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The Cost of Food |
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Boilermaker 
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Joined: 23 July 2010 Location: Marietta, GA Status: Offline Points: 685 |
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 Posted: 12 June 2012 at 09:13 |
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The freshest fruits and vegetables I have ever tasted were in Zambia when we were there a few years ago including many exotic local fruits I was unfamiliar with but all were very delicious.
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Daikon
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Joined: 20 October 2011 Location: San Francisco Status: Offline Points: 381 |
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Posted: 12 June 2012 at 11:33 |
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Sorry, but I don't agree. First, decreased net worth (almost entirely as a result of the drop in home values after the real estate bubble burst) does not meaningfully measure how much the average American has to spend. Unless you were routinely substituting home equity for an ATM, how much you actually have available to spend is far more dependent on the size of your paycheck, which doesn't necessarily change at all just because the on-paper valuation of your home changes. In fact, average income, even with the recent recession, is up since 1982. How much you are willing to spend (vs. save or pay down debt) in an economic downturn or after feeling that your net worth is less (and your debts as a percentage of that net worth are greater) than you previously thought is a different issue. Meanwhile, real food prices are down. Whether we accurately perceive that reality is a different matter. Not only are we prone to only notice when nominal prices rise and to overestimate the nominal rate of inflation, but we have little anecdotal ability to directly perceive real values as opposed to nominal pricing -- if something costs 5% more than it did last year, we almost invariably perceive it to be more expensive even if our own income has risen by 10% over that year so that the item actually costs less as a percentage of our income or in terms of the number of hours we needed to work in order to afford it. Furthermore, just because real food prices are down, that doesn't mean that we perceive decreased budgetary pressure, since there are whole new categories of spending that have arisen over the past 30 years that now compete for our money. For example, how many of us in 1982 were paying monthly bills for Internet or cell phone service? Not to mention that our own perception of how well we are doing financially is typically dominated more by how well we perceive others around us are presently doing than it is by an accurate comparison to how we (or others) were doing 30 years ago. In short, our "gut feelings" about how economic changes have affected us personally are often wildly at odds with the hard facts from prior decades. Of course, the question of how much we now spend on food in real terms vs. how much we spent 30 years ago doesn't have a lot of influence on how much more we are or are not now willing to spend on food in order to get better quality. The relevant comparison is to last week's grocery bill, not to that of decades ago.
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HistoricFoodie
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Joined: 21 February 2012 Location: Kentucky Status: Offline Points: 4945 |
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Posted: 12 June 2012 at 13:16 |
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To those I ask this question: Do you sense that the personal economic impact of buying food in 1982 and that same personal economic impact today is lessened?
I didn't read the linked article because it wouldn't open for me. So don't know if the question is even germane. But I do fall into that category. In fact, I could make a comparison from the 60s and 70s, as well.
If you want a fair comparison, then you have to compare food prices either as a percentage of income, overall, or as a percentage of discretionary income. And, whichever you choose, you have to be consistent.
Based on my experience (and not on any formal study) I would have to say that until the past 3-4 years, food costs have either remained steady, or dropped a little.
My personal cost line, if I kept such records, would show a massive jump in the 70s, then a cost steady-state until the past, oh, say, ten years, when we'd see another jump.
The two jumps have to do with my buying habits, not with the actual relative cost of food.
The difference in the past few years has to do with the tanked economy. If you are actually earning less (a very real possibility, given the size of the unemployed population, and such thngs as furlough days), and food prices have increased (as they have), then the cost of food, to you, is certainly higher.
The relevant comparison is to last week's grocery bill, not to that of decades ago.
If you're talking about a specific family group, this is absolutely true. And for a sizable number of Americans, the cost of food has increased compared to last week. There are several factors at play: 1. the percentage of income devoted to transportation has skyrocketed, leaving less income available for other essentials. 2. Income has remained steady or dropped, while food prices increase.
