, too and I'm just bringing it back into my diet now. The repercussions of this are not just psychological, physical, and emotional, they are also financial. But wait... are they?
To put a few things into perspective, a 2 litre jug of goat's milk is $4.88 at best, more than the price of 4 litres of my boyfriend's 2% milk. Pretty hefty, right? Rice milk isn't cheap, either. And cheese? You'll pay $7 for a small brick of goat mozzerella where $9 would probably get you 3 times as much cheddar. A block of romano (sheep) cheese goes for at least twice as much as bulk parmesan. My other main substitute is cereal, of which I have narrowed down 3 choices and the cost isn't bad for what it is, but is still more than what I used to eat, I think (which wasn't bad cereal either, we're not talking Lucky Charms here).
Add to that I eat strictly local/organic eggs that run almost $5 a dozen and I won't eat cheap $1/loaf bread.
So you can probably bet that my costs of food are higher with this diet. Are they?
I haven't analysed my receipts recently versus what it used to be so statistically speaking, I don't know, but I can guess that my costs are balanced out by a key feature: lower consumption.
Goat's milk tends to expire in about two weeks, give or take. It'll take me those two weeks to drink it; meanwhile, the mister has consumed at least four litres of his milk, simply because he eats 2 to 3 times as much cereal as I do. So what's more expensive now? And because he eats so much more cereal, he goes through it way faster than I do. In the end, my expensive food is probably cheaper. On the other hand, if I *weren't* paying more for these products I would probably eat less sparingly.
Let me repeat that. I consume more expensive food less quickly. That also means I eat less... which means I manage my healthy weight better and take one person's strain off the market. If we all ate less (and this is not a new concept), we wouldn't have to produce as much, and... well I won't get into the specifics of it. My argument here is simply that cheaper food isn't necessarily cheaper. It ends up sacrificing nutrition quite often — organic versus non-organic tomato sauce for example — and even taste.
Don't you find... if you get super cheap pasta you'll eat more of it because you can? But you wouldn't eat brie cheese or drink classy wine like that. Not if you're an average working Canadian. We seem to be afraid of paying more for food and yet, if we did, I'm sure we'd consume less and there would be more to go around for people who are less fortunate. Do you agree?
I am an Interactive Designer in Vancouver, BC, and a graduate of the Communication Design program at the Emily Carr Institute. I enjoy tea, chocolate and European desserts. My passions here and elsewhere include the local eating lifestyle, environment and sustainability issues, public transit, health and design. You see? They're all related.
Comments
I agree heartily, though I find it's still hard to resist over-eating good tasting healthy food sometimes! I pay $4.95 for 2 litres goat's milk at Superstore, while another store charges that for one litre.
Posted by: marja-leena | February 11, 2008 2:12 PM
That's true... like goat gouda! Hard enough to resist buying it ;)
Ah yes, it's 2 litres. I corrected it in my post. Yeah I think the other E bought a 1 litre or 2 litre for $10. Yikes!
Posted by: erika | February 11, 2008 7:22 PM
I buy mostly local, organic produce, dairy and poultry. The cost per item is usually higher but, since choosing to limit purchases of processed foods, our overall grocery bill has been reduced by approximately 25%.
Also, buying non-processed foods means that I can make a meal from scratch for far less than what it would cost to buy a ready-made / oven-ready / microwavable meal.
Also, because organic produce is not subjected irradiation to make it keep longer, I never buy more than I need for fear of having to clean my fridge (yuck). When I was still buying cheaper, irradiated, conventional, grown-on-the-other-side-of-the-planet produce, I was often guilty of heaping my cart full of more food than we needed.
Posted by: Late Bloomer | February 15, 2008 5:00 PM