Things that used to be cheap and now aren't--groceries

[Ottakee]

If you read the pioneer stories you find that they ate:

Bacon

honey

brown sugar

maple syrup

 

all because they couldn't afford better meat, "white" sugar, etc.

 

Now bacon, honey, brown sugar, and maple syrup are all much more expensive than other options.

 

Years ago Tuna was a cheap food, now you can get other meats much cheaper.

 

Any others you can think of?

[Prudent]

Butter? Now every brand of margarine is far cheaper than the real stuff.

[Onceuponatime]

I think you would have to do a comparable analysis of the value of money as well. You might find that people then spent a greater portion of their income on food than people do today.

 

However, anecdotally, I know that fish is much more expensive than when my father was a child. Fruits and vegetables (in season), cornmeal (used to be the cheapest staple), and molasses are also much more expensive, IMO.

[SeekingSimplicity]

whole foods in general are more expensive than processed foods. I've always wondered why I have to pay extra to have less stuff done to my food?

[Danestress]

whole foods in general are more expensive than processed foods. I've always wondered why I have to pay extra to have less stuff done to my food?

 

For a pretty good picture of why this is.

[Mynyel]

whole foods in general are more expensive than processed foods. I've always wondered why I have to pay extra to have less stuff done to my food?

 

WELL :) I don;t think that is that less stuff is done as they use less of it because they add a whole bunch of other stuff. It is kinda like making a meatloaf. They add other ingredients to "fill out" the product.

 

I think pretty much everything is more expensive. I spend about $150 on groceries every week for our family of 5 sometimes a little more. I am sooo trying to find ways to cut down but I buy organic/fresh and as much unprocessed foods as possible and it is expensive!

[Ottakee]

I dont' know about the actually cost in growing organic but I have friends that just got their organic farm certification and it was TOUGH. LOTS and LOTS of government paperwork, testing, etc.

[Onceuponatime]

I found this quote and other similar ones:

 

"The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reports that in 1919 the average American had to work 158 minutes to buy a three-pound chicken; nowadays, 15 minutes gets you the bird.

 

U.S. consumers spend roughly 9 percent of their income on food compared with 11 percent in the United Kingdom, 17 percent in Japan, 27 percent in South Africa and 53 percent in India. (2009)"

[Dobela]

Something I have always wondered.... I don't always buy organic because I cannot afford it. The only two things I tend to buy organic are spinach and lemons. Don't ask me why!

 

But anyhow, I wonder if it in fact costs that much more to deal with organic produce in terms of growing, etc. For example, I saw red peppers at $2 a pound verses the organic for $7 a pound. I mean REALLY it costs that much more? Or do they know people with the money to burn will buy it? What about it costs THAT much more. I can imagine it costing a little more, but $4 more per pound more?

 

Does anyone know?

Organic crops don't produce as much product per acre as nonorganic crops. That accounts for part of the high price. High demand for a limited amount accounts for another part of the price.

[AuntieM]

Something I have always wondered.... I don't always buy organic because I cannot afford it. The only two things I tend to buy organic are spinach and lemons. Don't ask me why!

 

But anyhow, I wonder if it in fact costs that much more to deal with organic produce in terms of growing, etc. For example, I saw red peppers at $2 a pound verses the organic for $7 a pound. I mean REALLY it costs that much more? Or do they know people with the money to burn will buy it? What about it costs THAT much more. I can imagine it costing a little more, but $4 more per pound more?

 

Does anyone know?

 

I have wondered the same thing and I can just hazard a guess here. Perhaps without fertilizers and pesticides, the crops are smaller. The farmers must then charge more per piece to defray the growing costs. I also think it's a more "valuable" commodity, and so the higher price.

 

Again, just guessing. Maybe someone here will know the real answer!

[redsquirrel]

Something I have always wondered.... I don't always buy organic because I cannot afford it. The only two things I tend to buy organic are spinach and lemons. Don't ask me why!

 

But anyhow, I wonder if it in fact costs that much more to deal with organic produce in terms of growing, etc. For example, I saw red peppers at $2 a pound verses the organic for $7 a pound. I mean REALLY it costs that much more? Or do they know people with the money to burn will buy it? What about it costs THAT much more. I can imagine it costing a little more, but $4 more per pound more?

 

Does anyone know?