So, for folks like that, there are two choices: 1. Continue buying the same quantity and quality of food, in which case both the raw prices and the percentage of available income, are higher; or, 2. cut back on the quantity and/or quality because they can't afford previous levels; in which case, food costs are without question higher.
However, focusing on the experience of a specific family, or even on a sizable number of families, is not an indicator, pro or con, of the basic discussion point, which is that the food distribution system provides unlimited amounts of inexpensive food. And by any rational statistical measurement, that statement remains true even today.
Let's posit that the population, as a whole, is facing the sort of economic crisis I outlined. That would mean that food costs, as a percentage of available income, have gone up. But does the increase take us across the line separating inexpensive from expensive?
Gonna make up some numbers here, to demonstrate the point. I'm confident, though, that the relationships are right, even if the numbers are wrong.
Before the tanking of the economy, relative prices, as compared to available income, were, let's say 12% for system provided foods, and 26-30% for alternative food sources.
Now the figures are 16% for system provided, and 30-34% for alternatives.
From this we can conclude that, on average, food prices have, indeed, increased. But they are still inexpensive as compared to what they could be. What's more, the alternatives have actually increased at a slower rate than the mass produced stuff.
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Rod Franklin
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Joined: 17 February 2010 Location: USA Status: Offline Points: 921 |
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Posted: 12 June 2012 at 13:25 |
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I agree my linked example wasn't the most direct, and many better
examples probably exist. However, I know as my net worth has suffered,
my choices at the store have changed to save money.
And I agree that comparing 30 year old data is off subject at the least, when this thread is about feeding the coming billions good, nutritious food and whether you or I, now, are willing to pay much more money for better food and if a truly noticeable demand for better food can actually change the current agri-business model. Even if the industry started providing ONLY the best and most nutritious food and could do it cheaply and abundantly, do you think the masses would want to pull their heads out of their bowls of mac-n-cheez and clamor to get it? People like junk food. |
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Daikon
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Joined: 20 October 2011 Location: San Francisco Status: Offline Points: 381 |
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Posted: 12 June 2012 at 13:31 |
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Well, 30-year-old price data are not off-topic in the sense that, over the decades, we have definitely reduced the real cost of nominally the same food through the adoption of agri-business methods that often sacrifice food quality and sometimes food safety. Whether that decades old trend can or should continue are questions very much relevant to this thread of discussion.
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HistoricFoodie
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Joined: 21 February 2012 Location: Kentucky Status: Offline Points: 4945 |
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Posted: 12 June 2012 at 13:39 |
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Two comments, Rod.
1. Mac N Cheese, per se, is not junk food. Not by any definition I ever heard. Sure, you can go with the big blue box. But you can also make it using the highest quality pasta, real cheese, and no artificial ingredients of any kind.
2. People buy what they buy for many reasons. Nowadays the chief ones all have to do with convenience and immediate gratification. If all things were held equal, the masses would be eating better because better quality food would be available where, when, and how they want it.
Do you think anyone has ever clammored for tasteless, nutritionally empty foods?
Realistically, you cannot have it both ways. To deliver top quality food means the cost will go up, and most people are not willing to make that trade-off. If they were, you wouldn't be able to get near a real farmer's market. And, perhaps more importantly, they are not willing to give up their January strawberries.
Therein lies the crux of the issue. We have trained ourselves (or been trained, as the case may be) to expect cheap food with no attention to seasonality. If you want to improve the food situation in America you have to reverse those two conditions.
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AK1
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Joined: 10 April 2012 Location: Ontario, Canada Status: Offline Points: 1081 |
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Posted: 12 June 2012 at 13:53 |
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I'm one of those that remember. I can only speak from my personal experience, but I feel that the personal economic impact is less today than it was back then, not much but less. With this though, I'm only speaking of percentage of income spent. Also, I find that now I also buy stuff that I didn't back then, i.e. more things that would have been considered gourmet/ high end foods.
