Food is not expensive

Am pretty sure that food as % of household in incomes is much much cheaper now than it was before 1970. I'm with OP. Food is cheap... just not as crazy cheap as it was 1990-2020

@Cherrytree86 it's more a city thing eg I live 5 mins from the high street, pass shops on the school run, near work etc. I've grown up with convenience so don't know any different & buy fresh food or something probably every other day. Also a lot of people particularly younger don't have cars. I would hate to live somewhere where I had to drive everywhere & didn't have what I need on my doorstep. I think I would find that far more time consuming.

Yeah I can’t believe battery farm is still legal tbh, it’s barbaric

I agree about the food waste and the horror of the £5 chicken but overall YABU. In recent times certain staples for us went up massively and they've never come down eg milk, bread, eggs, tea, coffee, oats, olive oil. We hardly ever have meat and used to eat quite a lot of fish but that's also gone up too much.

@shirtyshirt

i would hate that - so time consuming

I don't think food is particularly cheap but I do think producers should be properly paid for higher welfare animal products and to encourage better farming practices.

You shouldn't be able to buy 4 pints of milk for £1 and battery egg farms should be banned worldwide. You can buy seasonal veg boxes and "wonky" veg in supermarkets. You shouldn't be able to buy strawberries in January in the UK.

People have lost their way and are too divorced from where their food comes from. I hear of children aged 10 not knowing that ham comes from pigs! I do think that feeding our children properly and educating them about food and nutrition is one of the most important things you do as a parent and if you need to cut corners elsewhere to feed your children proper food you should. I definitely am not well off but decent, local, seasonal food is a priority.

I meant “it would’t be fun” as an understatement; I.e. it would be difficult and awkward and time-consuming. All the women you talk about doing this serious house management stayed at home to run things. The income you talk about came from a single wage. I work full-time, I wasn’t taught how to run a house as part of my upbringing/ school curriculum (I’m lucky I have a mum who, whilst having a ft career, also loved cooking and taught me about household budgeting more from a financial, you’ll-earn-your-own-money pov), and my household certainly couldn’t run on a single wage. The goalposts have changed drastically since the 50s, you can’t really judge how someone runs their household based on what people were doing then. In the same way you probably couldnt compare a household from the 50s to one from the Victorian era.

And I don’t buy ready meals 🤣

People pay twice as much for food now as we did in the 90s (and that's accounting for inflation) so yes, objectively, food is a lot more expensive.

Even over the last few years I've found my food shop has increased in cost by around 25%. We're vegetarians, keep hens for eggs and grow a lot of our own veg so we're not profligately flinging half eaten chickens to the wind, but it's still hugely expensive.

Popping to a store or market for fresh meat/fish and veggies is the norm for many.

Many areas have weekly markets not daily ones and the majority go to supermarkets now. They also aren't buying 5000g of fresh food & veg to feed a family of 4 17 portions a day which was what my post was actually about...

yanbu, compared to most countries including those much poorer than us, the U.K. has cheap food and that includes nutritious food. The cost to feed a family healthy nutritious family is not expensive for most people compared to income compared to most countries. I can feed 4 for around £80 a week, 3 meet, one veggie, all adults but I cook completely from scratch including making spice pastes, and eat a lot of Asian food which tends to be cheaper. We do not buy any of the processed foods I observe in trolleys, like cakes, biscuits, crisps, canned drinks etc. the only nod to processed food is two loaves of bread a week as my homemade bread just isn’t right for sandwiches.

@JustSawJohnny I'm half French, they shop daily the same way I shop daily here...

I cook from scratch so I can keep my costs down and shop at Lidl. But I suppose if I was buying ready meals everyday from Waitrose I would say it is expensive

I spend around £130 pw for 2 adults (Ocado) that doesn’t include our household items such as cleaning stuff/bin bags/foil etc. That’s for breakfast, work lunches and teas. I don’t budget but I do think that’s quite expensive. I can imagine it getting ridiculously expensive if you have a couple of kids that need lunchbox food, more snacks, milk etc.

Try telling that to DH and DS.

Bless. Makes me think of a disagreement l had with a celebrity chef many years ago; she said everyone could afford to eat free range meat all the time. People just need to get better at budgeting in her opinion. She was so tone deaf it was embarrassing

It's normal for people to shop daily in many countries.

France & Italy, for example.

Popping to a store or market for fresh meat/fish and veggies is the norm for many.

I mean, we have it a lot better than eg the US when it comes to quality and price of fresh veg and meat BUT are we supposed to ignore the fact that food prices have gone up in the last few years?

And are we supposed to pretend that buying a ready meal or a shit jar of Dolmio and some cheap mince costs the same as making a proper ragu from scratch? Because it doesn't.

Eating well isn't cheap, IMO.

I could fill the freezer in Iceland and feed my family absolute shit for a lot less than it costs to make good, healthy meals from scratch.

Can you provide a menu for a week?

Nah. Don't think so.

Of course you don't! 😆

In the US they say 10, in Japan they've recommended at least 17 portions a day (13 veg, 4 fruit) for 20 years.

and 80g of each? so nearly 1400g in Japan? You would need to shop daily....

In the US they say 10, in Japan they've recommended at least 17 portions a day (13 veg, 4 fruit) for 20 years. We never upped our recommendation as they knew that very few managed 5 so thought may be counter productive to give them such a high number to aim for.

My local council gives out supermarket vouchers every 4 months to people in need ( pensioners/ those on UC etc.. between £40 and £70.
I.just got one for £70 and gosh am l so grateful. My fridge freezer just broke ( it's 14 years old) and I've lost all my freezer food.
Had to throw it out.
Got a new one coming on Tuesday
.luckily l had some savings from my pension.

Absolutely nothing to do with housing costs. It's not an old persons view just an ignorant one

Nah. Don't think so.

Groceries are the biggest expense in my household. I include not just food in my costs but other household items such as cleaning supplies and hygiene items.

I shop the specials, I use leftovers, I “cook from scratch”. Food is so expensive in my city that it is cheaper to eat out on some occasions.

I usually shop every day or every second day to make sure what I get is fresh (especially fruit and vegetables). There isn’t a tremendous difference in the cost of meat when buying bulk or buying smaller items. We buy fish, lamb, chicken, beef and eggs as well as dairy and cheese and everything is so expensive.

Once you add olive oil, coffee, dishwashing liquid, spray and wipe, dishwasher tablets, laundry detergent, bathroom cleaner, toilet cleaner, paper towels and toilet paper - it gets expensive very fast.

Then there are toiletries such as deodorant, soap and body wash, shampoo, conditioner, moisturiser, feminine hygiene products….

A single lime at my supermarket costs over $2 each. A single onion is $2. Apples are about $1.50 each. Milk is over $5 for 2 litres. Orange juice is $9.50. Herbs are about $4 or $5. Bread is about $4.50 or $8+ for gluten free. Coffee beans are about $30 on special and that lasts maybe a week and a half. Olive oil is about $15 to $25 for a litre.

I don’t work so the majority of the cooking is done by me. Putting together a meal with protein and vegetables is expensive if you use fresh ingredients.

Yes, I could probably reduce that by around 100 and still be getting all the f+v in, but it wouldn’t be fun

It's not meant to be fun. It's house management. Our grandmothers, who spent 33% of their income on food had to keep a a very close eye on food spends.
They had to produce nourishing meals from scratch because there were no convenience foods available and they NEVER, not EVER went out to eat or had the convenience of a take away. No McDonalds, no Pizza Hut, no Indian or Chinese take aways, not even any Co-op meal deals. Why would they do a meal deal? Can't people buy the makings of a sandwich? It's a lot cheaper.

I can see this from the vantage point of being an older person now. It's so easy to buy ready meals and fast food and I see that it can make life a bit easier.

But to say that food in this country is expensive is a step too far. It's way, way cheaper to buy basic fresh food to cook at home than it ever was in the 60/70/80s. My mother used to divide her money up when she got Dad's pay packet (cash, in those times!} Half for food, quarter for rent, and the rest she could squander.