 

The farmer doesn't set the price. First, yes it does cost more to grow organic. That doesn't even count the investment the farmer must make before s/he gets certified as organic. There is a many year period where the farmer must use organic methods but cannot isn't certified. Therefore they get paid conventional produce prices.

 

After seeing it first hand, I have NO idea how organic fruit makes it to market. It seems impossible. Those apples and strawberries should be 10$ each,lol. It is also much more labor involved.

 

But the store sets the price. Get your hands on a supermarket trade magazine and you will see lots of discussion about just how high they can raise organic prices. 30% higher for most items is the norm around here. The farmer gets a couple cents more a pound. There is a farmer joke, "there is a lot of money to be made off of food, unless you grow it"

[SeekingSimplicity]

Not necessarily unless you are talking about only buying organic, free range, grass fed, etc. I buy only whole foods for the most part, but not always organic, free range, etc. I just cannot afford it. Nutritionally they are similar. Maybe one is better, but in my mind even the less better is still way better than heavily processed packaged foods. I don't spend that much. For a family of 4 I spend about $500 a month in a fairly high cost area. And we eat well. I could spend less, but I do sometimes splurge on fancy cheese, or things like that.

 

 

I don't buy organic or free range either. Wish I could, but it cost too much. I have allergies in my family to deal with, so we can't do any processed foods ( except rice flour and such). I try to stick with meats and produce, with a few gf flours or breads as needed. It's expensive. Much more so than if I were, say... to go to Dollar General and stock up on cereal and macaroni. I spend $600 a month, and I thought we were in a low cost area?

[Rivka]

Lobster used to be a poor person's food in New England. There's a bit in Little Women where one of the girls is ashamed to be caught by someone coming home from the market with a lobster.

[angela in ohio]

Oranges were a treat because they were more expensive. Now apples and oranges here are about the same price this time of year.

[FaithManor]

The organics are very expensive because any certified organic farm must be inspected far, far more often than regular commercial farms. Their equipment is scrutinized and sterilized far more often because they will lose their certification for a positive test for anything like e-coli or listeria though the commercial farm is generally not shut down for this unless it's a bit epidemic such in the last egg recalls.

 

The certification paperwork is absolutely nuts! It costs these farmers thousands of dollars more to be certified...we know first hand because our cow is boarded on an organic dairy farm. The farmer's wife spend 40 hours per week doing nothing paperwork for him and he only has the dairy animals and the crops he grows to feed the animals. If he was raising more food for human consumption, it would be worse.

 

The number of people buying organics is very low therefore, the farmers can only sell a small amount of it by comparison to conventionally grown food. This keeps the price up. The vet and nutritionist that work on the organic dairy near here charge five times the normal rate for even stepping on the farm to discuss a problem with one of the animals much less treat because they are experts in natural medicine. His milk is tested every single day. He does winter hay sample testing every single day for the presence of mold. His soil is tested weekly for contaminants.

 

This is about as costly a version of farming as possible. But, people want assurance that their organic food really is organic. So, he has to go through this. Even if he were only growing crops only, he'd still have huge expenses because commercial fertilizers cannot be used. He'd still be using manure from organically raised animals - sold at very high cost, and his ground would be tested at least weekly, if not bi-weekly, to ensure that no e-coli showed up in the soil.

 

When his wife had knee surgery and needed pain killers and antiobiotics, she couldn't come home after the surgery. She had to live with her parents until she was off the medication so that none of her meds, once excreted into the septic, would trigger a positive on the ground water tests due to how close the farmhouse is to one of the grain fields.

 

 

This is why we grow and preserve as much as we can. I know what is in that food, I don't have to be certified and go through those kinds of hoops, and it keeps us in a lot of organic food without going bankrupt! Chickens are the next addition to the menagerie.

 

In general, we have seen prices rise significantly on some conventionally raised eggs, some dairy products, beef (the cost of animal feed is quite high), fruit - not so much on vegetables, and 7th generation paper products.

 

Faith

[LizzyBee]

If you read the pioneer stories you find that they ate:

Bacon

honey

brown sugar

maple syrup

 

all because they couldn't afford better meat, "white" sugar, etc.

 

Now bacon, honey, brown sugar, and maple syrup are all much more expensive than other options.

 

Years ago Tuna was a cheap food, now you can get other meats much cheaper.

 

Any others you can think of?

 

The pioneers were largely agrarian. Much of what they ate, they grew (or hunted or fished) themselves. They ate it because growing their own food was cheaper than going to town and buying food.