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Daikon
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Posted: 12 June 2012 at 14:27 |
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And the typical consumer tends to buy much more processed food products (microwave-able dinners and the like) than they did 30 years ago. In the aggregate, those processed products cost more than would purchasing their components in less processed form, so much of the decrease in real cost of basic foodstuffs has been offset by increased spending on more expensive, processed food products.
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HistoricFoodie
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Posted: 12 June 2012 at 14:59 |
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While that's certainly true, Daikon, it's sort of a falacious argument, as it doesn't reflect an increase in food costs; merely a difference in buying habits.
My food costs are much higher now then they were even ten years ago. But that reflects the fact that I'm buying a much higher quality of food, and using exotic (and, therefore, expensive) ingredients.
Just because my buying habits have changed in the direction of quality, and others have changed in the direction of convenience, doesn't change the basic fact.
Any valid comparison has to be based on comparing like to like. If I was buying ground chuck ten years ago, and I'm buying ground sirloin now, that's not a fair comparison. The basic question is whether or not the relative cost of chuck has changed.
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Daikon
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Posted: 12 June 2012 at 15:10 |
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It's not fallacious. It's simply a difference in whether you consider food costs to be defined by the real price of an economist's basket of basic foodstuffs or to be defined by the basket of foods that the typical consumer actually buys. Food costs under the first definition have definitely come down. Food costs under the second definition have come down much less if at all. That actually argues well for those advocating that we should be consuming better quality food. The key is to get people to swap out processed foods for higher-quality basic foodstuffs that they will then prepare into finished dishes themselves. If you make your own "from scratch", it only takes a modicum of skill and time to produce better quality and more nutritious meals than you can put on the table using most processed food products.
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Rod Franklin
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Posted: 12 June 2012 at 15:38 |
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I was going to ask next whether folks thought they were eating healthier and better quality food now then earlier.
Heresy you might say, but it could be argued - and I won't - that mac and cheese isn't "good for you" food no matter how it's made. Folks do have more choices now, that's for sure. I believe there is a price to pay for that too. Those varied but less than stellar sellers at the mega-mart put upward pressure on all the other prices in the store. As long as the quality was high would you be willing to give up variety for cheaper prices? This being a foodie kinda place, it's not haunted by the typical consumer who I believe knows very little about cooking techniques and even less about utilizing raw ingredients in an efficient and frugal and creative manner. No one is raised to know their way around a kitchen anymore. No one wants to do "womens work." The whole concept of domesticity is now ruined and forever gone in the West. Cheapened to extinction in our modern affluent world. Without it, making food from scratch has become either the drudgery of the poor or a casual idyll of the bourgeoisie. I really aughta just shut up... |
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Daikon
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Posted: 12 June 2012 at 15:48 |
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I think that is overly pessimistic. While typical families are eating less food made from scratch than they did a century ago (although it would be interesting to see what happens to those numbers if you consider servant-prepared food to be processed food...), I believe that the number of people interested in producing quality food from scratch is actually larger now than two decades ago. That there is now a recognizable and not-insubstantial foodie community is testament to that belief.
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HistoricFoodie
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Posted: 12 June 2012 at 19:26 |
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I happen to agree with you, Daikon. Not only the foodie movement, but the whole trend back to real cooking on the part of people who are tired of take-out, tired of convenience foods, tired of chemical-laden "food" with more preservatives than actual ingredients. I see it all the time in my classes and demonstrations. People are sick of the microwave, and want to prepare real food, using real ingredients.
But, I wonder if research would support our intuitive conclusion? Certainly there's been a vast increase in those who cook as opposed to those who microwave. But there's been a big population growth as well.
Would our contention hold up if expressed as a percentage of the population as a whole? I dunno.
although it would be interesting to see what happens to those numbers if you consider servant-prepared food to be processed food...),
Interesting parenthetical thought. Raises the question: Has there been a decline in the number of families who had servants in 1990 vs 2010? And whether there has or hasn't, you'd have to include personal and private chefs in that rubric; and we know there's been an increase in them over the past 20 years.
My best guess: It's probably a wash.
