Is Food Too Cheap?

I was looking for three chicken breasts. Not eight. Or four. Just three. I was visiting my parents in Arizona and shopping for dinner. They're Canadian snow birds, flying south for the winter in search of sun and lower priced food. Due to a variety of reasons -- a lower population, higher food taxes,lower government subsidies to the farmers -- Canadian food is notoriously expensive -- especially meat and cheese.

I was at Basha's, the local super-sized super-market near Phoenix. It's a cavernous place that feels like an airplane hangar. Everything about it is big. The aisles are wide enough to drive a tractor through, the cereals are family-sized for a family of ten, the end-of-aisle displays are monolithic towers, screaming their offers out as you round the corner, "80% off when you buy two bags of Tostitos and dip!" This is grocery shopping in high definition. As vast as the store is though, it was also eerily empty. It felt like someone had thrown a huge party, put out all the food, but no one was showing up. The registers were lit but no one was paying. This only added to its bigness.

I know I'm comparing it to shopping in New York City where you shop with a hand basket over your forearm, and stores don't have parking lots and where you can buy bread in half-loaves, but still, this tipped the scales at over three football fields.

I rang the bell at the butcher counter. "I'm looking for just enough chicken for three people, but I only see big sizes." He came around the counter. "We actually don't carry small sizes, but we have a special on where you can get two two-pound packs of chicken breasts for the price of one." (Buying just one was not an option -- the second one was bound with cellophane to the first.) "So I can't buy just one of the packs and I can't request a smaller amount from you?" "No, but this is an excellent price and you're getting a lot of chicken." He was right. I was getting a lot of cheap chicken. The problem was, I didn't want a lot of cheap chicken.

We had split-pea soup for dinner.

There is something unsettling when enormous quantities of food are sold at bargain prices -- when food is so abundant that a restaurant can offer a double sized portion of your meal for $1 extra, or a store can sell a pound of Twizzlers for 50 cents or eight chicken breasts for $4.

Basha's left me wondering...Is food too cheap? Do we eat too much (in particular low nutrient-density food -- the cheapest of all), and waste too much, because we pay so little and therefore don't value it? In other words, we over-buy because it's cheap and over-eat because we've bought it. And what we don't eat, we toss, because we know we can buy it again. In the early 1900s we spent 25% of our income on food, today we spend less than 10%, and it's dropping. Over the past 25 years, the price of a McDonald's hamburger has gone down 30%. Is it any surprise our waist lines are expanding, and our illnesses worsening, with every dollar we save?

When did quantity trump quality? Why do we balk at paying $6 for a pound of grass-fed, small-farm, nutrient rich beef, but keep coming back to the $6 all-you-can-eat, pasta buffet. America has always been the land of plenty, but we have plenty of plenty. And that's the problem.

We have driven costs so far out of the food system that in so doing we have not only driven down nutritional value, but driven out the notion of food being a precious resource. And when we do encounter its preciousness, in the form of whole, "clean", fresh food, at a farmers market or if we're lucky, our local store, we pay exorbitantly for it. So is it any wonder most of us choose the lowest priced products (refined carbs and factory raised animals), eating more than we need, and getting fewer of the nutrients our bodies crave.

It makes the two-for-one special, start to look a lot less special.

Please share your thoughts, even if (especially if) you disagree.

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Comments

[Subsoil73]

11:38 AM on 03/01/2011

Don't your parents have a freezer - eat one package and freeze the other. That way, next time you come for a visit, you won't have to drive to the grocery store. The butcher was trying to help you go green by saving trips but you refused.

[Bechange]

03:11 AM on 03/01/2011

There are a lot of good points in all of these comments. I live in cincinnati ohio where there is a farmers market that only accepts foodstamps at the seller's stand.FOr those who don't know what that is its people who rent space and purchace the same fruits and veg that u can buy in the grocery at around the same price... The local section only accepts cash and for people like my family cash isnt an option. ebt as food assitance is called in ohio does however, not only pay for food items aside from spices, seeds to grow your own food. At a dollar store u can purchase with ur ebt card 3 packets of seeds for one dollar, a bag of potting soil for 3 if u need to do a container garden for lack of space... And u can make ur own compost useing ur leftover compostable trash. People need to rely more on themselves than the government or who ever " they" are because in the end there all about money they dont care about u or me just money.. If fresh good food is too exspencive, save the money u spend on that new ipod or third vacation or ur tax return and take control and grow ur own food.. And use what u have to spend on food on good quality food and cook.. Make more at a time and freeze for later. take charge, get educated on whats really happening and be

[snoobies]

01:45 PM on 02/28/2011

I was always taught to eat nutritional food as a child and I came from a poor family. We didn't have a big house with a 50" screen TV with a brand new car. We worked hard and saved because health was more important than anything else than things like an iPhone or internet. We knew how to stretch a lot of things in our home. I understand why people would like to make the poor people argument but I've seen a lot of poor people eat healthier than rich people. It all depends on how your value food. Like the article suggested.

I think an interesting thing to include are the freeze now and eat later. I've seen too many of those people with obesity problems versus I'll buy my meat today and eat it today. Not that anything is wrong with frozen food. The preservation process has gotten so crazy that wanting fresh fruit, vegetables, and meat has become obsolete.

[Samson1]

07:42 PM on 02/24/2011

The only perople who would say food is too cheap are people who have never been on the other end of the financial spectrum. We have unprecedented homelessness. Real wages have not risen in decades. We are beseiged by a bunch of cretan republicans who want to redistribute wealth upwards. That means away from ordinary people. Poor people have had trouble making ends meet for years because they are invisible to entitled people like the author. Go work in a food bank or a homeless shelter for a month and then write the article again.

[santiago sherwood]

07:46 PM on 02/25/2011

but that is another side, what is wrong is we eat more food than ever before and it has less nutrients, maybe if we bought less but ate better farmers would be financially more stable. there is a cruel pattern. We over produce food, with less labour so there are fewer jobs, we displace farmers in mexico so they cross to the USA looking for work. now our people on the lower end of the spectrum get displaced and end up homeless. So the question I have for you how do you plan to break the cycle. It is not enough to point out the problem. you need a solution and by the way don't expect the government to fund it. I think they will have trouble funding anything in the coming years.

[Henry Gangloff]

02:23 PM on 03/01/2011

Perhaps the author can afford $6 meat, I cannot. I live on a small fixed income out of which comes
shelter & utilities. Nor do I have a large freezer ! It's apartment size for my two room small apartment.
The author & the posters need to live on $1200 as I do ! People, people, wake up and smell the coffee;
not everyone can afford Republican prices ! ! !

[LoveToBeAnonymous]

02:11 PM on 03/03/2011

I have lived on $1200 in San Francisco of all places and was able to eat healthy. It's a matter of taking the time to actually look for options rather than just saying "Oh I'm poor, therefore I'll just eat whatever is cheapest and most prominent." I would imagine that in most other places outside of SF and NY, $1200 a month is more than enough to eat healthy. If I could do it in SF....

[alteredstory]

02:43 PM on 02/23/2011

The flip side is that all that is going to go away as changing climate conditions lead to food shortages, and then people are really going to get hit.

[Erewhon7]

02:31 PM on 02/23/2011

Not the problem that it is cheap. Problem is that it is cheaply made.

[FOXYROSE]

12:20 PM on 02/23/2011

I live in Upstate NY and fruits and veggies are NOT cheap here, especially in the winter., Poor people would have a hard time feeding their families fruits and veggies. Perhaps if the Gov stopped giving rich farmers subsidys to grow corn for ethanol, they would go back to growing real food!

[Monique Roblin]

10:27 PM on 02/22/2011

According to Michael Pollan, we don't spend enough $ on food. Spend more money, buy organic, local, support the farmers markets and eat less.

[The Sweet Beet]

12:41 PM on 02/23/2011

I whole-heartedly agree. You value what you pay for, and you pay for what you value ...

[SusanElizabeth1949]

10:05 PM on 02/23/2011

buying the cheapest food (and I'm using the term loosely) they can many working poor individuals and families have a hard time putting food on the table just before payday.

[Oceras]

09:19 PM on 02/22/2011

I don't care if I have to pay more. I want tomatoes that aren't advertised as vine-ripened but that can be used as hockey pucks. I want green beans that don't look like they've been through a wringer. I live in a port city and the restaurants don't often carry locally-caught fish, even the fish restaurants. I'll pay extra for fresh and seasonal as I do at the Farmer's Market during the months its open.

[capitaldysfunction]

09:03 PM on 02/22/2011

Packaged and boxed, or processed, foods are not cheap. The produce section is cheap, but fortunately fruits and vegetables is where good nutrition begins. For many Americans, eating the wrong food, not the cost, is where the focus should be.

[MizFlagPin]

08:47 PM on 02/22/2011

Ma'am, with all due respect, many people in the USA find food too costly. Lots of working class families struggle to put food on the table. Many elderly must decide between buying food or filling their Rx. Some eat dog and cat food because they cannot afford "real" food.

[William Hunter Duncan]

05:05 PM on 02/22/2011

Food is cheap so we have more money to spend on technology, and clothes, and general crap we don't need. Remember, 70% of the economy is consumer spending. You can't mark up food like you can unneccessary things, and people can only consume so many calories in a day, so there's a limit to the profit that can be made on food. Which is why they'd like to figure out how to shut down digestion, so we can consume 10,000 calories a day.

So cheap food feeds the greater economy, and, it makes us ill, thereby proving to be exceptionally lucrative for the Health Care Industry, the "healthiest" sector of the economy. Add in the pollution created by industrial food, and you've got one very sick nation. Government and Industry conspiring to make the Earth and people ill, to benefit the Market, and especially those who control the Market. Tyranny, in a word. And oh, how we do love it.

Don't worry. Increasingly expensive oil is going to make that cheap, nutritionally empty, polluting food increasingly less economically viable. But then, it will do the same for America.

Interesting times, these.

www.offthegridmpls.blogspot.com

[Linda from Deerfield]

03:37 PM on 02/22/2011

Along lines similar to the author's thoughts, my husband and I agree that food purveyors are missing an opportunity -- offer us smaller amounts even if they are disproportionately priced, or offer us a way to buy smaller quantities in our own containers. Sauces and salad dressings are examples -- we get shy about consuming 1/2 bottle that was opened months ago. Meat is notorious -- we often feel coerced into buying an amount that does not work for us. Distinctive cheese should not come in a block so big that it is bound to grow mold. The produce department generally has the right idea, but they, too, could carry it further.

[cassie reinara]

01:56 PM on 02/22/2011

It's all about hidden costs. Nobody looks at the costs to subsidize these farmers to grow this so-called cheap food. Nobody studies the cost of the obesity epidemic in America which has led to the explosion of diabetes and all the related complications that result of this horrid disease. Nobody looks at the health related costs associated to treating the Americans who will be stricken with all the diseases associated with this unhealthy diet of cheap food. It has become more about quantity than the quality of foods we eat. If you want to eat healthy, like fruits and vegetables, you have to pay a premium. If you want to eat organically grown food, you have to pay a premium as well and even with all this, there are no guarantees that the food industry is being above board, since the FDA has abdicated it's role of guaranteeing food safety. There is no such thing as FREE LUNCH, you just have to look at the fine print and you will see there are many hidden costs.

[Sandy Blizzard Novotny]

12:58 PM on 02/22/2011

It is a sad world we live in where you can buy a supersized bag of chips for $3, and a decent organic wheat bread costs $5. The corn subsidies are outdated at best. All they have done is create an environment in which corn is being misused and abused, such as by making high fructose corn syrup. The government uses tax money to subsidize the corn industry, allowing the small farmers to continue farming at a poverty-level wages, while lining the pockets of big corporations involved in mass production. Then we ship our government subsidized corn to help "feed" other countries, effectively putting THEIR farmers out of business and being the CAUSE (not the solution) of their starvation. We crank out what amounts to gov't funded junk food to our kids by filling nearly every package with some type of perverted corn. And if all that isn't bad enough, we are spraying the crops with insane doses of POISONS. It's time to get educated on your food people. There are some great documentaries on the subject, they are even available via your Netflix instant queue. Food Inc, Food Matters, The Beautiful Truth and the Gerson Miracle are some good ones to start with. It is EVERY person's right and responsibility to DEMAND accountability from the food industry. And don't forget, every purchase you make is a VOTE.