 

Growing up on a farm, we ate "whole foods" because it was cheap to eat what we grew (or shot) ourselves. Eating processed foods (lunch meat, TV dinners as frozen meals were called then, KFC, McDonalds) was a huge treat.

 

Even now, I think processed foods are far more expensive than cooking from scratch with the exception of fresh vegetables. But buying only organic, free-range, grass-fed, etc, changes that equation drastically.

 

We did find a farm that sells hamburger for $2/lb if you buy at least 100 lbs, while the cheapest we can find hamburger in the grocery store is $2.59/lb. So as soon as I can get our freezers cleaned out, I'm going to schedule an appt to go buy some hamburger and other meat from that farm. The cattle are fed corn for the last 90 days before slaughter, but I'm okay with that because I prefer some marbled fat in my steaks and roasts.

[lionfamily1999]

Bread... the CHEAP bread is almost $2 a loaf now.

Eggs.... again, CHEAP brand is over $3 a dozen.

 

It seems like all the stuff we used to buy for $1 or less is edging up to $5.

Lobster used to be a poor person's food in New England. There's a bit in Little Women where one of the girls is ashamed to be caught by someone coming home from the market with a lobster.

My dad REFUSES to believe this. He's from Mass and says it was always expensive up there :lol: I think the mere idea of lobster having been a cheap food offends him.

[Alessandra]

One phrase from Food, Inc has stuck in my mind -- they were talking about hamburgers -- it's not cheap meat, it's subsidized meat. (I think the reason is that the feed - corn - is so heavily subsidized.)

 

It drives me nuts that the government wants people to eat so many servings of fruits and vegetables, while fresh produce is simply too expensive for many people.

 

The old advice about using meat/chicken sparingly in order to save money seems so incredibly quaint.

[WarriorMama]

Lobster used to be a poor person's food in New England. There's a bit in Little Women where one of the girls is ashamed to be caught by someone coming home from the market with a lobster.

 

My mother's family is from Boston originally and my great-grandmother always said that - how humiliating it was to have to take a lobster sandwich for your school lunch because it meant you were dirt poor.

[JenC3]

Something I have always wondered.... I don't always buy organic because I cannot afford it. The only two things I tend to buy organic are spinach and lemons. Don't ask me why!

 

But anyhow, I wonder if it in fact costs that much more to deal with organic produce in terms of growing, etc. For example, I saw red peppers at $2 a pound verses the organic for $7 a pound. I mean REALLY it costs that much more? Or do they know people with the money to burn will buy it? What about it costs THAT much more. I can imagine it costing a little more, but $4 more per pound more?

 

Does anyone know?

 

Yes it does cost more because you want your peppers to look perfect. That is very hard to achieve through non invasive methods and without chemicals. Those peppers have to be hot house grown most likely. My organic peppers cost me pennies on the dollar:)

[stripe]

Butter? Now every brand of margarine is far cheaper than the real stuff.

What was the point of margarine, then, if not to be cheaper? Was margarine ever MORE expensive?

 

Butter is cheaper than Crisco, where I live.

 

I think many imported foods used to be very expensive because the transportation was unusual and pricey. Hence high prices for white sugar vs. maple syrup, which was usually made at home, therefore the cost was in sweat and not in hours.

[Dawn in OH]

whole foods in general are more expensive than processed foods. I've always wondered why I have to pay extra to have less stuff done to my food?

 

I'm always wondering the same thing.

 

Why is the peanut butter that is just peanuts and salt more expensive than the other peanut butters? Didn't they save money and time by not adding the sugar, oil and other items?

 

Why is fresh spinach so expensive? I grew some. It was the easiest thing to grow that I've tried so far. Unless it just takes so many plants grow enough spinach that that factor raises the price?

 

I would be happy to eat lobster frequently. Very happy.

[angela in ohio]

I'm always wondering the same thing.

 

Why is the peanut butter that is just peanuts and salt more expensive than the other peanut butters? Didn't they save money and time by not adding the sugar, oil and other items?

 

I think it's because they add other stuff that is cheaper than the peanuts and salt. So when you buy the "pure" stuff, you are getting more of the expensive stuff and no cheap filler.

 

It's also about supply and demand. When they sell 100 times more of the nasty stuff, because it's what is in demand, it is cheaper to make it, because of the economies of scale.

 

I assume high cost of fresh veggies and fruits is largely based on shipping and storage.

[BlsdMama]

I dont' know about the actually cost in growing organic but I have friends that just got their organic farm certification and it was TOUGH. LOTS and LOTS of government paperwork, testing, etc.

 

Not only that but it requires more in the way of effort and work to keep produce bug free, weed free, and to produce as much without resorting to GMO foods. The more we support organic, the more efficient it will become. The less of anything, the higher the price. As more and more farms begin to go organic as they see a need and demand for it, the price will automatically lower. Honestly the first organic farms are taking the biggest chance... So don't they deserve a bit more profit for all their work? We can't afford to go all organic. I'd love to, but it's not feasible for a family of ten. We do what we can, when we can and grow organic for our family when we have a garden. But my dad is a farmer. Why doesn't he grow organic? It takes very little effort to maximize his GMO crop. Spray some round-up on it. When the soil isn't what it should be, pour on the chemicals. When it needs a little this or that - tweak it with chemicals. Piece of cake. With organic farming he'd have to take what he has - nutritionally stripped, over farmed land, and spend the next 5-10 years going chem. free and doing MUCH more intensive farm practices. It is beyond his understanding why ANYONE would go to the work of going organic. :001_huh: I love him so much, but he's bought into the Monsanto marketing hook, line, and sinker.

[BlsdMama]

It cracks me up that I can buy salmon and trout out here for $2.99/lb. When we first moved from the Midwest to the PNW I about fell over at that price!!!

 

Shrimp is cheap too at $4.99.

 

If I want premium ground beef though, watch out! $4.99/lb is what we pay. I can get really awful (stringy, vein-y blobs) for about $3/lb in bulk. It's disgusting.

 

So, we end up eating roasts, stew meat, nicer cuts for almost the same price as hamburger out here.

 

Whole milk is inexpensive at $1.99/gallon. But butter is incredibly expensive for us and I'd rather die than eat margarine or will die from eating margarine... Er, whatever. :glare:

 

I can get organic produce cheaper out here, and it's much nicer looking, but that's because the demand for organic in Oregon is much higher than the demand in Iowa.

 

Overall though, my food bill is almost double what is was. We could budget about $600/mo in Iowa for food. Here, food costs us approximately $1,000/mo for a family of ten. Add that to the insane housing prices and will DEFINITELY miss the PNW, but we're going home eventually. I can't wait to go back and be shocked by how CHEAP everything is! :D

[Jumping In Puddles]

Chicken wings (great for making stock!) use to be cheap but then someone came up with "hot wings" and alas, wings are now in demand and more $$.

[Granny_Weatherwax]

I found this quote and other similar ones:

 

"The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reports that in 1919 the average American had to work 158 minutes to buy a three-pound chicken; nowadays, 15 minutes gets you the bird.

 

 

I make roughly $10 an hour (as an adjunct at a comm. college) I don't think I can buy a chicken for $2.50.

 

If you look at the low end ($1.39 pound) that's $4.17 and almost half an hour of work. Granted that's better than the 158 minutes but not anywhere near the 15 mins. A three pound bag of frozen, boneless skinless chicken is running about $7 for three pounds here. That's about 45mins of work for me.

[prairiebird]

One phrase from Food, Inc has stuck in my mind -- they were talking about hamburgers -- it's not cheap meat, it's subsidized meat. (I think the reason is that the feed - corn - is so heavily subsidized.)

 

.

 

After watching/reading all the food-related things out there, like King Corn, Food Inc., Michael Pollen's books, I really do think it's all the money pumped into those systems that make it cheap. Honestly, I saw that bit about how basically everything in the middle of the grocery store was made of processed corn, soy, or wheat and I wanted to hurl!

 

 

I never knew about the lobster thing! Interesting.

[Dobela]

I make roughly $10 an hour (as an adjunct at a comm. college) I don't think I can buy a chicken for $2.50.

 

If you look at the low end ($1.39 pound) that's $4.17 and almost half an hour of work. Granted that's better than the 158 minutes but not anywhere near the 15 mins. A three pound bag of frozen, boneless skinless chicken is running about $7 for three pounds here. That's about 45mins of work for me.

Yep, and the reason that chicken is so cheap is because it is raised in a dark building, packed full of chickens, with all kinds of yuck around it and in it. How much food it is given is a science in itself for maximum growth, particularly of the breasts so that they are larger and the companies can make more money from them. A machine does most of the cleaning and it is most likely filled with a salt solution to preserve it in the stores longer. In 1918 that chicken would have been raised on a farm, the farmer tried to protect it from predators and disease. After that a real person would kill it, clean it, and then offer it for sale. I don't think the comparison is an equal one by any means.

[stripe]

I think eggs used to be disproportionately more expensive than today, too.

[angela in ohio]

I make roughly $10 an hour (as an adjunct at a comm. college) I don't think I can buy a chicken for $2.50.

 

If you look at the low end ($1.39 pound) that's $4.17 and almost half an hour of work. Granted that's better than the 158 minutes but not anywhere near the 15 mins. A three pound bag of frozen, boneless skinless chicken is running about $7 for three pounds here. That's about 45mins of work for me.

 

I would think the average wage is higher than $10/hour. I can buy a whole chicken at the grocery for 5 or 6 dollars, less on sale, which is less than 15 miuntes for dh.

 

I would assume they are using the U.S. average wage and comparing it to the average price for a whole chicken.

[angela in ohio]

It cracks me up that I can buy salmon and trout out here for $2.99/lb. When we first moved from the Midwest to the PNW I about fell over at that price!!!

 

:eek:

 

That is amazing! I am happy when I can get salmon or halibut for $8.99 a pound. About $30 a week of our budget is fish. :glare:

[fhjmom]

A couple of other posters mentioned "Food Inc." DH and I watched in on streaming Netflix last week and I found it very eye opening, and very frustrating. We are on an extremely tight budget and I feel so bad that I can't afford to feed my family the way I would like, too. The part about "bad" (processed, high in HFCS, etc.) foods being cheap because our government pays for it is sickening to me, but it makes sense when you look at it historically. The commodity crops (corn and soy bean) were being subsidized by the government, so it became a no-risk/big return investment for the farmers. Farmers started producing more corn and soy so the food manufacturers came up with more ways to use the cheapest, most abundant commodity, which is now the over processed stuff in the middle of the stores.:tongue_smilie:

 

Just one reason I included the farm subsidies, FDA, USDA, in my answer on the other thread about what I would cut from government spending.

[Team Litwin]

DH was watching the Alaska State Troopers on Nat Geo the other night and the officer of the moment was in the Grocery store, and picked up a gallon of milk and showed the price as $10.00....I nearly fell out of bed! At that price, it would be cheaper to buy the cow and milk it yourself, maybe sell the remainder....goodness what an awful business this is.

[Anne]

DH was watching the Alaska State Troopers on Nat Geo the other night and the officer of the moment was in the Grocery store, and picked up a gallon of milk and showed the price as $10.00....I nearly fell out of bed! At that price, it would be cheaper to buy the cow and milk it yourself, maybe sell the remainder....goodness what an awful business this is.

 

But where was the Trooper shopping? Transportation costs to the Bush communities are very high. Many communities must have no roads and all of their freight must be barged or flown in.

 

A cow wouldn't be any cheaper - you'd have to freight in the feed - and of course, the bears would be very interested in that cow.... :D

 

Anne

[MamaBearTeacher]

Organic food is way more labor intensive to produce, usually produced on small family farms where the family is working insane hours to stay in business. Most of the food in grocery stores is produced on big corporate factory farms with very different practices than organic farms. Organic food has gone down in price over the past 20 years and it is easier to find but it is still very expensive for most people. I think it has gone down in price because more people have been buying it. I wish organic farmers were more subsidized. It would help the organic farmers as well as the people who want to buy the organic produce but can't afford it. It would also be way better for the environment.

 

I agree that food has gone way up in price, 4x plus over a decade for many products. The inflation on staples like bread, cheese, and milk is scary. One thing that has gone way down in price has been women's clothing. I am paying about half or less of what I was paying in my teens for the same stuff from the same stores! It isn't fair. In my teens all I bought was clothes and I couldn't afford to dress nicely. Now I am happy to wear the same clothes year after year but I am spending huge amounts on food feeding a family of five at today's high prices. Women's clothing is so cheap now that my sacrifices are not making much of a difference.

[Cindy in the NH Woods]

Lobster used to be a poor person's food in New England. There's a bit in Little Women where one of the girls is ashamed to be caught by someone coming home from the market with a lobster.

 

 

An interpreter in little museum in Maine told us that lobster was served to the prisoners. Minus the drawn butter, I imagine...... ;)