I'd suggest, though, that the number of families with servants, as a percentage of the general population, was never all that high to begin with. Statistically speaking, I don't think they'd have any effect on the issue.
Another question it raises: why would you count servant-prepared food as processed? Wouldn't you then have to include all restaurant food? Indeed, you'd have to include any food prepared by somebody other than the one eating it.
I doubt my mother would buy into that. Would yours?
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Daikon
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Posted: 12 June 2012 at 20:39 |
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Has there been a decline in the number of families who had servants in 1990 vs 2010?
I doubt it. My point was that, as a percentage of population, there are definitely fewer families that have paid kitchen help in 2012 than there were in 1912, so if we consider food prepared by paid domestic help to be the equivalent of processed, pre-made food today (i.e., both are more convenient and more expensive than preparing everything from scratch by yourself), then the proportion of "processed" food to made-it-yourself food in 1912 may be fairly similar to that proportion in 2012. I guess the big difference would be that almost no lower-income families in 1912 would have had domestic help, and thus would not have eaten much "processed" food, while today many lower-income families do consume a fair amount of processed food. Wouldn't you then have to include all restaurant food? Yup. Processed food, pre-made food, servant-prepared food, restaurant food, take-out food, etc. would all end up falling into a category of convenience foods, which are typically more expensive than scratch-made foods, and which are consuming a larger proportion of the typical family's food budget even as the real cost of most unprocessed foodstuffs is decreasing.
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Margi Cintrano
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Joined: 03 February 2012 Location: Spain Status: Offline Points: 6362 |
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Posted: 13 June 2012 at 03:17 |
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Ripe Fruit and Tomatoes ...
It is a wonderful occurance, to go into a Central Neighborhood Market in the Mediterranean, which includes: Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, Greece, France and Portugal and one´s olfactory goes into aromatherapeutic reality, with aromas encompassing the space, from the fruits and veggies ...
 Plastic wrapped fruit and tomatoes ( though a fruit, it is usually used as a vegetable ) is a Crime. My viewpoint.
Margaux Cintrano.
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Volamos a Mediterraneo, un paraiso que conquista su gente u su cocina.
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ChrisFlanders
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Posted: 13 June 2012 at 06:15 |
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I cannot speak for situations in other countries but I do believe that nowadays, there's a much wider "awareness" about food and buying food than a few decades ago. Seems to me that people are finally getting aware that they are confronted with structural changes due to the current economic situation and development and that their consumption behaviour has to adapt to it, wether they like it or not. When I speak for myself, I see myself buying; 1. a lot less quantities than before; 2. healthier alternatives; 3. local product; 4. seasonal product; 5.higher quality; 6. trying to spend the same budget as before, preferably. In fact, it all comes down to buying much more thoughtfully, buying less than before, but better quality, aiming at producing zero waste if possible. And yes, I occasionally buy the imported 1 kilo weighing pine-apple from Costa Rica at €1,90, where half that weight (500 grams) of fresh local cherries costed me €6... There's a big chance however that a left-over part of the pine-apple ends up in the bin. Every person is responsable for his/her buying attitude, not the market. |
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HistoricFoodie
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Posted: 13 June 2012 at 06:33 |
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all end up falling into a category of convenience foods, which are typically more expensive than scratch-made foods
I understand the point you're trying to make. But I believe you overstate it, to begin with. And undermine your own argument with some of the inclusions.
Putting quality and other such issues aside, I doubt most people could prepare a fully dressed hamburger from scratch as cheaply as McDonalds delivers one. Not any more than you can grow a tomato cheaper than Monsanto can deliver one.
If you think of it in that light, the squat & gobbles are the factory farms of the restaurant world.
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Rod Franklin
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Posted: 13 June 2012 at 16:29 |
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I'll leave this here as it applies a little to this thread. And I thought it was funny. http://www.shortlist.com/instant-improver/food/pretend-you-cooked
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HistoricFoodie
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Posted: 13 June 2012 at 18:41 |
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Rod Franklin wrote: