I stumbled across this posting of food expenditures for different families across the world. It starts with those that spend the most and goes down to the least. Look at what those at the top are eating versus those towards the bottom. The stuff eaten by those that have higher costs is nearly all packaged and processed. The farther down you go, the more fresh, locally grown food you see.
This really seems to illustrate two points: 1) Locally grown fresh food can be cheaper to obtain, and 2) No wonder so many people in western countries have so many diet-related health problems — look at all that packaged stuff!
Of course there are upsets to this order of things, the main thing being government intervention. The farm subsidies set up here in the US heavily favor grain and cattle farmers with a series of price floors and economic incentives. There are basically no subsidies for fruits and vegetables. This is what turns us into a fatty beef-eating corn-syrup chugging society with heart disease being the biggest cause of deaths every year.
The cost of food has definitely skyrocketed for me. Since I eat most of my meals in the dining halls, I get cereal, milk, orange juice, and a few other snacks and beverages about every two weeks. I used to spend around $25 for every two week period, but now it’s gone up past $40. The media blames it on increased energy costs, demand due to population increases throughout the world, and diversion of corn to ethanol production.
If the farm bill were reorganized to promote all food to be locally grown and sold, this would eliminate a lot of the energy-based cost increases. If we shifted our diets away from all the prepackaged stuff and ate more fresh food, this would get rid of a lot of the production costs and would be a lot healthier to boot. Also, I know that there is the argument that so much of grain production goes to cattle feed and that if we cut back meat consumption this would really help things in terms of lower costs and better diet. Unfortunately, I like meat, and lots of it, so I can’t really support that change. I also don’t mind drinking soda and processed/manufactured cereals. At the same time, I walk into the caf and most of the stuff they have is deep-fried and straight out of some factory and it disgusts me. I can’t stand the country-fried steaks, french fries, heavily-oiled pastas, and canned sugary sauces and gravies.
I did join a locally-grown food co-op and their offerings are definitely expensive — again, since all this stuff is mostly fruits and vegetables, it’s not subsidized and will be more expensive. It’s also in part to the co-op being small and the cost to truck in a small number of potatoes or lettuce from Suffolk being pretty high. The stuff they do have is pretty good, though. Williamsburg also runs a Farmer’s Market that I’ve bought some good stuff from — bread, seafood, and peanuts, among other things.
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